Sergiyev Posad

The town of Sergiyev Posad, known as Zagorsk during the Soviet era, is a small industrial and agricultural city about an hour from Moscow.

It is most famous for its spectacular fortress monastery, the Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius, an important center in the Orthodox world. Pictured at the top of the page, a woman confers with a monk on the monastery grounds; just above, a group of schoolkids on a monk-led tour.

The monastery is best-known for the blue-domed Assumption Cathedral, towering over the white stone walls of the monastery.

Naturally, there are other churches in the monastery, too, several of them spectacular as well.

Just outside the monastery walls, on the edge of the parking lot, is a small bazaar at which one can purchase Russian handicrafts such as matrushka dolls and lacquered boxes.

The road out to Sergiyev Posad isn't dull, either. The highway runs through huge birch forests and rolling hills, as well as past groups of country homes, or dachas, as pictured above. Dachas aren't reserved for the wealthy; a great many Russian families have them, though most, like those pictured above, aren't much more than shacks with no running water or electricity. Across the highway from this particular cluster of dachas was a small farming village, hardly in any better shape.

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Maintained by Steven Grimm <koreth@hyperion.com>.
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