I think it was May of 2013 when our group went to the Pskov region, south-west of St. Petersburg. As usual, for my summer-deprived brain it seemed like every degree change in latitude was a step through time, this time forward towards a long-awaited spring.






The trip was a mashup of activities and locations that resulted in a chaotic chronology of photos.




We were staying at some resort that was at least an hour away from everywhere we wanted to go.






It seemed like we spent as much time in the bus as anything else.

The bus to Pushkin's estate, where we got a tour of the place he was exiled to when he inevitably pissed off the tsar.







Another bus ride to where Pushkin's mother was buried.








A bus to this little area meant to demonstrate peasant Russian life back in the day.







A drive and a tour of some area that I remember nothing about.




There's something in the water around Pskov. It's holy or something, because people drag big plastic jugs out to this stream and out to the wells in the monastery to fill up.











Another trip to some set of beautiful churches full of the hyper-orthodox. All the women had to wear head scarves and (along with one boy unlucky enough to have shown up in shorts) had to wrap their bottom halves in long skirts.








I guess it was Easter weekend while we were there, and what I remember about this place was fucking up the greeting. On Easter you're not supposed to say "Hello, how are you?" you're supposed to say something about Jesus rising or some shit. Which I forgot about doing.




But of course the most memorable parts of the trip happened back at the resort/hotel. The debauchery of the students getting drunk, wandering into the woods, doing drugs, hooking up...








My first banya experience! Naked with the group of girls in the steam room, jumping from there into the pool, then back to the steam room to get (gently) whacked with branches. Good stuff.




And a crazy crimson sunset that lasted for hours and painted everything impossible-to-color-balance-red for its full duration.

And that was the Pskov trip.