Kremlin Church

When taking guided tours, the phrase I’ve heard more than any other is “The Time of Troubles”. Any country that’s been around since 900 AD is bound to have had many times of troubles, but the Russians love to remember all of theirs.

Church Interior

Uglich is a very old Russian town. Most cities were built entirely of wood. Uglich built their Kremlin (castle) and other stone buildings in the 15th century. Unfortunately, Dimitri, the last royal Romanov died in Uglich. Boris Godunov (who became Tsar for a few years) was shocked that his rival died, and sent a team to investigate the cause of the Dimitri Romonov’s death. The investigation team found that the Dimitri had an epileptic fit while holding a knife and unfortunately slit his own throat. It was a tragic “accident” and Boris was forced to become Tsar.

Church of Dimitri’s Spilled Blood

Unfortunately, Boris couldn’t form a strong government. This lead to the Times of *Polish* Troubles, when the Poles came and destroyed Uglich. The only building to survive the Time of Polish Troubles is the ugly red brick building. The current church was built in the 17th century on the site of the original church. They have a glass floor allowing us to see part of the original’s church’s foundation. The red Church is the Church of Dimitri’s spilled blood.

Nunnery

The last building you see here is the Nunnery. You might well wonder how such an important city as Uglich can get by with just two churches and a Nunnery. The answer is that the rest of the town was flooded in the 1930s when Stalin built the locks and canals that made the rivers navigable between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Several of Uglich’s churches and other buildings were flooded when the reservoir was expanded. One can see the top of a bell tower poking out of the reservoir today.

Traditional Dress-up at Dinner

So we finished the formal part of our tour, and decided to walk 300 meters to the Nunnery, as much to get some exercise as anything else. I became aware of an electronic song, such as one might hear from an ice cream truck in the US. It kept on playing, over and over, and it was becoming somewhat annoying. We walked several blocks down the street, and we could still hear it. I started wondering whether the merchants had installed some kind of community music system. Then I started wondering why anybody would install all those outdoor speakers and then play the same dumb ditty over and over. Finally Danita figured out I was the source of the noise pollution. I had set an alarm yesterday to remind us to attend an event. It went off again today. That’s probably why nobody wanted to be near us as we walked around town.