New Jerusalem Monastery.

At first we’ve considered the Istra city itself as the destination of our trip. But, after we’ve looked through the monastery’s photos, we decided to start from it and have a look at the city if we’ll have time and strength left.

The closer we were getting to the Istra district the more snow there were on the trees. It seems there was already a snowfall yesterday.

We have no luck with the places for our breakfasts or lunches in the Moscow district. Once again, all my planned destinations didn’t work and in hope we turned in Nadezhdino. This is where the true forest fairy tale lives!

As we were having breakfast more snow has fallen, it was indescribably beautiful. It’s pity that there is such dirty mess on the roads.

The monastery is situated on the hill and surrounded by the wall. It looks very impressive. In fact, it looks like a very massive kremlin.

The entrance to the territory is free and you can walk on the top level of the wall. Of course, we headed there right away. The views are amazing!

The architecture and the decorations of the buildings have completely blown us away. They are incredibly unusual. It can’t be seen on photos, but the buildings are generously decorated with ceramic tiles and mouldings. What struck me the most is the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ - the central rounded building with lucarne windows (I call them “kokoshniks”).

The towers on the wall are consist of a usual multi-sided tower and a small rounded tower attached to it. Alex says that we’ve seen towers like these before, but I don’t remember them.

After we had enough walking on the top, we descended to walk around below and then the huge snowfall started. Some of the snowflakes were just enormous. It’s pure beauty!

There are two taverns on the territory. We entered one to buy some pies (they turned out to be less impressive compare to their price). There is a cool stove decorated with ceramic tiles in the dining room. We haven't understand the meaning of the pictures.

After another wave of snowfall, everything around became white and we also became white.

Then we went to walk around the Garden of Gethsemane (it lays below outside the wall). Maybe it was the weather or maybe it’s really so nice here, but we had a very pleasant walk, like in the fairy tale. We even met the Santa Claus on our way (he was drinking his tea with pies and the monk, for some reason, was cleaning him from snow).

There are a chapel, a peasant’ estate and a windmill (but it’s broken and closed by the fence) in the park as a museum exhibits of wooden art.

Overall, the trip has exceeded our expectations. The combination of the unusual architecture and completely new year’s weather has absolutely impressed us!

The only negative is a very exhausting road home. It was slippery, dark and with a lot of mud.