TelinFyodor

        Once arriving in the town of Kimry, I decided to take a little walk to the abandoned graveyard called Vishnevo.   It’s located in a forested area not far from the village of Ilyinskoe, which is fifteen kilometers from Kimry.    The dirt road from Ilyinskoe to Vishnevo is in very bad shape.   You can see that it hadn’t been maintained at all.   In addition to large ruts and washed out sections, there were even some fallen trees across the road, so I had to leave my car and walk for a good length of the way.   The scenery along the way was quite scenic and interesting, with forests and swamps.    There were channels covered in water lilies throughout the area. You can see that some of the swampy areas had been drained to extract the peat.    A lovely, peaceful scene.   Finally I arrived at the destination of my long walk--the Church of the Nativity and churchyard of Vishnevo. It ...

   Not long ago, I wrote a post about remaining fortifications of the Moscow defense zone, where mentioned the catastrophic 1941 defeat of the Red army near the town of Vyazma. It pushed me to visit this town last weekend, because one of my great-grandfathers perished there during that war. His remains, buried in one of mass graves were not found until the 1980s.  He was one of many thousands of men who met a similar fate during that terrible time. The portrait with a carved wooden frame is the only one thing that remains of him.    Vyazma is situated in Smolensk oblast, 230 kilometers from Moscow, and connected by the train line to Belorusky. The train ride to Vyazma take about two hours. The Vyazma train station is quite large, and the most interesting thing is the many old Soviet locomotives with red stars on them.   A steam locomotive behind the typical post-war station building. For me, day trips like this, where I travel light without a ca...

   My visit to Kalyazin began at the Savyolovo railway station in Tver oblast. Here, twice a day, a train departs for Uglich and stops at Kalyazin along the way. I longed to take this train journey for quite some time, but unexpected circumstances delayed my plans for about a month. Then one Saturday I set my mind to finally doing it.   With my little sister in tow, I drove to Savyolovo to catch the train.   And we were off!    Savyolovo is the farthest destination for Moscow Railway’s electric trains that head from Savyolovsky railway terminal. It's also the final point for diesel trains from Sonkovo and Uglich. Only one long-range train on this rail stops at the Savyolovo station.   That’s the train connecting Moscow and Rybinsk in Yaroslavl oblast--it changes locomotives there.  The station gave its name to the railway line that runs through Lobnya, Dmitrov and Taldom. It also gave its name to the Savyolovsky railway terminal in Moscow....