Last year at this time I was invited to participate in a conference in Russia commemorating 300 years of Lutherans in Siberia. I have been to Siberia before. In fact I was there three times during the four years we lived in Russia (1999-2003). And each time it was to the city of Omsk. This trip will be my fourth trip there. In addition to presenting a paper at the conference on October 9, I'll be leading seminars for clergy and lay people on the Lutheran approach to understanding and using the Bible for preaching and daily life.
This will be my first trip back to Russia since 2007 when I accompanied a group of five people from the Central States (Missouri and Kansas) Synod of the ELCA on a trip that went from St. Petersburg to Moscow and then to Vladivostok in the Far East. From our base in Vladivostok we visited Khabarovsk, Arseniev, and also flew to Magadan and back.
That 4 hours and 30 minutes on the map is the time for the fast train. I took that once when it was brand new back in 2002 or 2003. The night train I'll be taking will take about 8 hours, which is perfect. I love traveling by train. I have fond memories of our family piling into a four-person cabin for our trips to Moscow and the Baltic states. We always purchased 5 places, of course, but Marian decided she wanted to sleep on the floor in the middle so I could join the rest of the family.
I'll be covering around 3,000 miles by train on this trip, and another 2,000 by plane. And that doesn't even count my trip from the U.S. and back. I hope to have fairly regular access to the internet and will try to update this blog so that you can follow me on my trip.
Special thanks to the people and council of Epiphany Lutheran Church in Carbondale, Illinois, who have given me the opportunity to be away from my regular duties there in the service of the larger church.
This will be my first trip back to Russia since 2007 when I accompanied a group of five people from the Central States (Missouri and Kansas) Synod of the ELCA on a trip that went from St. Petersburg to Moscow and then to Vladivostok in the Far East. From our base in Vladivostok we visited Khabarovsk, Arseniev, and also flew to Magadan and back.
After visiting St. Petersburg for a couple of days, the first leg of the trip within Russia will be from St. Petersburg to Moscow by night train. It's a remarkably straight line between the two cities. Russia's first railway was built along this route in the 1840s. There is an urban legend that Emperor Nicholas I put a ruler down on a map to indicate the route the line should take and simply drew a straight line between the two cities. But there was a little bump in the middle, and that's because his thumb stuck out over the ruler! It's a story that is meant to reflect the autocratic character of Nicholas' reign - that they constructed the route exactly as the emperor drew it, no questions asked. Unfortunately it's not true. The "bump" was put in in the 1870s to bypass the steepest grade along the route that was causing problems for trains in both directions. You can still see the bump (no longer a part of the route) if you zoom in on the map along the blue line of the modern route just to the north of the latitude of VelikyNovgorod, just to the south of Mstinskiy Most. It's a thin gray line that departs from the blue line and then comes back. You can image a thumb there, can't you?
That 4 hours and 30 minutes on the map is the time for the fast train. I took that once when it was brand new back in 2002 or 2003. The night train I'll be taking will take about 8 hours, which is perfect. I love traveling by train. I have fond memories of our family piling into a four-person cabin for our trips to Moscow and the Baltic states. We always purchased 5 places, of course, but Marian decided she wanted to sleep on the floor in the middle so I could join the rest of the family.
I'll be covering around 3,000 miles by train on this trip, and another 2,000 by plane. And that doesn't even count my trip from the U.S. and back. I hope to have fairly regular access to the internet and will try to update this blog so that you can follow me on my trip.
Special thanks to the people and council of Epiphany Lutheran Church in Carbondale, Illinois, who have given me the opportunity to be away from my regular duties there in the service of the larger church.
