HABIBI!!!!!! Broadway’s The Band’s Visit is a Tiny Little Heartbreaking Beautiful Epicby Randi / December 14, 2017
In case you couldn’t tell, we weren’t totally loving Uzbekistan. The history was objectively impressive, but the country in general felt a little bit like Tobias and we were his hair plugs: a little like we were not supposed to be there, a little unwelcoming, a little like our presence risked grave medical danger. Okay so maybe not that last part and maybe it’s not the most effective analogy but anyway, that feeling changed with the much more accessible and welcoming Samarkand. Maybe it’s because we had just left Bukhara, which challenged us to love it while doing whatever it could to stop us from loving it, but Samarkand stood out as the one place in Uzbekistan that felt enjoyable, comfortable, and welcoming, at least by Uzbek standards.
A city that may date back to the 8th century BC (I mean we all may date back to the 8th century BC but a lot of historians believe that’s how old it is), Samarkand was once the capital of the Sogdian empire, during some time between 6th century BC to 11th century AD. The Sogdians, you’d learn if you went to Uzbekistan or the recent exhibit at the British Museum, were an ancient Iranian civilization around Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Some Sogdians also lived in China during the Tang dynasty, while others ventured throughout the Byzantine Empire, fulfilling important trade roles on the Silk Route. The Muslim conquering of Transoxiana in the 8th century catalysed the gradual conversion of all Sogdians to Islam. This also led to the decline of the Sogdian language, as many adopted Persian or other Turkic languages instead. We also got by with Russian in Uzbekistan. For some reason, whenever I hear ‘the Sogdians’ my brain thinks of Cher talking about ‘the Haiti-ans’. So if we just went back into the kitchen, rearranged a few things, we could certainly party with the Sogdians.
and may I remind you it does NOT say RVSP on whatever this is!
Anyway, I don’t know why but I was much more amenable to partying with the Sogdians in Samarkand than in the rest of the country. Samarkand, I think, is more tourist-friendly. Or just me-friendly. There were modern buildings and restaurants and stuff, which I was ready for at this point. And the big f-ing things to see were easy to find and see and enjoy. The biggest f-ing thing, the Registan, was as impressive and beautiful as I could have wished, really living up to expectations.
The Registan was once the public square, the main piazza, of the ancient city. All the big news was announced here, all the big executions happened here, things like that. The square is composed of three madrassahs forming a square (the last side is formed by YOU! or whatever): the Ulugh Beg Madrassah, the Tilya-Kori Madrassah, and the Sher-Dor Madrassah. That’s them from left to right, but we went right to left, so that’s how I’ll talk about them. The Sher-Dor Madrassah was built in the 1600s and depicts tigers in mosaics (I think they are supposed to be lions because Sher-Dor means lion-bearing, so I hear so I hear, but come on they look like tigers if they’re a day) which I noticed were cool but I didn’t even realize till later how crazy that really is given that Muslims aren’t supposed to have pictures of living things in religious buildings and stuff. That Yalangtush, the ruler who ordered Sher-Dor to be built, must have been some kind of bad ass, which is easy to believe considering his name has the word tush in it.
The Sher-Dor was the one place where we saw cops guarding the door, I think just because it is closest to the ticketed entrance. But true to what our guide book warned us about, one of the cops offered to take us into the closed minarets at the Ulugh Beg Madrassah across the square so we could climb up it, for a fee of course. We read about how the cops will offer to do this but ask for money, usually more than they first say, so we were not about to go with a stranger danger into a tower and then either pay him whatever he wants or risk having him lock us in. nah thanks. Corrupt cops are everywhere!
lions and tigers and bears! oh my! minus the lions and bears. or minus the tigers and bears, depends on what you see
these are definitely tigers though. On the beautiful grounds of the Registan
Sher-Dor Madrassah
mosaichi gorges
As for the big guy in the center, the Tilya Kori Madrassah was born only a little after the Sher-Dor and operated as a mosque as well, which is why it’s so big I guess. The facade features two stories of the dormitory cells of the madrassah students. But inside is really where it’s at. There’s a hidden courtyard after you enter the Tilya and that and the interior halls are supes gorge. The name ‘Tilya Kori’ means ‘decorated with gold’ I would have guessed ‘see you later’ from the sound of it but that makes more sense I guess. Till ya kori alligator!
not for a while crocodile!
what’s she thinking ‘hmm what was it like to go to college here’ or ‘what is my f-ing hat doing right now’
blue and gold BLUE AND GOLD we will allll uphooooold love will pervade us till death separate us &c &c
Some people, I don’t know who but they sound like very little fun, are upset about how the restoration inside the Tilya Kori has actually, ya know, restored it to such an extent. But look how gorgeous it is now! Who would rather have crumbling cement holes and colors so faded you can’t even see them than this gloriousness? Who on earth really thinks the original artists and architects would prefer to see their work falling apart and disintegrating to preserve ‘authenticity’ rather than having amazing modern people restore it so it remains beautiful? Y’all tripping.
The Registan grounds were almost as gorgeous as the inside bits. I love loved this sea of flowers tipping out from the vase.
so cool flowers
The secret courtyard of the Tilya was also really lovely. I bet by now you are getting the hint that the Registan is completely awesome. Well except for one thing which I’ll mention in a minute.
As for the Ulugh Beg Madrassah, it was named after – you guessed it – the famed Ulugh Beg, the 14th century Timurid ruler. That’s not his real name – the real one has some Muhammeds and some bins in there – but a moniker he garnered because it basically means ‘great ruler’. So, fun fact, Beg is the part that means ruler or chief, from the old Turkic ‘bey’ which means chief in that way. So we see, Beyonce is Queen Bey for a reason. Names are powerful. Not just a ruler, Ulugh Beg was also an astronomer and mathematician, specializing in spherical geometry (I mean), which is why the inside of his namesake madrassah was decorated with constellations galore. It was really cool to follow all the stars and see which ones I recognized (zero) or knew the names of before (six).
The Ulugh Beg is the oldest of the three buildings, and according to our book is ‘considered the best of the three’ which just seems like unnecessary favoritism that threatens to spark infighting among the buildings.
Okay I know I said there was just one thing to complain about here at the Registan but come on it’s me. There are three. The biggest annoyance was that, despite how sacred and important this place is, there are touts everywhere, covering every inch of space selling their crappy knickknacks which okay fine you’re trying to make a living but no they hound you and it takes most of your energy to get them to stop and that’s energy you should be using to gaze upon the sights and not harrumph irritably. Harrumph I said HARRUMPH.
The only sellers I enjoyed were whoever was in charge of getting tourists to dress in traditional costume. Looked so fun and would have for silly pictures but lice.
Numbers two and three have to do with money, not that anything here was expensive but it’s just the principle of the thing. Our not-so-old book says that the ticket into the Registan costs 4000 Uzbeki som, but they charged us 30,000 each! That’s some crazy markup! And they only charged the Uzbek people who went in before us 1000. I get charging foreigners more, it happens, but damn that’s a lot more. It’s still stupid cheap for being the most important site in the area but stilllll. Even more annoying, though, was that after paying all that som, the bathrooms inside the Registan grounds were still another 1000 som. Like after you pay 30,000 to enter the place you still have to pay for the toilet? Bitch please.
musicians on the rounds of the Registan
Other than those grievances, the Registan was spectacular.
On to the next!
The next mosque on our list was the Bibi Khanum Mosque, which was built to house 10,000 people. That’s a lot of praying going on. Luckily there were not that many people inside when we visited, although I did see Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Uzbek doppelganger. When the Bibi (HABIBI!) was first built, it didn’t last long before it started falling apart at the seams (not seams) (not a robot). Maybe it was too big, maybe it was built too fast, maybe it was seismic activity, maybe Tamerlane (remember we have learned about him in past posts but don’t worry we will talk about him again in a few minutes) was just too pissed at the architect for kissing his wife and so he cursed the place — all of these reasons have been put forward to explain the collapse. Yes even that last one. Apparently the architect fell in love with Tamerlane’s wife, whose name was Bibi Khanum so yeah not hard to believe since the mosque just happens to be named after her. So legend goes, Archie kissed Bibi and it permanently scarred her lips, so Tamerlane was suitably pissed and called for the executioner, but Archie climbed to the top of a minaret, sprouted wings, and flew to Persia. I don’t believe it, but I am not surprised that yet another ancient tale has only the woman, the one who didn’t do anything but get victimized, be the only one who actually suffers punishment. Cool story bros.
Luckily, after falling apart for hundos of years and then collapsing even more in an earthquake, they restored the Bibi Khanum in the ’70s so now we can visit and be safe.
this is my ‘is that Lin-Manuel no of course it isn’t you idiot why on earth would he be in Uzbekistan but that guy does look poetic and he’s writing in a little journal should i tell him he looks like Lin no he doesn’t know who that is and probably doesn’t speak English stop being weird’ face
Our next and final stop on the historical sites tour is the Gur Emir Mausoleum, which we could see from our hotel. The mausoleum is home(?) to several important members of the Timur family, including Amir Timur himself, better known as Tamerlane. In case you forget from past blog posts, Tamerlane was a big f-ing deal, a Turco-Mongol conqueror in the 1300s. He founded the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia, leading military campaigns across most of Asia, the Caucasus (‘Dolokhov was in the Caucasus and he killed the shah’s brother. Now all the Moscow ladies are MAD about him!’ anyone??) and southern Russia. He was the most powerful ruler of his time in the Muslim world after he defeated some super biggies like Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. He was responsible for apparently 17 million deaths! That’s a lot! Why do humans revere people like this!
Gur Emir Mausoleum
This mausoleum wasn’t actually supposed to contain Tamerlane’s remains – it was originally built for his favorite grandson, Mohammed Sultan (an ungoogleable name now) (also what a creepy gift for anyone! here i built you a big coffin for when you die! jesus christ I wanted a bicycle), but then Tamerlane died unexpectedly in 1405 (do they really not think he was murdered I can name a million possible suspects and I wasn’t even there) and his mausoleum wasn’t done yet, so he was like ‘well I’m dead and my place is unfinished so just put me in here I guess’. His other grandson, Ulugh Beg, is in there too. Yep that was his grandson! Such nepotism, so wow.
The giant slab of jade on Amir Timur’s coffin was stolen by Persian invaders, but they returned it because it had brought them bad luck, which I find HILARIOUS. There’s a giant bowl in this morbid room too, which I don’t think the picture shows, but anyway Tamerlane would always fill the bowl with pomegranate juice and make his troops drink from it pre-battle to symbolize drinking the blood of the enemy, which is enough to put me off pomegranate juice for good.
But it wasn’t all fun and games. I mean death and mosques. We also had fun food experiences! As I now expect in these Silk Road cities, there was a kickin bazaar overflowing with produce and bread and people, and Samarkand’s was pretty great. As usual, we stuffed ourselves with amazing bread and stocked up on fruit for our travels. But Samarkand’s bazaar stood out for me because it also had fantastic halvah, which is a favorite of mine and all people with good taste.
WANT
I hate red pepper but I love this picture
As you can see, there was plenty of food, as was the case for most of the cities we visited on this trip, but finding restaurants with vegan menu items was harder. We had a rough time in Samarkand due pretty much just to bad luck in choosing crappy places, but one restaurant was great. Platan, which I found via HappyCow (the only entry for Samarkand, and for dern good reason), was a nice quiet restaurant inside a hotel on the fancier end of things. The food on offer was like classic Russian stuff I had on the Trans-Siberian – cabbage salads and beans and stuff. It was decent and I liked it and I loved it. The only annoying thing about Platan was that to pay with credit card, you have to go into the bar in the hotel, which is not very civilized at all and was a great mess and super uncomfortable and time consuming. But hey, they took credit card. Not common.
Of course, I ordered the vitaminka salad, because I always do. This one had actual lettuce (and a lottt of cilantro), which I enjoyed because I love lettuce and that’s usually all I ever put in my salads. I was thrilled to see lobio on the menu despite this not being a Georgian restaurant! Yay beans! I love you beans!
I also got a dish of hot cabbage and root vegetables because I love me some hot cabbage and root vegetables. Yum!
Honestly the best meal in Samarkand was our hotel breakfast. And our hotel was the best place in town. I’m so obsessed. L’Argamak was brand spanking new, so everything was super clean and fresh and lovely. And the staff was the nicest, most accommodating I’ve ever encountered. They bent over backward to make sure we had everything to our liking, which can get really uncomfortable but they were just so goddamn kind that it was great. And the breakfast was gorgeous. They have all these fruits and jams made from fruit growing in their garden. Loves it.
WATERMELON
Oh and I did indeed eat all of that watermelon and honeydew because this was the spread just for the two of us. Okay I shared with Husband but my point is, they did all this just for the two of us. Ahhhhh they were the best! And breakfast was served on the gorgeous patio amid the gorgeous fruit trees and omg it was like you weren’t even in Uzbekistan.
The view from breakfast
So Samarkand was pretty great, and not just because of L’Argamak. The sites were impressive and imposing and interesting. (And I found halvah and I had a good bed!) So much greatness. Of course, this was still Uzbekistan, so it was still full of some weird. Like how all the streets were lined with deep gutters that were f-ing dangerous as hell if you didn’t stare at the ground every time you were walking outside.
You had to hop across every road to get out of the road! Least accessible city ever!
And public transit leaves something to be desired. We didn’t even try using the buses after we saw this:
What is this, China??
But aside from my minor quibbles, Samarkand was by far my favorite place in Uzbekistan. (We still have several stops to talk about, but you’ll see.) The historic sights really were awesome and worth seeing. And if you for some reason are going to Uzbekistan, you’ll have to go to Samarkand and stay at L’Argamak. My favorite thing, okay one of many favorites as is expected with me, was our view of the Gur Emir Mausoleum from our balcony, especially at night. It captures that kind of ancient magic you feel in this place, all in the comfort of a clean hotel with a working new toilet so you know that makes me happy.
NIGHT MAN! AHHHHH!
That’s all, Samarkand! You’re a nice town thanks for letting us enjoy ourselves.
FIGHTER OF THE DAY MAN!
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Vladimir & Suzdal: Quaint, Charming Towns in Russia’s Golden Ring
After Moscow, we began the part of our trip touring what Republicans would probably refer to as the ‘real Russia’ even though all parts of a country are real. A short high-speed train to Vladimir began our visit to Russia’s Golden Ring, small towns that used to be hugely important cities shaping Russia’s early history. And I mean early – Vladimir was founded in the elevensies by Prince Vladimir Monochromatic (something like that) of Kiev as a fortress town just because he was like ahh I need a fortress to protect my eastern lands and I’m all one color this is terriburrrr. Oh it was Monomakh. Anyway Vladdy was satisfied with his namebrand town as a fortress but his grandson Andrei could never be satisfied (and he also isn’t heeere how many Broadway references in one sentence can we do) so Andrei stormed Kiev and stole all the master craftsmen away and forced them to Vladimir to make it the new happening place. It became the Russian capital for a bit and had even more people than London at that time. London was so bum. The city’s population boomed as it became a political center and then a religious center, but then its population disappeared by the 1400s. Not like ah they were taken by aliens, just it shrank back to near nothingness because of Moscow being close and having the good opera and ballet and stuff. Today it is an industrial center with actually a completely vegan little cafe that does amazing wraps, a much more stable population, and lots of Medieval sites, mostly cathedrals, as most of the sites in this land are.
We got to Vladimir at about 8:30pm, so we went straight to our hotel to drop our bags and then find food. The hotel was called the Kinolenta, and I should have guessed before, knowing that Kino means movie theatre, that I would like this place a lot – it was indeed movie themed! There were little film reel decals everywhere and they had a big screen tv at one end of the main hallway with a few chairs. Okay that is as far as the theme goes but for this little town that doesn’t even have a movie theatre it was pretty cool. In our room, there was a photo of London, complete with a double decker bus, so that was incredibly comforting and such a fun coincidence. It was technically a hotel and it was a lot nicer than our last hostel (dreck), but it still had a hostel vibe – shared bathroom (at least just with the room next door (which happened to be our cousin’s (so I guess I can’t complain about that))) and SUPER LOUD PEOPLE. After we came back from dinner at 11:30pm, there were about 20 adults having some sort of meeting in the kitchen – which was across from our room – while their children ran around the halls. Ughhh people what is your liiiife be quiettttt. I thought maybe I’d get up early and exercise or something and give the noise right back to them but then they were up meeting again in the kitchen at like 7am! Dammit loud people who don’t need much sleep!
Anyway, aside from those people the hotel was fine and the staff was very nice. The woman who checked us in spoke no English but we had an okay time. Since leaving Moscow, we are really seeing the payoff from studying Russian. Thank god we did. We would be scah rewed out here where we are now. So we dropped our bags and went out on the town of Vladimir, which actually had a lot of town to its name. Lots of restaurants were still open, there was a McDonalds AND a Burger King (the boys of course got soft-serve at McDonalds for the equivalent of like 40 cents and I’ve never been so jealous you know soft-serve is my favorite and I haven’t even been able to have even hard ice cream on this trip) (okay that’s not true I did have ‘ice cream’ in Moscow at Avocado but it was completely freezer burn like they bought it 10 years ago and I was the first dunce to order it). We walked through the main sites – namely the Golden Gate, which we would be visiting the next morning – and took some night time pics on our way to a HappyCow recommended place called Khilinki Dom, which means Tavern House. It doesn’t have anything particularly stand out for vegans, but it is a Georgian restaurant which means easy to find veggie side dishes. Unfortunately the bread wasn’t like my babushka friend’s in St. Petersburg, but it was still bread and I won’t turn it away. I got a dish of rice with chopped peppers and tomatoes, which was pretty good, and a plate of grilled vegetables that I didn’t take a picture of because it would have been ridiculous – it was half a tomato, half a red pepper, half a hunk of eggplant, and half a zucchini, grilled as is. It wasn’t bad.
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After stocking up on water and apples at the biggest supermarket I’ve seen in a while (they had Alpro soy milk too! I had a baby vanilla one for dessert!), we had a lovely night listening to the kitchen meeting. The next morning we saw all the Vladdy sights, including the Golden Gate. Vladimir was once ringed entirely with earthen rampants, a bit of which remains that we climbed up. The whole city was protected by these defensive walls, and the Golden Gate is the part that still remains. We scrambled up the steep side of the rampant to get to the top and once there learned that there’s a pedestrian-friendly path on the other side.
Above the Gate is a Cathedral, I mean I guess it’s all connected but there’s a Cathedral and it’s another one of those Deposition of the Robe ones, because it was really important to Russians to commemorate where their robes went. In there, there’s a small museum that was 100% worth it because there’s a huge diorama along one wall that tells the story of Vladimir with lights and an audio track. We arrived at a good time when we were the only people in that room so they played the English track! And they turned off the lights because no one was looking at the other stuff on the other walls so it was LEGIT. I don’t really remember what it was about but like in the 1200s the Tatars attacked by climbing up the ramparts and being like ahh are we wearing Scottish plaid or do we have bad teeth oh neither there aren’t enough r’s!!! But Vladimir stayed strong and still was important religiously. I don’t know I was so distracted by the cool flashing lights.
What else did we see. Oh we scrambled up the super steep rampart next to the Gate for the view of the town center, which was really the theatre and this big PECO building! Cool that they provide electricity to both Philadelphia and Vladimir.
PECO!
random Vladimir cherry sculpture I like
We also went to the Old Vladimir museum housed in a 19th century water tower, which was cool. It had a little room on each floor up the winding stairs and then had a lovely panorama view at the top. The museum showed off such…interesting, shall we say, dioramas of what life was like in Vlad 100s of years ago. Apparently old-timey men with ridiculous bicycles flirted with Elizabeth Hurley while other women had unfortunate hairdos but gorgeous desks.
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One thing I’ve noticed in every Russian town we’ve visited so far is that they really REALLY hate the Nazis, which I like seeing. I mean of course they do considering how many people they lost in WWII, it’s really insane how many, but it’s nice to see constant reminders of anti-Nazism, especially when my own country is failing to do the same and even demonstrating overt anti-Semitism in things that should be all-inclusive like the NYC Pride Parade. Raging over that. F you Linda Sarsour.
After seeing all the Vladimir sights we wanted to see that day (lots of things are closed on Mondays and/or Tuesdays all over Russia), we went back to the hotel to grab our daypacks (they kindly stored our enormous packs for the next 24 hours) and went to catch the <1 hour minibus to Suzdal, the next of the Golden Ring towns on our agenda.
I think this guy IS Vladimir no just kidding
that isn’t Vladimir that’s Lenin he’s real big here
On the way to the Vladimir Bus Terminal (conveniently right across the street from the train station), we passed this sign on the main street:
 we literally walked into this! vegetarian kitchen!
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do you even veggie, bro? |
I MEAN. Could I BE any more excited? What a freaking fortuitous turn of events! I had read about Veggie Bro on HappyCow (it was literally the only other listing besides Khilinki Dom in the entire region) but it didn’t have an address listed so we had trouble internetting it. But it was RIGHT on the main street, on Bolshoya Moskovaya, I think it was called, and we just chanced upon it! So lucky! Of course we went in and luckily everyone was hungry so we got a lot. The man working the register was very nice and spoke the best English we’d heard in Vladimir, so he helped us order. They have various burgers and salads but really the draw there is the make-your-own wraps, because they are AMAZING. Seriously, after that sad sad Pret a Manger-style wrap I had on my first day in Moscow, this wrap was a g-d delight. You have to grill them, guys, that’s the secret to deliciousness and keeping them from getting soggy ugh that’s the worst. And amazing fillings. Husband got a seitan burger, Cousin got a falafel wrap, and I concocted a lavash wrap with seitan, shredded carrots, cabbage, cucumber, tomato, pickles, lots of fresh herbs (mostly dill, which I think I’m allergic to but that’s not part of this tale), and a secret Veggie Bro sauce. It was like a Greek gyro/god.
all vegan goodies! 
i wuv you wrap! wuv you! |
chef salad! 
pretty painting on the wall at Veggie Bro! |
pretty burger! not as good as wrap but still seitany goodness mmmm
It was SO GOOD. Erma P GERD. I also got the ‘chef salad’ which was just lettuce, beets, and hummus, with a SHITTONNE of paprika tossed around the plate (Jojo don’t look you’ll die!) so that was a little sad looking but I was due for some lettuce and hummus (which 90% of the time is what I eat for dinner when I’m by myself) so it was fine. Man alive I loved this wrap. Husband’s burger was good but the wraps are where it’s at. So obsessed. The lone young man cooking all the food back there is a talent.
Full and happy, we bought our minibus tickets for Suzdal. There are minis between the two towns every half hour or so, so you just rock up to the window when you want to go and you get on the next one. Don’t worry about them selling out, because apparently they don’t have a limit to how many tickets they sell for each bus. We were given seats 15, 16, and 17, but the seats only went up to #16! Then as more and more people got on we realized that it is a standing room only situation. Husband and I took turns standing and it was okay because I was listening to The Great Comet on my headphones (err day err day) even though I don’t think Russians on public transit know about headphones yet. It was packed full of smelly people as usual with that very distinctive Russian man b.o. but I had the voice of Groban in my ear and seitan in my belly so it was okay. No just kidding I was super nauseous the whole time.
lol this is the dumbest picture but hey minibus fun times but no fun
We arrived in Suzdal at a train station literally in the middle of a field with nothing else as far as the eye could see. If Husband didn’t have his phone I don’t know how we’d be getting around. Seriously how did people travel before smartphones? How did I travel across Europe in college without internet! I can’t even believe that was me. Despite appearances, our guesthouse was only a 20-minute walk away, down dirt roads and little streets with the most adorable houses, most of which had very intricate wood carvings decorating the exterior.
bus station in Suzdal
Cute carving on our guest house
Our guesthouse had a cute little rooster carving on the outside as well as a phone number to call in case the door was locked, which it was. Okay, but most travelers don’t have telephone access! Luckily we did, but guess what, lo and behold that number was out of service! We banged on the door for a good 10 minutes before deciding to go ask the neighbor if she could help. Five or 10 minutes after ringing the doorbell there, Neighbor Babushka comes out and speaks rapid fire Russian maybe apologizing? She was smiling and she had the keys to the guesthouse! She let us in and without stopping to breathe she explained how to use the stove, the samovar, the oven, the microwave, the television, all while speaking incredibly fast countryside Russian and I was like ahhh I have to peeee. Luckily when she showed us our room and starting explaining how to use things we would actually be using like the keys, something clicked in my brain and I ACTUALLY UNDERSTOOD. Better than that, I communicated right back to her! We communicated the shit out of that conversation! I’m so proud. She seemed really proud of me too, I think. She didn’t slow down ever, btw, but every time we thanked her she would say no no I thank YOU! At least I think that’s what she said. I was sweating buckets throughout the entire conversation like my whole body was on red alert trying with every fiber to remember what I’d learned. I guess I learned something! I hated Neighbor Babushka when we were waiting outside in that sun and heat (first hot sunny day of course) but then we were BFF.
After that roller coaster of emotion, we hightailed it to the Suzdal Kremlin so we could see that and a museum before everything closed. Yes this is all still one day, the same day we saw all the things in Vladimir and ate that glorious wrap. The Suzdal Kremlin is not like the huge acreage of the Moscow one. This one is a very old fashioned white stone area with mostly cathedrals, including this beautiful blue-starred-onion-domed one that is one of the oldest cathedrals in all of Russia. I wrote on instagram that it was the oldest one but it’s one of the oldest ones okay just chill.
It’s quite cool that the architects had such fun with color and stars such a long time ago. Husband made a pun about this cathedral that I still have stomach pains over, many days later. He kept mentioning the ‘starry’ cathedral, which is funny/punny because it is covered with the gold stars of course but also because the Russian word for hella old is pronounced “starry” so you get it oh my belly oh oh oh the pain of his punning.
Oh outside the Kremlin was a honey-mead (this region is BIG On their mead and honey drinks) shop with MY FRIEND OUTSIDE!
Can you believe it? His famous line in Shrek is pretty much my most quoted thing ever so I was super pumped.
The Kremlin grounds reached on around a beautiful expanse of fields and river and it was really peaceful and lovely.
In some of the cathedrals were little museums full of more/endless religious iconography, including this one that I had a ball with trying to land the center square myself:
scale of 1-10 how bad is this like with religion
Husband and I also did a prom-style pose in the middle there but it’s too embarrassing to share here. I’ll share this guys cape though! Religious figures know how to cape but good:
hey jesus do you like my cape
On our lovely walk to our next site, we saw more lovely sprawling fields full of farmers as well as a tiny shack on the side of the road that had a legit kvass, mead, and other beverage brewing operation going, so of course we refer to it now as the funniest thing you can imagine if you were a fan of “30 Rock”:
The rural brewer
The rural brewer! Hopefully you said it in your head the correct way, which is “the ruhhh bruhhhr” . I crack myself up.
Next up was the Museum of Wooden Architecture, a hilariously cute outdoor museum site that has examples of real cabins and workshops and chapels and lighthouses as were used in regular domestic life of peasants in the area in the 18th and 19th centuries. All the structures were really used, taken from various villages in the region.
my kind of museum!
a peasant’s house
a well-to-do peasant’s house
It was such a great way to do museuming, especially since we lucked out with the weather this day. We saw the inside of a small peasant chapel, a regular peasant’s house, a ‘well-to-do’ peasant’s house, and the world’s biggest hamster wheel:
Guess what, it is indeed like a hamster wheel – but for hooomans! It’s connected to the well, and to lift the bucket up and down the human actually has to power the wheel just like a hamster ahhh I wish they’d let me try.
On the grounds, they had a cute little cafe and shop with lots of mead and honey jars and then something I thought would be for me – the seesaw! But as soon as I was about to sit on one end, I saw the saddest sign:
Children only! Fie! Fie upon your rules! I do love that that sign probably was the result of experience, though.
For dinner that evening, we went to a relatively famous (for this one-horse town (actually, sadly, they did have horse-drawn carriages all over so it was really a 10-horse town but really more like a 1-horse town you get it)) restaurant on the main street recommended by our guide book and (we think) by Neighbor Babushka, called Kharchevnaya. The menu had English translations under every dish, although they weren’t the most helpful. They were pretty freaking entertaining though:
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The Omelet is Natural! Cheerful honey moderately drunk! Meat motley crew!
The only vegetarian-looking things were that Omelet is Natural and some mushroom dishes. I asked about the mushrooms but she said they were cooked in cream. I asked if they could cook me mushrooms without cream, and she said they could give me potatoes. Like okay I know I’m being a nuisance by asking for changes but that’s just a whole different thing lady. Anyway it was okay, the potatoes were really good and I haven’t gotten sick of them just yet. I also got a salad-y pickle-y plate which I am accustomed to now, having had it at most meals it seems! But I like it! It’s good to have fresh vegetables and pickled stuff for probiotics. Pickled stuff has probiotics right? I’m counting on that to prevent illness. Haha just kidding we’re traveling through Central Asia for more than 3 months I’m gonna get sick.
The only vegetarian-looking things were that Omelet is Natural and some mushroom dishes. I asked about the mushrooms but she said they were cooked in cream. I asked if they could cook me mushrooms without cream, and she said they could give me potatoes. Like okay I know I’m being a nuisance by asking for changes but that’s just a whole different thing lady. Anyway it was okay, the potatoes were really good and I haven’t gotten sick of them just yet. I also got a salad-y pickle-y plate which I am accustomed to now, having had it at most meals it seems! But I like it! It’s good to have fresh vegetables and pickled stuff for probiotics. Pickled stuff has probiotics right? I’m counting on that to prevent illness. Haha just kidding we’re traveling through Central Asia for more than 3 months I’m gonna get sick.
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We said goodbye to Cousin after dinner, as his part of our journey ended and now it’s just the two of us. The next morning we interlaced our destinies and went to the big Monastery in Suzdal, The grounds were very nice, if the museums inside all the cathedrals and buildings seemed a little endless. But it was all worth it because the hunchback they have ringing the bells every hour is FIRE. Oh my god he did this incredible bell concerto for like 15 minutes I got only a 5 second video but it was awesome. I’ve never seen a noon-time bell ringing garner applause before. I’ve never seen any bell ringing garner applause before.
Aside from pretty but getting-standard cathedrals and museums of religious iconography (they had some naaaames back then), the Monastery also had a cafe with SOUP! I love soup. I asked about the shchi, one of my faves, but it had meat in it! It’s not supposed to! Maybe it’s supposed to. But lady was nice and said the mushroom soup had no meat. Yay! I asked for it without smetana – sour cream, which Russians put on EVERY SINGLE THING. I wouldn’t be surprised if people put it in their beer. I think they use the same spoon for everything because my soup had little flecks of sour cream in it but I did my best to fish them out and anyway I can’t even fathom how much accidental dairy and egg I’ve probably already had this trip so I didn’t go nuts over getting all the miniscule flecks out. I’m okay. It was really good soup! I mean it was fine but all soup is generally really good yay soup.
The monastery was surrounded by ramparts that we could walk through, and we were delighted to find that inside these walls were like little movie museums! Apparently Russian filmmakers have used the monastery very often in their films and so many movies were shot there. They had posters to a lot of them lining the walls, as well as a projector and screen set up. It would be cool to see a movie in there!
movie set
After we saw all the Suzdal sites on our list, we headed back for another minibus adventure back to Vladimir. This time, we both had to stand the whole time and ugh it was hot. Luckily, our reward for that journey was another meal at Veggie Bro! This time, I got a seitan AND falafel wrap (genius) with various veggies and sauces and it was sooo good. Husband got a smoked seitan and tofu wrap with BBQ sauce that was also really good. And I got the chef salad again, expecting that sad lettuce and hummus plate, but out came a gorgeous cabbage and red pepper slaw!!
I think chef salad just means whatever the chef feels like cooking up that day! In for it! I loved this salad so much and this wrap. And this place! I wish Veggie Bro had a location in London because I really want to go to them again but I don’t know if Vladimir really necessitates a second visit. We had a great few days in these Golden Ring villages of Vladimir and Suzdal, called such because they are ancient towns preserving the memory of the important times of early Russian history. They are very charming. But of course they are tiny little towns and we saw the things we had to see, so, I guess, that’s all she wrote. That night, we got on our first long overnight train, from Vladimir to Yekaaterinburg, a 24-hour journey. Next post will be my nervous breakdown on that train, before I knew what a nervous breakdown really was (cough wrote most of this post on a three-day train cough). Till next time!
Eating Vegan in Kyiv: Decent Food Around Town as Veganism Grows
Arriving in Kyiv (that’s the proper way to say Kiev, Ukraine; remember?), I was nervous about the food since my travels as a vegan through other parts of Eastern Europe have been less than thrilling. Luckily, that’s all in the past, it seems, because Kyiv’s vegan game was off the chizzy! Okay no it isn’t off the chizzy – wait till we get to Warsaw and Berlin! THOSE are off the chizzy – but Kyiv at least made a convincing argument that it knows the chizzy exists. It is fully aware of and in close proximity to the chizzy! (Chizzy means chain.) We had a good amount of time to explore the vegan options and traverse the whole range from delicious to disappointing and back again.
The first order of business was to go to Bessarabsky Market. This is a centrally located indoor market full of stalls, farmers stands, and larger restaurant constructions all in a tidy square space (not to be confused with Square Space, the company who has recently acquired this here blogging platform!). There are several vegan options in this market, and so, considering how hangry I was on arrival (remember we were waiting for our room to be ready after getting off another overnight train ughhh) I figured going to this one-stop shop for all things food would be my best bet. It was still early in the morning when we got there and lots of stuff wasn’t open. In fact, we had to wait for the two all-vegan spots in the Bessarabsky Market to get cracking. But it wasn’t a bad wait – because we saw the best sign known to (non-celiac) man:
Georgian bread may be the best on earth, and we are obsessed. So obsessed that just last week we returned from a trip to Georgia, I don’t want to say entirely planned because we wanted that good bread but it kind of was. This stall in the Bessarabsky Market lived up to its dern good name. We watched the bakers ease balls of dough into the giant stone cauldron-like oven, perfect for this witchcraft, and just a few minutes later retrieve gorgeous loaves ready for me to attack.
The handles on these loaves make it easy to hold and fun to pull apart. #breadfacts
So delicious! We ate our amazing bread and explored the just-waking-up market as we waited for the vegan places to open so I could look upon their treasures and see which I wanted. There’s also a natural shoppe in this building, called Eco Chic, which has organic produce and a small selection of supplies. It was closed of course but the vegan options abound here!
Finally the two places I came for opened – Green 13 Vegan Kitchen and Sumasbrod. These two all vegan joints were RIGHT NEXT to each other in the market! It was like the vegan sandwich showdown or something equally awesome. I felt a little awkward going back and forth between the two in order to investigate the menus and make informed decisions, like I would feel bad for whoever’s wares I didn’t purchase first. They don’t care. They’re used to it. I tried Green 13 first but we ended up going back to Bessarabsky several times over our stay so we tried both places several times. Let’s talk about errthang.
As you can see in the picture above, the two vegan places were kind of like buildings within the larger building. You order and get your food inside and then there is general shared seating in the open market space. The seating was actually nice, with cute pillows tossed hither and thither. Save for when we arrived that first day before it opened, the whole place was always crowded with vegan food lovers, which is awesome, and if I wasn’t so socially awkward and/or tired at this point in our trip (not to mention without a word of Ukrainian to my name) maybe I would have talked to some of them. But honestly come on there was eating to do, not talking! We tried a good deal of what Green 13 had to offer, including wraps and burgers – what it primarily does and does well – as well as salads because of my salad obsession.
English menu yassssss
On my first visit, I had to try the grilled tofu wrap. It was AMAZING. Like really amazing. Maybe I just had gone so long without proper delicious vegan food or maybe I had been soyless since China or maybe I was just so magoo from the overnight train and the lack of shower yet that day but man alive this wrap was so good I might cry because I want it now. (I may also just be remembering it in such high esteem because I am hungry.) First of all the wrapping seemed gigantic and poufy so that was fun, and the grilled tofu was nice. Filled with cabbage and parsley and carrot and tomato, the wrap would have checked all my boxes as is, but the sauce on it took it to another level. They call it ‘tartar sauce’ on the menu but that does not do it justice. It was a really delicious white sauce that was like…really good. I might not know what tartar sauce is. Anyway it was fantastic and probably my favorite thing I ate in Kyiv.
We also tried the burger with vegan bacon. If you look at the menu pictured above, you’ll see that the first detail about that burger is ‘loaf with barn’ and I will tell you that nonsense group of words is 80% responsible for why we ordered it. We had to see what loaf with barn meant. We still don’t know what they were going for but the burger was wonderful. Soy cutlet check, soy bacon check, tomato onion cucumber mayo sweet & sour sauce check checkity check check check. Such a great, classic burger! No wonder it has HIT written next to it on the menu. Less impressive was the Green 13 Burger, which obviously I ordered because it says it’s on a green spinach bun and I will never turn down wrongly colored breads. It sounds like it should have been aces with that grilled tofu and tartar sauce that I loved in the wrap but with added pesto and mushrooms and it was good, but not as great as the bacon burger. Not bad but it is third on the list.
As I said, I also tried the tofu ball salad because it’s a salad. It was okay, but I wish the balls were bigger and that there were more of them. Hehe balls. It was fine. I’m fine. Best of all, the staff at Green 13 was uniformly friendly and so helpful, even at my first visit when I was like ‘hey you’re not open but I’m here also what should I order???’ they were still all very nice. And you can see in the picture there’s a little fridge out front that says ‘molochko’ – they make their own nut milks and sell them in glass bottles. I had an almond milk that was pretty good for being unsweetened and not being used in cereal. All around, everything about Green 13 was great and I recommend it wholeheartedly.
You’re probably wondering at this point ‘hey where are all the pictures of the amazing food’. Sorries, but at Green 13 and Sumasbrod the food is packed to go as default (since there’s no seating inside their actual storefront) so everything was ugly with the expected takeaway smush. Even I have limits to what photos I share.
or do I
Moving on to Sumasbrod, a foot away from Green 13. I’ve mentioned their proximity several times now and I think it’s because my god man, if you are there, there’s no reason not to go to Green 13. I’m sorry Sumasbrod but you were disappointing in most aspects. The food was fine – when they had it. Every time I went to their counter, the (quite rude) staff would tell me that they only had this one wrap or this one soup available that day – even though the wraps are made hot for each order so I’m pretty sure they had most of the ingredients (considering they were all very similar). The salads were even more upsetting. See the above picture, how they have salads in plastic cups? Dude, it is NOT EASY to eat salad out of a plastic cup. First of all, that means the dressing (when it existed) fell on like, one piece of spinach and did not reach any of the other ingredients. And you couldn’t mix anything together. It is not a smart idea. And you’d think that if you were serving salad in a tall cup that maybe you should cut the ingredients up small so it would be easier to eat but instead the ingredients were like, extra larger than normal. One stupid long and thick strip of carrot took up half the cup. Also, the cup display salad situation meant that they only offered what was already made and displayed. When I first ordered a salad on the menu, the girl said they only had what was in the case – one option. It was right at lunchtime too but they didn’t have any plans to make anything more that day. I could see the rest of the staff was laughing and joking and eating back in the tiny kitchen instead of making more food for the big crowds but I guess they don’t care.
So the salad was too hard to eat and impossible to dress properly. As for the wraps, our conversation literally went like this: Can I have the tofu wrap? No we don’t have it. (They had tofu and the same veggies as everything else…so…) Can I have the Fishless wrap? No we don’t have it. What wraps do you have? The seitan sausage wrap. That’s it? Yes. Man aliiiive. Honestly considering that everything has basically the same ingredients, they make the wraps fresh for each order, and there was always staff just chilling and not working, I think it’s just down to lazy workers. Anyway, I had the seitan sausage wrap, and it was neither seitan nor sausage but more like pink ham half moons. It was decent, but small and with tiny amounts of fillings, so if you have the choice (and you do), always always get your food from next door. Green 13’s food is much better and the people are much more accommodating, even though on paper the Sumasbrod menu feels much more my style.
The only thing you should go to Sumasbrod for is the dessert.
In that display pictured above, Sumasbrod has those poorly conceived salad cups, but also chia pudding cups and mousses. The best thing they make is this Chocolate Cake Trifle and it was AMAZING. Truly. True I hadn’t had a proper dessert in many moons but Z agreed that this was fantastic and we got it several times. The chocolate cake was probably dry, as most places’ chocolate cake is (it’s not hard guys!) but it didn’t matter because it was covered and moisturized by chocolate mousse that was pretty damn fantastic. So definitely go next door for everything except dessert, and be sure to grab this. We got one for our train out of Kyiv too, and honestly nothing helps elevate an overnight train experience than a cup of chocolate cake trifle. Well except clean sheets and maybe a non-flooded bathroom but we aren’t talking pipe dreams here!
this will be the one non-food related picture in this post so enjoy
Another mixed bag experience awaited us at Tri, an upscale restaurant definitely catering to the Gwynnie types of Kyiv. This place had rave reviews on HappyCow so I made sure it was at the top of our list. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the HappyCow reviewers just haven’t had good food before so they were like ‘oh I guess this is what good food is because it looks cute and is expensive so I’ll just give it five stars so I don’t look bad.’ No. Or maybe we went on a bad day for them, but it’s still unacceptable. The restaurant is lovely inside and clearly gives off a more fancy vibe than anywhere else in town. Some of the food was generally interesting but the service was horrendous. It literally took hours. A family who came a half hour after we did got their food first. I don’t want to hear that nonsense about ‘but you don’t know how long the kitchen needs for each dish!’ because we were the only patrons there and I ordered a salad. It would take AGES to find someone just to ask what was going on with our food – and like I said, there were only two tables in the giant room. It shouldn’t be that hard to find staff. What is this, the National Theatre?
Tartlets? Tartlets? Tartlets?
We started with the raw tarts with cashew hummus and microgreens. It was pretty good, but it was not hummus so much as a definite cashew cheese., tasting like like any other raw cafe’s dollop of raw cashew cheese. Fine, though, whatevers.
Then an hour went by.
Then my salad came. This was supposed to be a ‘guacamole, kale, and hemp seed’ salad.
Ahem. Does that look like kale to you? It is not. It is merely green curly lettuce. Plus sprouts and tomatoes instead of hemp seeds, which I really don’t understand as a substitution so it has to just be a mistake. There was indeed a lump of ‘guacamole’ in there – a very lemony mush of avocado – but come on, this is not what the menu says. It is a green salad though and it was fine tasting so I wasn’t going to send it back (also it took an hour??) but still, what’s going on in the Tri kitchen??
Then we ordered the polenta with grilled vegetables. This one took an extra hour after the incorrect salad. I wanted to leave and really almost did but we were in so deep and I was trying to be optimistic about my beloved polenta. Polenta is sooo good and I was picturing this lovely pile of it with all kinds of vegetables in like a sauce or something amazing.
I got this tiny little tower of terror instead. The polenta rounds were good because it is hard to screw up polenta but yes you’re right, those are discs of eggplant and tomato with it. JFC. I should have known it was going to be grilled eggplant. Even at a vegetarian restaurant I have no other choice! There was nothing else to it, no sauce or anything, just grilled Vegetable of the Summer and two 50p-coins-worths of polenta. Bahhhhh. I wish we could have dined and dashed, I really do for the first time ever, but by the time this came we were alone in that big white fancy room and they would have caught us. Maybe. Actually, maybe we could have slipped away considering how hard it was to find a waiter. Darn. Next time! Just kidding we’re not going back there. I really don’t understand all the glowing reviews, unless everything else is really that much better (doubtful) or maybe I’ve just been lucky enough to have something better to compare it to (literally every restaurant seems more functional).
Next we tried Nebos, the famous raw restaurant. Raw foodists (omg is there a worse word than foodist to describe a person? oh yeah foodie) all over the globe rave about this place, so after our trip to Chernobyl we checked it out. I figured eating a big meal of raw vegetables would undo some of the negative effects of radiation or something? No it’s just right at Independence Square where the tour left us. Anyway, like with Tri, the reviews online were almost embarrassingly effusive. People were going on and on about how this is the best raw restaurant in the world and ‘trust me I’ve tried them all’. Bitch please. I’ve tried them all. This is not the best. But it is fine. Too much of the food had that vibe that is common in raw restaurants of being too…warm and sludgy, like it had been sitting out. Raw restaurants should be better at that but alas. But a lot of the food was really good, so overall Nebos is a positive for me, with caveats on things to avoid.
I started with the Olivier salad. They had a really impressive salad section (I mean every raw restaurant should come on but this is one of the few) and it was hard to pass up things with broccoli and arugula, but Oliviers are so common in this part of the world that it’s required to try them when you have the chance. I had a vegan one before, I think at a Mongolian Loving Hut, I want to say? and it was great so I had to try again. Also, this was the one salad that the Nebos menu had starred as a customer favorite so I trusted the public at large even though you should never really do that about anything really. Luckily it was really good! It was a mix of carrot, cucumber, avocado, peas, peas, zucchini, microgreens, and of course ‘Olivier sauce’ and it was very enjoyable. I also adore how they always come in the same weird shape.
Okay deciding on the Olivier wasn’t as hard as I made it out to be because we also got a Caesar salad! Double salad what a life! I was intrigued by the promise of cashew cheese sticks covered with pitta sauce in the Caesaw. It didn’t sound like a Caesar and it didn’t taste like one, but I really enjoyed it. Those cashew cheese croutony things are legit! They were so plentiful (look at that plate it is positively covered with them) and had a great sharp cheeziness with a z. It could have used more lettuce but it was pretty interesting. And really filling. Cashew cheeze is filling! I just jump back and forth between spelling raw vegan cheese like a normal person and an ass so don’t mind it.
Next was the tasting plate, with flax breaded cutlets (I don’t know either), falafel cutlets, and vegetable balls. I don’t know what the difference between all the different cutlets or balls were – they’re all made of the same nuts and vegetables – but they were all pretty good, and the three sauces they came with added some nice flavors. Approved!
Lastly was the thing I urge you not to order, even though like everything else I chose it is listed on the menu with a little thumbs up to show it’s a customer favorite. Well, the public is wrong so often so I was bound to get screwed listening to other people. Don’t listen to other people. (Well except me of course.)
The Dragon Roll. I’m actually starting to gag just remembering trying to eat this. I was soo excited for some raw vegan sushi – I hadn’t had sushi in ages, and it was even longer since I had good sushi. Well it would be a lot longer, I learned. The Dragon Roll promised epic tales of nori, avocado, cauliflower, cucumber, cheeze, something called ‘false flax seeds’ that I am sure is just lost in translation, sunflower mayo, and more ingredients that sound good but when you stop to really think about it you should think ‘wait how is all of this going to make a sushi roll’? Remember it’s raw, so without the structural integrity afforded by sticky rice, they were going to rely on minced cauliflower to hold all the gloppiness together. It didn’t. Forget Gwynnie’s website (how many times will this post mention her, I wonder), THIS is the real goop. The toppings blended in with the middle and it all mushed into one beige bland blob of oozing warm sludge and I tried to eat one and had that immediate reaction where if you eat any more of the thing you are going to be sick. Shaaaaaame. The consistency was so off-putting and so wrong, like when I try to eat mochi but 100x more. Sushi should not need to be eaten with a spoon! Bleh what a soft slimy mess. Bleh!
The rest of Nebos was decent though. Just never get the sushi.
The last of the vegan food I’m going to share might be my favorite in Kyiv. It’s not a restaurant, it’s more like a counter service. And the place is not vegan, or even vegetarian, but it has a few options. Now, what’s my favorite thing? If you follow my instagram (see link at top corner of page!) you probably know I make soup for dinner 90% of the time. Yes it’s because it’s a one-pot thing and that’s best for me but also because soup is amazing! Well, lords and ladies, Kyiv has a soup counter around town called Soup Culture! And best of all, they serve it in a BREAD CUP. Not a bread bowl, not those things that you don’t know really how to attack and you’re like wait so do i eat all the soup and then this bread but I want bread with the soup I’ll just take a little piece and ahhhh now there’s soup spilling everywhere! No, Soup Culture has perfected the bread container method by putting the soup in a much sturdier carbolicious cup, and so you drink the soup (I hate using the word ‘drink’ when discussing soup because it’s FOOD but here you kind of must because it’s a cup and you drink from a cup anyway) and chew the cup as you go down. It’s splendid.
They always have one or two vegan soups on the daily menu. We tried the lentil, which was delicious. And the bread cup is SO fun. Like I said, it’s sturdy so it retains its integrity as you take bites of it. SO FUN! There are a few locations around town so it’s a wonderful little lunch stop as you explore town.
Kyiv has a lot of vegan options – we barely scratched the surface! Even when we weren’t looking, we would chance upon vegan friendly places, like this place in a major underground food court/mall under Independence Square.
Hopefully, this roundup will help you make decisions about what to prioritize (go to Green 13; skip Tri; bring me back a bread cup). I have heard that even in the past few months, even more vegan food has popped up in Kyiv. I think the scene there is going to get better and better and it’s definitely a city to keep your eye on.
