Culture Day

A while back we went to the Kuznetsk Fortress for a Culture Day. The Fortress was where the city began. "Novo" is Russian for new. We were surprised that there are no bus stops near this "tourist attraction," even though it's surrounded by homes. We took the bus to the end of the line and then walked for nearly a mile along a road that sometimes had a sidewalk (it always ended when we approached the bridges). We finally got there, safely.
Of the four missionaries who went with us that day, only Elder Marcy is still in Novokuznetsk. The other three have been transferred to N'sibirsk or Utah.

Elders Marcy, Capps, Harrison and Terry

The cannons offered lots of opportunities for goofing off.
Inside the Fortress is rather small, considering it used to BE the city.
While there was no fee to get into the Fortress, they did charge us to go in the museum. There's one fee for tourists and one for residents. One of the missionaries told them that we're now living in the city, and asked how much it would be for the six of us. The fee they charged was the tourist fee. I guess even though we're living in the country for 1 1/2-2 years, we're still tourists. The museum is pretty much self guided. There was a lady who answered our questions, but other than that, we were on our own.

A map of the area

Views of the city from atop the Fortress:

The big yellow building is a Pravislavnian Temple.

Although there is often a lot of coal smog in the air, the haze that day was because it was snowy and overcast. The next day the skies were a beautiful blue.

We left the Fortress slightly ahead of the other missionaries. We looked back and saw them having a snowball fight on the wall.

After we were done at the Fortress, we walked down the hill and went to the Pravislavnian Temple, or the building of the Russian Orthodox Church. There are many of these churches of varying sizes in every city, kind of like chapels in Utah. They are the equivalent of cathedrals for the Catholic Church. We'll include pictures of smaller ones in a future blog.


There are no pews. They stand throughout the entire mass. We understand that is between 1-3 hours.

This week in Russia (actually, it's longer ago than just this week):
We've had 1 1/2 more baptisms recently. Kate is a delightful 20 year old. She found out about the Church online and asked to have the missionaries stop by. She was so ready to hear the message of the gospel. She's now the second counselor in Relief Society and one of the YW. One thing we like about her is that she'll never be able to play poker--her face is so expressive. It's really fun to wash

The half baptism is Natalya. The week we moved here she was visiting someone in the branch who she had met online. While things didn't click between Natalya and Vladimir, she was very impressed by his new Church. She came back a few months later for another visit. She even gave the lesson in FHE one week! After she went back home to somewhere in the Samara mission (approximately a week away on the train), she met with the missionaries there. Apparently she lives about 2 hours away from the closest city with a branch of the Church, so it wasn't easy to meet with her regularly. Last week Vladimir told us she had just been baptized. The half comes because we laid the groundwork but didn't do the baptism. We are so excited for her. She will be a real strength in her branch.