Vladimir

Vladimir was an important city-state of the Golden Ring, the region northeast of Moscow. Its zenith was the 12th-13th centuries. In the 13th century, the warrior Alexander Nevsky became famous here for repelling a Mongol attack. Later in the century, Vladimir was conquered and remained so for two centuries. Another Golden Ring city we visited was the nearby Suzdal, which is the next entry.

Our guidebook suggested to visit the smaller Golden Ring cities off the beaten track, but we would need to rent a car and driver for that, and it would have been an expensive and uncomfortable journey. We could easily take the train to Vladimir and a local bus from there to Suzdal, so we did that instead.

The church below was an Old Believers church, which is now a museum of local lacquer, crystal, and embroidery works. (Old Believers are a major sect in Russia which split from the Orthodox Church in the 17th century.) It was surprising, even to me, to see such delicate and subtle pieces produced in the Soviet Union, which is notorious for its shoddy, mass-produced goods. My father bought a lacquer box in the gift shop.
This isn't a very good view of it, but this is the Golden Gate, an ancient gate to the city.
I find this rather charming. Canada's politicians wouldn't be caught dead near a tractor, and here they make one into a statue.

This is the other side of the same column, on Cathedral Square (Площадь Соборная). It has no inscription, so I assume it represents traditional Russian wisdom while Tractor Man represents the strength of the international proletariat.

Nearby is a pretty park. You can see the Old Believers' church in the background. On evenings and weekends groups of people would congregate there.
The major attractions of Vladimir are its cathedrals. Below is the Cathedral of St Dmitri, a large one-room structure. The exterior walls are covered with incredibly intricate haut-relief (see below). Inside were two beautiful ikons.

Here is another cathedral nearby, the Assumption Cathedral. This one is a working church.Around these two cathedrals is a well-tended park. Part of it was under construction when we were there. On the west side of the park is a large statue of Vladimir, who founded the city, and a certain St Fyodor.
Outside of centretown, there are quite a few 18th-19th-century wooden lace houses. The outskirts are ugly concrete apartment blocks and industrial buildings.

We stayed at Hotel Vladimir, which was fairly luxurious. As it turned out, we ate dinner at the same place three nights in a row: Метельница ("woman of the storm"). For $15 each, we had a two-course meal of traditional Russian food. All the other places we saw seemed to be greasy spoons or overpriced tourist restaurants.

We left by train at 2am on a Saturday night, so we got to see some late-night street life. There were drunks stumbling about by 7pm. Crowds of dressed-to-kill young people drank in parks and beer gardens. I never felt unsafe, though; many older people strolled about in classy clothing, and we saw children playing outdoors until 11pm.

The train station was quiet and clean, although most of the benches were occupied by "tenants." We saw a stray cat. The late-night vendors were helpful and talkative. For some reason, travel in Russia always seems to be in the middle of the night.