It was winter and usually winter is not so nice in a metropolis. I was craving for an untouched snowy landscape. I took an elektrichka from the Yaroslavl railway station in Moscow and went to Sergiyev Posad about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow (all in all about 2, 5 h one way). All the way you could see the fairy tale Russian countryside: colorful wooden houses with smoking chimneys, tall pine trees full of snow and an untouched white carpet aaaaall across the ground, only a few narrow paths from the houses to the main road.

In Sergiyev Posad there is the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius of Radonezh, one of the main saints of the Russian Orthodox Church together with Venerable Seraphim of Sarov. The atmosphere at the monastery is lively: there is always a lot of people here despite restoration works or weather conditions.