Stepurino and "Stepurinskaya Zona",
Tver regionNEW A hotel and a cafe in Stepurino >>
We just drove through Lotoshino and crossed the unmarked border between Moscow and Tver region. This is the first Tver district after you leave the Moscow region. Volokolamsk is now one hour behind and Staritsa is one hour ahead.
If travelling from Staritsa you'll never think you are progressing towards Moscow - so abandoned and desolate is the area. Welcome to the world of overgrowing fields, ruined churches, and bent-over babushkas plodding their way along endless dirt roads.
Stepurino and the area around will give you more than a glimpse into Russian vastness and all-encompassing decay - decay not as the end of things but as form of life.
Some photos in no particular order. Click on some to enlarge.
Stepurino cemetery. Most villages between Moscow and Volokolamsk will have a common grave of fallen Russian soldiers.
Early 20th century buildings still standing among rotting log cabins.
"No drinking" on the wall of neglected church building.
"Woman's washroom" on the entrance column of the same church.
A dacha that probably belongs to a Muscovite.
Crow nests in birch trees over the Stepurino cemetery.
Old frescoes can still be seen at the entrance to the church in Stepurino.
A comment-defying piece of graffiti.
A view through the roof
"No drinking"
Near Guryevo, a few miles before Stepurino if coming from Moscow.
Note the sophisticated architecture of the church and imagine what life was like when every village had a public building of that scale.
More-or-less between Moscow and Saint-Petersburg:
....Istra & New Jerusalem, Klin, Tver, Volokolamsk, Yaropolets, Staritsa, Stepurino, Bortenyevo, Rzhev, Torzhok, Vyshny Volochek, Kashin, Valday, Ostashkov, Staraya Russa, Novgorod...
Vologda, Sergiev Posad & Khotkovo, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Yaroslavl....
Other:
Ryazan, Moscow to Chisinau, Collective farm/propaganda art
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