All the spaces in between...

Dedicated to my husband, Andrew, for his love for sunflowers

To match its status of the largest country in the world, Russia has a capital of the same grand scale. Although as huge as Moscow is, it takes only a little fraction of the gigantic surface of Russia. There is a 9,000 km distance between the capital city, which is located in the European part of Russia, and the Far East on the other side of the world. 

The space in between is filled with extensive forests, plains and fields, some mountains, long rivers and clear lakes, and of course people.

The vast territory of the country contains only a hand-full of big cities and many more smaller, provintial towns separated by many kilometers of uninhabited land. And somewhere in the middle of that, a countless number of even smaller dwellings - villages - are scattered all around the country. Needless to say that people have rather polarizing lifestyles depending on what part of the country they live in.

The Russian Village

 

One would ask where we can find the real spirit of Russia? 

Is it in its glorious city of Moscow or in the heart of Siberia? Can it be found in the treasures accumulated in centuries of Imperial Russia or the historical legacy of the Soviet Union? Is it in the sunflower fields and fruit tree gardens? Can we feel it admiring the cultural heritage preserved in art galleries and historical museums? Or is it on the pages of Russian classical literature, or in stories of common people living out in the country (v rossiiskoi glubinke)?

For me personally, the Russian spirit lives in the beautiful Russian nature.

The Russian Nature

Pine trees standing tall in Central Russia

An amanita in the northern part of Russia

Lake Baikal in the region of Siberia

Lake Baikal is the deepest and oldest lake in the world. It's absolutely fascinating! I took the above picture of Lake Baikal from the train window when traveling from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian railroad. It was incredible to ride through the entire country and see how the flat land turns into mountains, and the Ural Mountains become the Siberian plateau. Then the train approaches the big lake and you ride right along the lake's coast. It was the most memorable experience of the 7-day train journey. [More about Russian trains that connect places and people in Russia in my Russian Trains 101 post.]

The truth is that real Russia is in everything - in gorgeous buildings and streets of Moscow, but also in the pristine nature, in remote villages, in  in all of those spaces in between...