I just got back from a great, albeit short trip to Yaroslavl, Russia with my father. He is currently the chairman of the Burlington-Yaroslavl Sister City program. The main purpose of the trip was to stregnthen the connections, meet the new members of the Russian-American Association (sister city equivilant), see how Yaroslavl has changed since each of us was last there (16 years in my case), and to prepare for next year’s 1000th anniversary in Yaroslavl. When the possibility arose that I could go along, I (of course) jumped at the chance. Although a week is barely enough time to scratch the surface, I feel like we got a good sense of what’s happening in Yaroslavl these days. Mainly that the city has reinvented itself as a historical destination, helped by the UNESCO designation of a Historical Center.

It seems like the whole city is undergoing a facelift in preparation for next year’s celebrations. I guess there’s no sense in waiting another 1000 years to attract the deserving attention that one of Russia’s oldest cities (and former capitals) should have.
Most of the ubiquitous onion domed churchs, as well as many of the old buildings are being repainted and fixed up. A new boardwalk along the Volga river is underway, along with some huge new complexes (hotels, sports stadium, pier). I think that the ciy of Yaroslavl has made some great descisions that will have a lasting impact on the positive trend of tourism to the city of 620,000.
What follows are a few of the photos I took while in Yaroslavl. A full gallery of photos from the trip can be found here:http://davidseaver.com/photostore/Russia_Yaroslavl_g141.html



A group of photographers that I spent an afternoon with.

Pouring some horseraddish vodka at Sobranie Restaurant, a very traditional place with a neat cave like room. The first shot was good, nice and spicy, but by the time the fifth one came around, I had had enough.

Masha, the resident bear at the Savior Monastery Museum.

One of my new favorite sculptures. This is outside the Savior Monastery Museum. We got one of the best museum tours from Yelena Ankudinova, the director of all the city’s museums. She basically wrote the book on icon paintings.
A classic example of Russian icon painting. 16th century.
A nunery on the Volga River
Overlooking the Volga River

Lovers at the Kotorosal River

This was at the press conference for the Russian – American Association.

An eternal flame for WWII
Cruising the Volga, rocking out to RAWKFIST!
Yaroslavl is so famous it’s even on the 1000rb note (about $30)


Behind the scenes at the Jazz Center.


A tradition of putting world leaders on matryoshka dolls. It’s ironic that Medvedev doesn’t even get his own doll.

We met lots of very ineteresting people doing interesting things. Some links to the people we met along the way:

Elina, who has created a great blog (in english) about Yaroslavl.
An amazing artist
Aleksandr Petrov, Oscar winning animated movie director
There’s the Oscar…it’s much heavier than it looks.


These two were on shore doing a little dance to the music we were blasting from the boat.

David Seaver David Seaver is a Vermont based professional photographer.