Novgorod or it full official name, Veliky Novgorod which means the Great Novgorod, is an oldest city in Russia and the ancient political center of early Russian state, is well located in the middle of popular tourist route of Moscow and St. Petersburg. To reach Novgorod, I took a night train from Moscow. The train had arrived in early morning; the whole town of Novgorod was still sleeping when I reached the city center. After few directions confusing, I finally saw the large red wall complex of the ancient Novgorod Kremlin. The towers along the wall were fascinating with fairytales-like turret and in a very good condition. Inside the wall, there was a large square with big monument named 'The Millennium of Russia' the monument was full of details of important historical event of this country.

Apart from the monument, there were church and palace complexes inside the Kremlin, but all of them were closed during my visit. Nothing to do I just walked around the complex; I found a group of bells in front of one church was quite astonishing with their large size and wondered why they were here on the ground. Then I walked around the Kremlin wall, admittedly that I really enjoyed the wall more than the Kremlin inside, the color of the wall and its proportion was just right and really photogenic. Then I went to see the riverside, there was a large monastery on the other side of the river. Before I decided to cross the river, there was a sudden really heavy snow, so I had to walk back to Kremlin to find shelter. After seeing Kremlin covered in thick snow, my friend and I decided that we should went back to the train station as the weather was bad to linger on in Novgorod. A local recommended us to use the bus instead of the train, so we went to bus station and took a next bus to St. Petersburg. It was only 3 hours I spent in Novgorod; it was a very quick visit and full of obstacles, but quite enjoyable trip.

However, Novgorod Kremlin cannot be compared with Moscow Kremlin in any sense, the complex exterior was quite simple and plain with no extravaganza decoration similar to Moscow. Also, Novgorod Kremlin was lack of charm or atmosphere compared with another plain Kremlin in Rostov or Pskov. The historical value of Novgorod was the reason to visit the place, but if you are not a Russian history enthusiast or World Heritage Site seeker, there are other better places to see beautiful Russia than Novgorod.