After recently visiting Chernigov in Ukraine, I’ve had an urge to write about my admiration for this related city of Veliky Novgorod in Russia. I have visited this city twice, in summer 2005 and winter 2009. I like this city more than any cities in the Golden Ring of Moscow simply because it seems to be historically more important and there seem to be more variety of attractions here.

I can’t remember how I got there from St. Petersburg, except that one of the two times I got on a bus from the main bus station in St. Petersburg, which was somewhat far from any of the train stations in St. Petersburg.

Veliky Novgorod is the oldest city in Russia. The so-called first capital of Russia was created by the Vikings (as the theory goes) in 9th century before the creation of Kievan Rus. The Millennium of Russia monument was erected in 1862 to celebrate one millennium anniversary of the Russian statehood.

It seemed that Novgorod had the greatest density of churches of all the places I have ever visited.

The most important church of them all in Novgorod is the St. Sophia Cathedral in the Kremlin, the oldest church in Russia, with the mysterious icon called “Our Lady of the Sign” as the centerpiece, often considered to be the National Icon of Russia! (although one might counter this claim by bringing up the Trinity by Andrei Rublev, stored at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.)

Another church, which is noticeably singled out in the UNESCO’s reasoning for the inscription, is the Church of Transfiguration (Photo), with the frescos painted by Theophanes the Greek, whose relation (as the mentor) to Andrei Rublev was well-documented in the Russian cinematic giant Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece “Andrei Rublev” (1966).

This church was actually one of the reasons I went back to Novgorod in 2009. In 2005 I was there on a Monday when the Church was closed.

Another reason I visited Novgorod again was because I was actually heading further south from Novgorod to Staraya Russa, a village most famous for the summer house (now a museum) of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and as the main setting for his Brothers Karamazov. To think about it, this village is a great choice for a missing nomination!