We spent a relaxing morning at the dacha while the keen hunters went off to shoot on the river. Marjool went off to visit another family for tea who owned a very original wooden dacha. Again they were incredibly welcoming.
The water was heated in the traditional way using a Samovar, as we have seen on the tea stalls along the M10. I have not seen them in England.
Russians love to dance and Marjool was treated to an impromptu performance …..
Later on in the afternoon we packed up to go, but not before we had a bit of a photo shoot with Troopy. I did say point at Russia ….. but it had been a long weekend and the pointing was fairly random!
Mmmmm ….. Try again and this time point at your favourite place.
It had been a great weekend and there was still more of Luiba’s friends to visit for the evening / night! More sightseeing on the way, then we arrived at Dacha Philatovo to meet Vladimir and Liudmila. Liudmila spoilt us again ….. we’d like to take her home!
It was a beautiful spot and the pair of them had obviously worked so hard to build it from scratch and get all the land from green field to a fantastic home.
As Marjool walked around the village she spotted a row of vegetable storage buildings. It needs to resist freezing and so is around 2m below the ground.
Again we were treated to another wood fired banya. This time there were extra skin treatments, it involved covering the body with honey and sea salt scrub and ground coffee. This felt really gritty when applied but the smell was lovely. There was also the now familiar birch bundles. In between each treatment was five to ten minutes in the sauna at 108 deg F. The final stage was to wash down with cold water. It was amazingly refreshing! Again no pictures, but we were even served tea in the process.
More food followed the banya and tomorrow we were booked for porridge at 8.00 am. As we said we were spoilt!!
troopytracks 