Monday 18 March 2013

Barley and Katya discuss Dante at Zagorsk

First Name Yakov


Location:
Sergiev Posad Monastery
Sergiev Posad
Moscow Region
Russia

Details:
Having met the metro station, Barley and Katya then appear at the monastery of Sergiev Posad, which at the time was at a city called Zagorsk. They climb to the top of a bell tower and then have the conversation: Who is Dante? Barley is more direct in his questioning of Katya in order to find out more about the author of the notebooks that were passed to British Intelligence.

 

 What's Dante's real name, who is he? Does he test things? is he army, is he one man, is he two, is he a group? Does he like ice cream, does he like the movies?
Walter ticks off his identity checklist for Dante as Katya reveals the information to Barley

"LITMO -  Leningrad Institute of Mechanical and Optical Science - write that down fellas!"
  
Notes:

Trains leave every 30 minutes between Sergiev Posad and Moscow's Yaroslavsky train station. The station is located at Komsomolskaya metro station (red line). A ticket to Sergiev Posad costs 132 rubles (1.5 h, prices in 2012) and 181 rubles on express (5-6 times a day, 1 h). It is an easy day trip from Moscow.

The monastery of Sergiev Posad is one of the most beautiful monasteries in Russia and one of the principal spiritual centers of the Russian Church. It is a combination of a fortress and a monastery. The seminary of the Russian Orthodox Church is located in the buildings of the complex. There are several churches to see, a holy source and in general the whole complex with its massive walls and gates is very picturesque. There are no admission price to pay except for the museum, which shows old religious objects and woven pictures of saints. At the weekend the monastery can get very crowded, as it hosts some very important icons (at least copies of them). In return it can be very interesting to observe the believers kissing the icons and praying for hours.