Location, Location, Location...Ярославль

I thought that I should post a map and a little bit of info about the city I'll actually be living in! I figured that few people (at least few of the people I know) actually know where Yaroslavl is - I certainly didn't either! (You can see I did alot of thorough planning before I decided to go :)

From my research, aka Wikikpedia, it is city of about 650,000 people on the banks of the Volga and Kotorosl Rivers. It was founded in 1010 and apparently is a big industrial center. It is also home of the Yaroslavl Lokomotivs hockey team - Russian champs from 2003 :)

Here's a map of the Western part of Russia. It looks like it's pretty close to Moscow but from what I've been told it's about a 5 hour drive
(depending on traffic). And if you look over up and to the Left you can see where St. Petersburg is on the map. I thought, "Oh! Well that'd be fun! A nice little weekend getaway to St. Petersburg! Lovely!"Don't be fooled! St. Petersburg is a 13 HOUR train ride away!! I've ridden a night train in Eastern Europe once before and let me tell you they are an experience! The night train I took from Prague to Krakow actually is up there with one of the worst experiences of my lifetime. Seriously. But, never one to miss out on an exotic destination, St. Petersburg is calling, so to St. Petersburg I will go (or at least try to go).

Here are some other photos of famous landmarks in Yaroslavl. I'm sure there will be duplicates of these as I take my own pictures when I'm there :) Below is the Kremlin - apparently historic Russian cities have one , not just Moscow - built as a fortress to protect the city from outside invaders.

To the right is (I'm told) a typical street in Yaroslavl...

And this is one of the "suburbs" of the city... notice the Soviet-style apartment buildings.

It looks like it will be an interesting city to live in and I'm hoping that my experience living in Prague will prepare me at least a little for what it's like to live in Russia. It definitely can be a serious culture shock and takes a little bit of getting used to :) The people, the languages, the weather, the 'interesting' food, the infamous customer service, the bureaucracies and the red tape. Ohhh Eastern Europe. Love it :)