Tarbagatay

We met our guide and driver outside our apartment complex and everyone introduced themselves. They had a small van for us - Heidi had a pretty cool seat. It was a normal seat, raised like a booster seat which an older child could sit on and then the bottom part of the seat folded up again and there was a seat for her underneath with the four point harness etc. A bit hard to explain but pretty cool! A 3 in one seat!

It was about an hours drive out to the Old Believers Museum and Church. The little villages are filled with wooden houses with colourfully painted windows and ledges. They seem to really love their bright colours - sometimes even the roofs were painted a bright blue! The windows would often have lace and maybe flowers in them. The scenery was nice - mountains in the distance, river running by and a bit of snow here and there.

The guide, his name was Chengis or something similar explained various things about the area and answered questions we had about Russian origin, culture, area etc.

We arrived at the museum, Heidi was asleep so we left her in the car as the driver was happy to watch her until she woke up. He had a couple of kids himself and was quite clucky with her - it was nice.

It was so cold in the museum! Heidi was sleeping on mine and Eli’s jumpers so we had to make do without. At least I had long sleeves - Eli was in short sleeves! The museum guide was an Old Believer (they’re a branch off the Russian Orthodox) and in the museum was all sorts of different objects and articles they used for their daily living. He took us round and explained it all to us. There was a little souvenir shop inside and we bought a little bird whistle made out of wood for Heidi.

Then we went across to the church which was just over the road to look inside. Kyria and I had to don skirts and scarves. Heidi wanted to wear a scarf too. It was quite small inside - apparently there is only about 20 people who meet there but there’s about 500 in the area or something like that. He pointed out the various things in the church they use for their worship. They are very proud of their icons (pictures / paintings of Christ and Mary etc). Apparently their are 45 differences between them and Russian Orthodox (who’s counting 😂) even down to how they make the cross before they pray or whatever.

I had to visit their toilet outside and was a little taken aback when I opened the door and all there was, was a hole in the floor of the shed - not quite what I was expecting. I managed, pregnant and all 😂 Heidi didn’t seem too perturbed by it!Read more