Today we stopped in the little village of Mandrogi. Which is a crafting village on the Svir River. ( The Svir River is part of an ancient trading route and was part of the ice river route that helped to save some of the people in St Petersburg during the seige of Leningrad. )This village was completely destroyed during WWII, but due to its picturesque site was rebuilt by Mr Goodsitter (hope I got the name correct) as a center for the crafts. The houses were built in the traditional wooden house style, the village had a large wooden slide, and wooden 5 blade windmill. Many of the building were painted very colorfully and our guide told us that they were patterned after a Spanish style that Mr. Goodsitter admired. They do have some people who live here full time as they have four children in kindergarten and one child in elementary school. It is a very small population as most of the people live elsewhere and drive to work. They have a vodka museum where you can sample vodka and have your photo taken by the vodka bear. In one of the houses a little boy's head popped out of the ceiling bunk over the door, I gave him an Iowa pin and his mother gave me a gingerbread cookie. We had a traditional open air shashlyk (shish kabob) lunch with a meat dough sandwich that you dipped in beef broth. The sandwich reminded me of a Cornish pasty and dipping this one improved the flavor 100%. We also had a couple of salads, potatoes and lingonberry tart for dessert. I bought my first souvenir here, a little wooden skiing Santa.
In the winter Mandrogi is a winter play land with hunting, ice fishing, and cross country skiing. The large wooden slide is very popular during this season but it was closed for us. There is also a popular bath house here where you take a steam sauna, whip yourself with wet birch branches (to improve your circulation) and then jump into cold (ice) water or roll around in the snow. You repeat this procedure a couple of times during your invigorating bath.