08 June 2003
(by Yasomatinandana das)

Today is the first day of Guru Maharaja's trip to Russia. Let's see if we manage to keep a diary. One thing is that the Internet access is not available everywhere here. So I am not sure how regularly I will be able to log on. Krishna is the controller.

So today I left my city, Yaroslavl which is in GUru Mahraja's Golden Ringvarea and is 250 km away from Moscow to meet him in the Moscow airport. Wevdrove with another Godbrother Ekanath Prabhu. He is a buisnessman and forvthe past few years have been donating fewvthousand dollars every month for different annual and capital projects. He is living very simply, does not even have an appartment of his own and just makes money for Krishna.

Nizni Novgorod, Russia
10 June 2003
(by Yasomatinandana das)

Well, as I suspected, the darsan in Vladimir the day before lasted till 10 pm after which GUru Maharaja took rest. I slept at 9 pm, woke up at 3, bathed and chanted my rounds. Guru Maharaja woke up about 4 am (Great! usually he does not sleep more then 4-4.5 hours) and did his puja. Sri Balaram helped him.

At 7 am Guru Maharaja did the Greeting puja for the Deities. They have beatiful Sri Sri Gaura Nitai in Vladimir. Guru Maharaja says he loves Them most of all. I remember before he had his own Gaura Nitai he was seriously considering an alternative of taking these Deities. They are brass but colored like wooden ones.

Nizni Novgorod, Russia
11 June 2003
(by Yasomatinandana das)

Today is Nirjal Ekadasi here. Guru Maharaja is upstairs in the temple room chanting japa with devotees.

Well, now we are in Nizhny Novgorod. First time Guru Maharaj came here probably in 1991. It was before me. Then I was here with Guru Maharaja in 1992 after which he started coming here regularly. In 1993 our Godbrother Ananta Sesa Prabhu was sent here from Moscow and he became a Temple PResident after a career of book distribution.

Moscow
16 June 2003
(by Yasomatinandana das)

There was no time for few days...

Well, we stopped at the morning 11th June in Nizhny Novgorod. Guru Maharaja chanted japa with the devotees in the Temple room for two hours, then he went on a one hour's japa walk on the river bank and then he started to give darsanas. As usual he gave all the time to whomever wanted to see him. I guess it was a 3 hours' darsan. Then we went home and finally at about 6 pm we left for the next destination, Ivanovo.