05 February 2004
(by Yasomatinandana das)

While Guru Maraja was walking we had a feast and then I wrote the previous piece of diary. THen he came, took prasadam, took a little rest and we went for the evening program. Devotees rented a hall and theere were over 200 people. Guru Maharaja spoke at length about Lord NItyananda's pastimes - HIs childhood pastimes, His travel over the holy places, Jagai and Madhai and HIs delivence of the gang of dacoits. He concluded with ecstatic kirtana. Then he gave darsanas in the room in the same cultural hall.

He first met devotees from Sarov. It is a very interesting yatra. It is a city 2 hours drive from NNovgorod named after a great Russian saint Seravim Sarovski who lived there few centuries ago. Ironically, now it is a closed city where they have nuclear bomb research institute and a factory where they make all these nuclear missiles etc. So even ordinary Russians need a special visa to go there (I cannot, for example). Some 7-8 years ago somebody from there got books and started preaching. NOw they have a nice yatra with 25-30 devotees, many of which are educated people. Whenever Guru Maharaja comes to NNovgorod 15-20 devotees come from there to meet him.

It is interesting to observe how a yatra grows over years. I first came to NNovgorod with Guru Maharaja in 1992. I saw ups and downs of the NN Yatra and could obsreve how it was growing. It is not that by now there are less problems then before. No, there are a lot of acute problems but this time I could feel that something changed. And that is devotees. They becamse more mature, more tolerant and having less expectation from this material world with all it's problems. So this is how the actual growth takes place.

In Sarov also some internal tensions which were there last time are solved and the devotees are working cooperatively to push on Lord Caitanya's mission.

Then Guru Maharaja gave time to all devotees who wanted to speak to him individually. He was very much concerned about brahmacarini matajis who stayed in the temple in very poor conditions. He is a strong beleiver in protecting the devotees, especially those who dedicated their lives to ISKCON. The darsan went on till 11:00 pm. and then we went home to take rest.

At the appartment Guru Maharaja again spoke to devotees and we went to bed at 0:30 am. At 4 am he woke up to do his puja. And at 7 am we all left for our next stop in Ivanovo.

It was not so cold, there was a little snow-storm but the road was not very bad. We made our 250 kms in 3.5 hours. In Ivanovo temple Guru Maharaja noticed a remarkable progress. The temple room and the ground floor were renovated and looked very attractive - due to devotees' sincere efforts. While giving a class Guru Maharaja remembered how 3 years back he was here to see the house before we buy it. (It is a 2 story wooden old 200 sq.m. house in the center of the city - maybe 90 years old  but quite strong). He came there on Sunday at around 11 am and there were some karmis living there who were still sleeping right on the same place where we now had an altar. Since there so much changed.

After taking prasadam and giving darsan to the devotees at 4 pm we left for Yaroslavl. Now Guru Maharaja is singing Gaura Arati after which he will continue his class. THanks to Krishna I got mobile GPRS internet connection so that I can log on practically from any place which I am doing now.

Tomorrow at 7 pm Guru Maharaja has his flight to Delhi. He would have extend his stay by one day but due to this visa problem he has to leave the country tomorrow. At 1 pm tomorrow we are supposed to leave Yaroslavl and go straight to the airport.