I'm glad Alena Popova checked into Sretensky Monastery on Russian Orthodox Christmas -- and that Sretensky Monastery was on FourSquare to be checked into!
BTW, Boris of Chuvashia has captured the Mayor position at Sretensky, probably because not enough of those i-phone toting Moscow hipsters stop in to pray at the Sretensky much! Boris likes to ride horses and has somehow captured the mall rat badge as well.
I don't know what the little fathers are thinking about these developments.
The million-strong Chuvashia autonomous republic has quite a story if you've never read it. Turkic people, but mainly Russian Orthodox. One of the things I remember from my days translating the Kremlin's TV was that they would show Chuvashia events as if to say, "See, these are Orthodox, not Muslim" (as distinct from Bashkiria.) Depending on who tells the story, they "voluntarily" converted, or were forced to convert, with some converting back.
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