Stone from Uglich, Russia

A couple of people who are near and dear to me are on a riverboat tour in Europe right now. They travel out of the U.S. about once a year. Last year they cruised the Volga River in Russia, between Moscow and St. Petersburg. One of their stops along the Volga was at the town of Uglich.

I always ask them if they'll just pick up a small pebble or stone off the ground for me from some interesting place, as a souvenir. Last year they brought me this rock from near the "St. Dmitry on the Blood" Church in Uglich, Russia.
Click on this ---- St. Demetrios on the Blood Church in Uglich, Russia ---- to see a photo of this colorful red church with blue onion domes. It was built in 1690 on the spot where Ivan the Terrible's ten-year-old son, Dmitry, was murdered in 1591. Gulp......someone cut his throat in the palace courtyard......gulp. I think that many terrible things happened during Czar Ivan the Terrible's reign. That's how things were back then.......and we think things are terrible now.

Here also is the Wikipedia page for Uglich, Russia. This year my relatives are supposed to bring me a stone from the ground near the church in Wittenberg, Germany, where Martin Luther went anailing the Ninety-five Theses to the door way back on October 31, 1517, sparking the Reformation.