russia: volgograd

As I said in an earlier post, when Bo planned his visit he planned to come during a time when he would be able to see Moscow, as well as travel to several other Russian cities. I had my May holiday break, so we chose to hop on a train and head south.

We decided to start our trip by visiting Volgograd, which has a centuries long history. It was known as Tsaritsyn from 1589-1925, then known as Stalingrad from 1925-1961. The name was changed to Volgograd in 1961. I've heard and read that some people want to change the name back to Stalingrad, but I have no idea if that will happen.

We left on a Thursday evening, the train to Volgograd was loooong. Very very looong. 21 hours long. Bo and I shared a kupe with 2 Russian men, they were keen to share their buffet and alcohol with Bo. (They offered the vodka to me as well, but I had to say no because of my allergy to alcohol.) It was quite funny for me to watch, and very traditional behaviour.

Surprisingly, this train was late in arriving in Volgograd, 25 minutes late!! When you think about it, that's not a lot of time considering how long the train ride was, but for the Russian train system, that's unacceptable. 

When we arrived we discovered the main train station in the city was partly under renovation, which meant there was dust everywhere, and piles of construction materials. Not fun. Plus I wasn't able to take a nice photo of the front of the station.

The late arrival was hard for me because the landlord of the apartment I had booked called me, asking where I was. Since we had arrived late, and it was a new (to me,) city, I had no idea where we were, I just knew we were making our way to the flat. To get there we used the city tram system, and some walking. 

I'm a sucker for public transport.

We finally got to the flat and checked in, then rested for a bit. I'm not sure why we rested, given that we'd just spent nearly a full day sitting/sleeping on a train. When we went out we found a supermarket to get food, since we had a kitchen to use for a couple nights.

The next morning we made a tentative plan for the day, then started walking. A travel app I use had a few sights listed within walking distance, we aimed for those. Only a couple of them were where the map said they would be, a couple large war memorials.

We learned very quickly that Volgograd is a city FULL of memorials. The city was basically blown to smithereens during WW2, everything was flattened. If I understand correctly, more than a million people died in the battle of Stalingrad, some numbers go up to nearly 1.8 million. It was one of the biggest battles of the entire war, and lasted almost 6 months.

To make a lot of wandering around a shorter story, we ended up walking all the way to Mamaev Kurgan, a hill in the city. On the hill is the giant war memorial complex people recognize from around the world. 

The big statue (called The Motherland Calls,) is 53 meters tall, 83 meters tall if you go all the way to the tip of the sword. She sits on a hill, one of the highest points of the city. When she was built in 1967 she was the largest free standing sculpture in the world; as of 2016 she is the tallest statue of a woman in the world.

There are a number of specific war memorials on the way up the hill, all of them big as well.

There is a reflection pool as well, though it wasn't very clean while we were there; the water was a bit green. 

There were vendors selling magnets and ice cream, I wish they'd been just outside the whole memorial area, not right in the middle.

Under Mamaev Kurgan is a memorial hall. It doesn't stand out as much as the other memorials, but when you step inside the building you're probably going to say 'whoa,' under your breath. It is a large circular room, with an eternal flame in the middle. Two soldiers stand guard near the flame, and there are wreaths and flowers there as well.

Around the edge of the room is a walkway that slants up so you walk out on the second level. On the walls of the room are names of some of those who lost their lives during the battle. It's really really impressive.

There is a chapel on the hill as well, though it isn't nearly as impressive as some Orthodox chapels/churches I've seen. The main focus of this hill is honouring and memorializing the war, and those who were involved.

We left the area by walking down the hill. We kept walking, ending up at the train station.

During the day we'd talked about where we would go during this trip, and thought we had a good plan. Talking to the people at the train station and checking options online made it clear that our plan wasn't going to happen. We ended up leaving the train station without buying tickets, and going to the bus station instead. We bought tickets for the next morning, going to a smaller town.

After getting that sorted, we realized we were hungry, and chose doner sandwiches. Yum.

Just before sunset we arrived at a big statue of Lenin. He is a commanding presence (as always,) with a half circle of large columns behind him.

A couple blocks behind Lenin was our last sight for the day, the ruins of a mill. If I remember correctly, it is the last remaining building standing as it was at the end of the war. Anything else that looked like this mill (not much, the whole city was flattened,) was destroyed and built again.

Right next to the old mill (you don't get to go inside,) is another war museum. We didn't visit, but did appreciate the circular architecture.

The next day we went to Elista, read about that in a different post.

We arrived back in Volgograd from Elista late afternoon two days later. We checked into a hotel, relaxed for a bit, then went for a walk. The purpose of the walk was mostly to find dinner, and see the train station when it was lit up at night.

The city of Volgograd is mostly spread out along the banks of the Volga River, the first days in the city we'd mostly seen one half of the city. This time we decided to walk in the other direction along the river.

We found the front of a theatre, and a smaller statue of Lenin. We found a second theatre with a fountain in front, I liked it better. We also found a university with medallions of Lenin on top of the front facade of the building. Near a major intersection we found a statue that didn't have anything to do with war. (A rarity in this city.) It was dedicated to the founders of the city, back in the 16^th century.

We kept going, finally coming to another large memorial. This one was dedicated to the sailors of Severomorsk. (I don't know who or what that is.)

It's a big statue, which wouldn't be much of a difference in this (or any Russian) city; the difference is because there are huge words spelled out on top of the building behind the statue. It is really impressive.

At that point we felt as if we'd gone far enough in that direction, so we walked back toward the city center. After a supermarket stop for snacks, we found the Alley of Heroes. It was a large pedestrian area, which blocks of stone dedicated to specific groups. The alley sits at the top of a big set of steps, which lead down to the riverbank.

At one level of the steps is a set of gates that I think are supposed to represent gates to the city. If we had been able to see it from the middle of the river, or from the other side, I'm guessing the view would be quite impressive.

In a platz near the alley, at the top of the steps were letters spelling out the name of the city. I love these signs. Bo pretended the first two letters were just for his name ;)

We found dinner nearby, then went back to the hotel to pick up our bags. It didn't take us long to walk to the train station, where we boarded rather quickly and departed on time. Yay for the Russian train system.

I liked Volgograd, and I think there are other cities in the area that I'd be happy to visit. In other words, I might return to this part of Russia.