russia: ufa

We put Ufa on our travel calendar after seeing it listed as a destination on a departures board at an airport. We thought the name was quirky, and hey, why not?

Ufa is the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan, (formerly called Bashkiriya,) which is the most populous republic in Russia. I'm not sure what the difference is between a republic and a state in this country, it has something to do with governance, and who has authority, I think. Wikipedia says it is a state with no sovereignty, though that doesn't help me figure it out. 

Bashkortostan is officially bilingual, speaking Bashkir and Russian. Nearly every sign we saw was in both languages, with occasional signs adding English as well. Bashkir is a Turkic language, so it doesn't sound at all like Russian. The modern Bashkir alphabet similar to Cyrillic, though there are some dfferent characters.

Ufa has just over a million official inhabitants, and has been around in one form or another since the 5^th century. It was a medieval city, before the arrival of the Russians, though the official founding date is 1574 when Ivan the Terrible ordered a fort built there. 

That fort was later destroyed, and the city itself doesn't feel like it has much history. In general it feels like a young city, despite what historians say.

Ufa has an economy very dependent on industry and natural resources. Wikipedia mentions oil refining, mechanical engineering, and other fuel and engineering companies. It isn't a beautiful city persay, but things do look nice.

Ufa is a two hour flight from Moscow, and is two time zones ahead of Moscow. This meant our two hour flight that took off from Moscow at 2030 on Friday arrived after midnight in Ufa. 

Since we're cheap, we spent the rest of the night at the airport. Ufa International Airport isn't big, but we were able to find some chairs without armrests on which to try and doze for a while.

After taking photos with city and airport signs in the sun, the next morning we took the bus into the city center, the ride was about 25 kilometers and cost less than a dollar. According to the signs at the bus stop, it runs every 20 minutes or so, which is really convenient. During the ride we spotted several groups of people doing city cleanup type of work. 

Raking dead twigs, chopping up piles of snow that still remain, picking up rubbish, etc... It was impressive to see so many people taking care of their city.

We hopped off somewhere along Lenin Street.

We started our city tour by seeing a statue of Lenin in the middle of a small park. The man was sitting, and there was an obelisk behind him. We kept going along the street, coming to a statue of Fyodor Shalyapin. (There is some debate as to how his name is spelled in English, this is the option I'm using, just because.) 

He was a Russian opera singer in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. After some searching online, we found information telling us that the statue was in Ufa because he spent some of his childhood there. The statue is located on the side of a concert hall now named after him, at which he performed. Across the street was another theatre, no one can accuse Ufa of not having culture.

From there we found a city sign for Ufa. We loved it because it was written in Bashkir, so it looks like three circles. Each circle is crossed by a line, horizontal or vertical. 

We also found a city sign with the name written in Russian, so we took photos with both.

Claire and Angela were both exhausted so we stepped into a cafe thinking we'd have a drink to wake up. It didn't work out that way, but after being inside for about an hour we decided to walk toward our booked accomodation.

We got in contact with the potential landlord who didn't seem thrilled to hear from us. It was a challenge for me to understand what he was saying, he didn't slow down even when I specifically asked him to do so. 

It turned out the apartment we'd booked wasn't available, so he sent us an address nowhere close. According to the link he sent, it was also more expensive than what we booked. To make a long story short, we stayed somewhere else.

After checking in, we relaxed for a bit and figured out a plan for the rest of the day.

Our next sight was a giant memorial to the heroes of the October revolution. I'm used to big Soviet memorials, but this one was bigger than normal. There were kids running around this one, totally unaware that anyone else was around.

From there we walked toward a sight listed as permanently closed on Google maps. Google maps was wrong, we were able to go in the Lenin House Museum. It turned out to be the house in which his wife and mother in law lived in while they were in exile in Ufa. Lenin visited twice during 1900, which apparently qualified it for being a museum now. The entry fee was low, we really liked our visit.

Close to the house museum was another city sign, this one also written in Bashkir. It sat on one side of a platz, there wasn't anyone else around. 

I guess everyone else in the city had already had their photo taken with this sign.

We kept going, intending to walk up Kirov street; we got distracted by a small souvenir/press shop. In the shop we found magnets and postcards, something we look for during all of our trips. After looking at all the postcards we decided to head to a place called Congress Hall, which is actually a conference center with modern architecture.

It was easy to get there by bus, and didn't take long. We liked the building, and there is a small park right next to the building that was filled with people. 

At the end of the park is a monument to Salavat (Salawat) Yulaev, a hero of the Bashkir people. He lived during the 18^th century, and was involved politically in a number of events. The monument has him sitting on a horse, which is perched on a hill overlooking the entire region.

At that point we needed a proper meal, so we found a restaurant. Dinner started out well, with a good menu, good prices, etc... Angela and I liked our food, but not all of Claire's food arrived. A manager came out to apologize to Claire a good 10-15 minutes after we'd finished eating, which was a bit late. 

I didn't understand enough of what she was saying to understand the reason, I just understood that Claire's food wasn't coming. Sigh.

After a stop at a grocery store, we walked home, and crashed quickly. Since Claire and Angela hadn't slept much at all at the airport they were more tired than I was, plus they were also fighting colds, making them even more tired.

The next morning we packed up and checked out at 1100, stepping out into a beautiful day.

We ended up stepping into a bakery a couple blocks away, even though we probably should've avoided a place with sugar loaded food. The lady inside was amazed by us, I'm guessing she doesn't see many foreigners. We enjoyed the donuts and other goodies we found there.

Our first sight of the day was a church. It was blue, and looked quite new. It turns out the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is 100 years old. Apparently the church has received good care over the years, we never would've known it was more than a decade or two old. 

The frescoes were bright, the chandelier and iconostasis gold. We were inside with plenty of people, I loved the atmosphere.

After we left the church we took off some layers, since it was quite warm. Sun and more than 10C is tshirt weather :) We walked up Kirov Street all the way to Mustaya Karima Square. There is a statue of him in the middle of the square, it was surrounded by families out to enjoy the sun. Mustai Karim was a Soviet poet, writer, and playwright in the 20^th century. Over his lifetime he won important prizes like the Lenin Prize, and the State Prize of the USSR.

His monument stands in the middle of the square, the Trade Union building stands on one edge of the square. From the Trade Union building we walked down Karl Marx street. Along the way we stepped into another park, because we liked the gate. Inside the park we found a war memorial that wasn't working. There was no fire in the eternal flame, and park of the obelisk was being fixed.

More walking brought us to the train station. It was ugly, a dark gold colour. From there we caught a trolleybus that took us 12km to Park Pobedy, or Victory Park. 

It was quite a long ride, and only cost 20 rubles!! We got off the bus near a memorial with a sad woman statue. I don't know what it was for, but it looked new.

Next door to the sad woman memorial was Lyalya Tulpan Mosque. It had two minarets, I found information saying it could hold 1000 worshippers. We were happy to go in, the women's sectioon was actually a big balcony on the next floor up. Quiet, fairthful, and beautiful. Everything I love about a house of faith.

Next to the mosque was Park Pobedy. 

We skipped the war museum, as we didn't want to take the time, and didn't figure it would be all that different from other war/military museums we've seen around the country. All around the park were tanks, on which kids climbed everywhere.

At the back of the park was another eternal flame memorial, this one also being repaired. There was fire in this one, though the obelisk was completely covered by scaffolding. We wandered through the rest of the park, but didn't love all the people everywhere. (The downside of good weather.)

We left the park and got back on the trolleybus, going all the way to the end of the route then coming back into the city. This time we got off the bus at another Lenin statue, it was really big. Like everywhere else in the city it was covered in people out enjoying the weather. We took our team photo and left.

We found a different restaurant for dinner, and had a fabulous experience. Great food, good prices, good service, etc... After dinner we took a taxi to the airport where it was easy to check in, and everything else went smoothly. Our flight landed in Moscow a few minutes early, something always appreciated.

We loved Ufa, but feel as though we saw everything. I don't think I have a reason to return, but who knows?