russia: moscow oblast: lobnya

After nearly a month straight of traveling I decided to spend a weekend in Moscow. I chose to spend Saturday doing very very little. My fitbit tells me I took less than 500 steps, if that tells you anything.

Sunday I had another lay in, then took my sweet time getting moving. Eventually I got out the door, and hopped on the metro. In the last year Moscow has opened two new metro lines. They go further into the suburbs than previous lines, which is awesome.

A suburb called Lobnya had been on my list of places to go, since I saw that it had a specific spot in the history of Moscow and WW2. According to many historians Lobnya is the place closest to Moscow that the Germans occupied during the war. This was while the town was known as Krasnaya Polyana; I don't know why the name was changed, or when it happened.

Wikipedia tells me the town was founded in 1902, and was granted town status in 1961. There are currently 75,000 residents.

It only took me an hour or so to get to Lobnya, and cost less than $1USD. I'll repeat it again and again, I love public transport :)

I didn't see everything in town that I wanted to see, but knowing how easy it is to get there, I know I can go back to see the rest.

I started by walking down ulitsa Lenina (Lenin Street,) which is the main street in town. The weather hadn't improved since last weekend, it could be considered even worse. It had snowed a couple times during the week, but not a lot. After each snow it had warmed up to a degree or two above freezing, meaning the snow melted and ended up as slush and mud. Yuck.

Lenin Street wasn't that exciting, it didn't feel like much of anything. Many of the apartment buildings were painted various shades of yellow, which I find horrid. One of the buildings had a mural of the fighting in WW2 on the side, which was.... interesting.

I didn't walk through the city park, mostly because I didn't want to deal with the slush and mud I knew would be everywhere. I'll definitely explore the park the next time I go back.

Eventually I got to a bus stop where I caught the next marshrutka to a specific war memorial called the Moscow defensive line. It ended up being really small, and hardly noticeable. The stop was just across the street from the memorial, it was actually the end of the line for several bus/marshrutka lines.

The memorial consisted of a billboard, a couple 'snowflakes' of metal pieces (I don't know the right word to name or describe them) and a plaque.

From there I walked to another memorial, in Krasnopolyana Square. It was a 'basic' WW2 memorial, with a big statue and plaques listing the names of those from the area who died. 

This square was more of a small park, there were no benches or anything to encourage people to hang out for a while.

I walked to a supermarket I'd seen earlier, to get something to drink, and snacks. From there it was an easy marshrutka ride back to the train station, then another train back to central Moscow.

I'll be back, as I know there are a couple memorials I missed, and I want to see the city park when it looks better :)

Even though Lobnya isn't terribly well known, I realized there were some spots in the city that I hadn't yet seen, so I went back for another half day visit a few weeks after my first visit. The weather was somewhat better in that it wasn't raining or snowing, and the ground was mostly dry, but the sky didn't look any better.

I went out there the same way I did during my first visit, using one of the new commuter metro lines Moscow has opened this year. Easy and quick.

Since Lobnya is pretty small, I barely had to pull out my phone to check where I was going. My first stop was in the city park, a small platz with a pair of war memorials. The one that was particularly memorable was dedicated to the kids who suffered during the war. They didn't have a say in anything that was happening, and had no opportunity to speak up.

It was easy to walk out the other side of the park, and as I did so, I noticed a cute 'animal' statue just outside the fence: a pair of pandas. I'm not sure why the city chose to have them there, as they're not local to the area. Hmmm.

My next sight was another set of war memorials, the walk to get there was a lot longer. Along the way I saw a memorial I didn't expect: a helicopter. It didn't have a sign that I could see, but it was placed right along the main road, not too far from colourful apartment buildings. I've seen a lot of tanks as war memorials, at least the helicopter was a little different.

When I got to the place I wanted to see, I realized the set of war memorials were spread out on each of the three sides of the intersection (it was a T-junction.) One was a mural painted on one side of a small building. Another was a tank, and the third was an obelisk. None of them were particularly memorable or unique.

After that I felt like I wanted to see something that was not a war memorial, so I headed to the one church I'd noticed on the map. The Church of the Holy Face in Kiowa was not any different from other churches I'd seen previously.

I wanted to see the interior, but when I opened the door I heard and saw a service taking place, so I only stood at the back of the room for a few minutes, then stepped back out. While I was in there someone else left, so I wasn't doing anything disruptive. I liked what I could see, as there were nice frescoes all over, and the chandelier was bright.

From there it was an easy walk back to the train station, with a quick stop at a pond on the way. Last year Claire and Angela used to tease me about wanting to see anything marked in blue (water,) on a map, I guess I still do that :)