russia: rostov on don

I had no major reason for choosing Rostov on Don as our last city for this trip other than I knew a couple people who had been there previously. It was also going to be one of the host cities for the upcoming World Cup football tournament, so hey, why not?

Rostov on Don (this Rostov is different from Rostov Veliky in both geographic location and the city is on the banks of the Don River,) doesn't have a specific point in history when it was established, at least not that I can find. 

It seems the area was used to control trade between Turkey and the empire, and was built up over time. The current city seems to be an amalgamation of a few villages/towns/a fortress in the area.

We took a night train from Volgograd, arriving in Rostov in the morning, right on time. The train station in Rostov wasn't anything spectacular, much to my disappointment.

We'd booked accomodation in the city center, so we started walking. The weather was good, though we were sweating while carrying our packs. It wasn't the best of times for Google maps to stop working, whoops.

The entrance was around the back of the building, which wasn't immediately obvious. Thankfully I've lived in Russia long enough to think that might be the case.

It was easy to check in, we only had to wait about 20 minutes for our room to be ready. We used the time to get ourselves sorted, and charge electronic gadgets. Since Rostov on Don doesn't have any well known sights, we took some time to go through the guidebook suggestions to figure out a plan for the day.

We started walking, and kept going for quite a while. We saw a Lenin statue along the way, de rigeur for a Russian city. Most of our path was heading slightly up, plus the sun and heat made us sweat like nobody's business. We were following a trail on a travel app, which didn't keep us on main roads. At a couple points we weren't sure if we were going in the right direction, and we got cranky from dehydration.

Finally we got to the end of the walking, the top of the hill. Finally we got to our first intended sight of the day: a church/monastery. 

A cute little blue and white gate stood open, there was no entry fee. The first building we saw was the main church, but it wasn't open. It looked quite new, I wonder what the decoration was like inside.

I was able to go into a small church, at the back of the property; it was painted blue and people were praying inside. I got the feeling this wasn't a touristy monastery, so it was nice to 'hear' the silence. Plus we enjoyed the breeze, and the views of this part of the city.

On our way back toward the city center we crossed a rickety bridge over a creek, said hello to a dog, guzzled water ate an ice cream, etc... I don't think water has ever tasted that good, we really needed it.

During this part of the walk we came to a huge traffic circle with a park of sorts in the middle. This park was covered with decorations for two important events: Victory Day, which takes place on 9 May every year in Russia, and the World Cup football tournament.

I took photos of both sets of decorations, it was an adventure figuring out how to cross traffic both ways, as there were no zebra crossings that we could see.

Dinner was a bit of a challenge that night. We ended up settling for a vegetarian something or another, which wasn't all that great. Hmmm.

After dinner we walked more along the pedestrian section of Pushkin street. The city has done a really nice job of making the middle of the street walker friendly, with statues and benches galore. 

The part we walked had a 'lantern' of sorts with pictures that were lit up for the evening, which I loved.

There were a couple stops with musicians playing, and food like cotton candy being sold. I also really liked the church we came to, though I can't for the life of me remember the name.

The next morning our first goal was to find a grocery store to get breakfast food. That proved to be harder to do than we expected. Proper grocery stores aren't always everywhere in a city center.

After breakfast we started our day by repeating how we had finished the evening before: walking along the pedestrian part of Pushkin street. Since we were now in daylight, we saw a bunch more statues, sculptures and benches. At the very end of the street was a small platz with a series of stars, designed to look like a tunnel of stars. I used them to practice hair flipping for photos, hee hee.

We followed streets according to nothing in particular, eventually getting to what was labeled as a monument to veterinarians. Cute.

We kept going, heading back toward the city center along a different street. (Why repeat a street if you don't need to?)

On this other street we found a park with a small war memorial, and a big sculpture of a crocodile. It was also filled with shade, which felt really good at that point. As we got closer to the main areas of the city we saw more and more decorations for 9 May, which was coming in less than a week. The corner of another park was covered in the decorations, I loved the colour.

One of the sights listed in the guidebook was a really really tall memorial. It is an obelisk of sorts, with a different shape at the top. There is also a statue of a woman up there. The whole thing is dedicated to the liberators of the city. (In WW2, I imagine.) We weren't able to get close to the obelisk, as the platz in which it was located was being set up with a stage for the upcoming holiday.

We kept going, eventually at a small park with a statue of Empress Catherine the Great in front of a church. Impressive statue. 

Somewhere around now, we stopped at a bakery, it was surprisingly good. Or maybe I just have low standards for Russian bakeries.

We were really close to our hostel when we found another big memorial. It is dedicated to the soldiers of the 1^st cavalry unit, I don't remember the years listed. The reproductive organs of the horse are interesting, leading to a nickname from locals, something about eggs.

This platz was also covered on one side with decorations for 9 May. I know I keep mentioning these, but it is a HUGE holiday, celebrated in every town in the country, often with a military parade of some type.

We went under the street here, and found a series of mosaic decorations on the walls, really neat to see. If I understand correctly, these were supported by the government, so they show different aspects of Soviet life. Men and women were shown equally, except that the women were often wearing high heels. Who picks fruit from trees while wearing heels???

We kept going, back at street level. We found the park where Lenin stands, because you're not in a Russian town if you haven't seen the man at least once. 

From this statue we could see a church down another street, so that's where we went next.

Unfortunately, the church was closed for renovation, so we weren't able to go inside. I wonder when the renovations will be finished. Either way, the shiny big dome was eye catching. We picked up sushi for dinner, then headed home.

The next morning we decided to walk in a new direction, toward a bridge going over the river on which the town is located. As we got close to the bridge we could see it was blocked off by policemen. Argh.  

I don't speak nearly enough Russian to be able to ask the question why, then understand the answer.  We could also see crowds gathering down by the water, though we didn't know what was happening.

A bit of searching online led us to information that some sort of flotilla and flyover was going to happen, something about the birthday of a particular military unit. We staked out our places too, and waited. And waited and waited and waited. I got sunburnt, Bo took shelter.

The event itself wasn't very impressive, at least not the flotilla. The flyover was cool though, a few helicopters had flags, and there were some people jumping out of planes. Neat. The whole thing didn't last long, we definitely waited longer. Still, I'm glad we got to see it. Random fun experiences while traveling.

When the crowd started clearing out we realized police were letting people walk across the bridge again, so that's where we went. We ended up walking less than halfway across the bridge, it was really windy. The view down the river was nice, but I felt like I was going to be blown off the bridge. 

We took the stairs back down, all the way to the embankment, and walked along there for a bit. The city of Rostov on Don did a good job in building the embankment, making it a nice place to take a walk. Good shade, flat walking area, etc... Of course there were vendors with the usual variety of cheap plastic toys, cotton candy, and more.

We looked at our watches and realized we needed to get moving, so we went back to the stairs, back up toward the start of the bridge.

Instead of crossing the bridge we went into town, back to the place we'd gotten sushi the night before. This time we got our order to go, then walked back to our hostel.

We grabbed our bags and walked to the train station, enjoying the sunset along the way. Not surprisingly, our train boarded and departed on time.

While I don't feel the need to go back to Rostov on Don, I've learned never say never.

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.

russia: elista

One of the massive benefits of moving to Russia has been traveling the country, and learning about places I'd never heard of before. When Bo and I planned this trip, we hadn't done much ahead of time other than buying train tickets to our first destination. When we got to Volgograd, I realized we were in a city another friend of mine had visited back in March. I also knew where she'd gone next, and I had no problem with copying that part of her itinerary.

Elista is the capital of the Republic of Kalmykia, and was first founded in the 19^th century. 

While Stalin was in charge, collectivization was a big thing, so many Kalmyks moved to the city, leaving behind their traditional nomadic lifestyles. (Thanks Wikipedia.)

At one point the government thought the locals were collaborating with the Germans, so ALL of them were exiled, and native Russians brought in to take their places. At the same time, the name of the city was changed to Stepnoy, which didn't change until 1957 when the exiles were allowed to return. I'm sure there were issues with who owned what property, etc...

Elista is unique in Russia, in that it is a Buddhist area. This is why I wanted to visit, as Buddhist temples and traditions are very different from Orthodox everything.

Our bus arrived in Elista mid afternoon, presenting us with our first challenge of the trip: we had no accomodations booked ahead of time. After buying bus tickets I'd searched online, and I could find no available rooms in the city. We got off the bus at the bus station (inconveniently located on the very edge of town,) and approached a taxi driver, I asked him if he knew of a hotel with a room available. 

Thankfully, he did.

The hotel turned out to have a junior suite available, which was more expensive than we wanted, but since it was all we knew of, we accepted. If nothing else, at least breakfast was included in the price. We took a few minutes to relax in our rooms, then made our way out of the hotel.

Our first sight was a giant Buddhist temple. It's huge, and serene. There are prayer flags all over one of the massive gates allowing entry onto the grounds. There was no entry fee, which was awesome. There also weren't too many other visitors. 

We circled the temple twice, at ground level and again slightly higher up, turning prayer wheels each time we passed them. It is a beautiful building.

You're not supposed to take photos inside, and you're supposed to keep the noise down too. We followed both of those rules, and were annoyed by the tour group that didn't keep quiet. Argh. There is a giant Buddha on one of the walls of the inside, with prayer mats/pillows in lines in front. We sat quietly inside, just soaking up the atmosphere, more so after the loud tour group left.

We walked further into the city center, our next stop was at a seven layered pagoda. The pagoda was in the middle of a platz, and was surrounded by kids and adults everywhere. I liked the dragons hanging off each corner, and loved watching all the people. There was a sign on one edge of the platz that said I Love Elista. While I wouldn't go that far, I did like the city.

Since Elista isn't a traditional Russian city, and really isn't that old, there aren't many sights in the city. I found something listed on a travel app, a big, gold statue, called the Golden Rider or Golden Horseman. 

We'd seen it while we were in the bus coming into town, it seemed worth going back to get a little closer.

While walking toward the statue we saw several buildings decorated with large mosaic murals on their sides. We walked through part of a park too.

We arrived at the statue just after sunset, so the lighting for photos wasn't very good. Still, it was neat to see, partly because it was different from other statues around Russia. We also saw a statue of a military looking guy, he looked more 'Asian,' than 'Russian.' The people of Elista definitely look more 'Asian,' than 'Russian,' we got a lot of stares while we were there because we are white.

On the way back to our hotel we passed the Buddhist temple again, it was now closed. We were able to look through the gates and see the building slightly lit up for night, but also totally quiet.

When we got back to our hotel we tried to figure out transportation for where we wanted to go next, but it didn't work out. After trying several different options, we ended up booking a shared van back to Volgograd.

Breakfast was included with our room rate, so it was nice to have a decent meal the next morning. That being said, I ordered muesli and it was served warm to me. Hmmm. Warm oatmeal is delicious, but warm milk over muesli, not so much.

We packed our bags and checked out, asking the front desk to hold onto our bags for us. We decided to go back to the Golden Rider statue, since we wanted to see it when the sun made it very shiny. The walk was long, the weather was great, and it was a perfect way to spend a last few hours in town. As much as I loved visiting, I can't imagine coming back to Elista, as there is nothing else to do. Maybe I could come back in another season?

russia: moscow in april

As with February and March, I didn't spend too much weekend time in Moscow during April.

On Easter Sunday I met up with Claire and Caroline, we wanted to get outside and enjoy the city. The weather was amazing that day, which meant the entire city was out walking with us. Not only was the weather great, it was the first great weather in quite a while.

The three of us met at Mayakovskaya station, one of the best stations in the Moscow metro system. On the green line platform, we looked up at the ceiling, there are a number of mini cupolas, each with a different mosaic design. Love it.

We went up to street level, and found sets of adult sized swings on a platz. Too bad all of them were being used at the moment.

We walked to an area called Patriarch's Ponds, a nice area of Moscow. All around the pond are restaurants and cafes, and more expensive apartments. I still haven't figured out what makes these ponds so important, but it was nice to walk around them.

After the ponds we kept walking, stopping for a quick treat from a French bakery along the way. We walked up a street that took us to Pushkin Square, which I think of as Pushkin Platz. Since it was Easter weekend, we saw decorations, including giant eggs. 

There were trees decorated with mini eggs too.

Not long after we got to Pushkin Platz Caroline had to leave, so Claire and I walked down Tverskaya street to Manezhnaya Square. Like everywhere else, it was covered in Easter/spring decorations. It was also covered in people taking photos.

We ended up leaving because we were annoyed with people trying to take photos everywhere, and went to dinner at a Korean restaurant. Yum.

The next day Claire was sick, so I met up with Caroline at a metro station and we walked to Red Square. 

We joined the queue for the Lenin mausoleum. Even though we got there before the time it opened there was a queue, nearly all of Chinese tourists.

Once the mausoleum opened, the queue started moving, and moved quickly. When I visited the mausoleum in 2003 I remember you weren't allowed to bring anything in with you. You're now allowed to bring your purse, but you're still not allowed to take photos. There are soldiers stationed approximately every 2 meters, you're not going to be able to sneak photos.

As we walked through, one of the soldiers shushed a group of people who were speaking. 

It is a place where total silence is demanded. It's a dark room, except for the body, which is lit up. Intense. I wonder how long they'll keep him there. I read somewhere that he is re-embalmed every 18 months or so, and the scientists in charge of him check on him every 2-3 days.

After exiting the mausoleum we looked at all the memorials along the walls of the Kremlin. Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space is among the people buried there.

We walked out the other side of Red Square to see a 'new' park, Zaryadye Park. There isn't a lot of green space exactly, but it is a park. 

There is also a walkway that goes out over the river, it is the defining part of the park. Nice view over the river and back toward the Kremlin.

After enjoying the views for a while, we started walking again, our next stop was at a candy store. I have a hard time saying no in this kind of store, ooops. I ended up buying gummies with chili spice, gummy strawberries, and ginger infused chocolate. (The chocolate turned out to be the spiciest.)

We meandered along a bunch of streets, going whicheva way struck our fancy. We saw the so called Clean Ponds, which didn't look so great at that time of year. 

April isn't a pretty month in Moscow, it's the end of winter more than spring.

We stopped at a place that called itself a french bakery, though the items for sale didn't seem terribly French. Oh well, it was nice to try a new place. Our next 'sight' was just an architecturally interesting building, called the Egg House. It really does look like a giant egg. I think it's an apartment building, but I don't know.

We went to the nearest metro station, and made our way out to a part of town called VDNKh. I'm pretty sure I've described it previously, or at least tried to do so. Like other parts of the city, it was under massive renovation, hopefully to be done in time before the World Cup football tournament starts. We walked all the way through the area, the entire middle looked like the apocolypse had just happened. Construction mess everywhere.

Even though April isn't a pretty month here, everything got a little better day by day as the month went on. May is bound to be gorgeous!!