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?