russia: belogorsk and chita

Our next stop was Belogorsk. We chose it more as a place to get off the train for a few hours than for anything the city offered. During our trip planning we'd looked at a map and this seemed like a decent distance from Khabarovsk.

There is nothing to recommend Belogorsk, absolutely nothing. It's in the middle of nowhere, a relatively small town. The town is so unimportant to the world at large that it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.

We might've been the only tourists the city saw all year.

As we arrived, I looked at my phone to see what was in the city, as well as checking Trip Advisor. One museum was listed, but we were there on a Monday, so it wasn't open.

We opted to find Lenin statues. The first one was on the back side of the train station, just as we got off the train. We hadn't expected him, it was one of the few pros to the city. 

We ended up walking up a dirt track to find the second one. Both google and yandex maps had us going up this hill, but the path looked pretty sketchy, we weren't sure it was the right way until we got to the top, where it joined up with the end of a driveway which met up with a street. 

I would not have considered this a proper place to walk.

We found the man at one side of a patriotic park. I think the building I saw on one side was officers' quarters, I think there are a few military stations around the city, but I'm not sure. There were old tanks on display, as well as a couple other military memorials.

Nearby we saw students practicing marching, which reminded us it was getting close to Victory Day, one of the biggest holidays in the Russian year.

On the way back to the train station we saw an 'I Love Belogorsk' sign. I'm not sure why that was there, as I doubt anyone actually feels that way about the city. That didn't stop us from taking a team photo, as we love city signs as much as we love Lenin statues.

After crossing to the front side of the train station we realized we were pretty close to a store that was a Russian version of a super Walmart, or super Target. Obviously, we went in. We knew we had hours to kill, so why not. We didn't see anything we hadn't seen before, but I love supermarkets, I can wander around for an hour. Or days, or howeva long I need to waste time. 

Heck I'm happy to visit a supermarket even when I have a limited amount of time. 

Across the street we found a random cafe with pizza on the menu. It was greasy, but once I used napkins to soak up some of the grease, it wasn't bad. Plus we used up another 90 minutes of time. We also saw a monument with the profile of Lenin's head, which we counted as Lenin #3 of the city.

It tells you something about Belogorsk when I say that our next stop was another supermarket. This one had some foreign foods, I got a couple flavours of Canadian ginger ale. Yum.

In the city center we could see where the city was preparing for their Victory Day parade. There were red, white, and blue stands set up on one side of the platz. Not far behind the stands we saw one of the few sights of the city: a monument to nice people. It was a chubby police officer who probably tells people where to go more often than solving criminal mysteries :)

More walking brought us to yet another Lenin statue. How does a city this small have three full size Lenin statues, and a Lenin profile on a monument? Why?

In the same park as Lenin was a monument to the victims in a nearby mass grave. I didn't recognize the event causing the mass grave, but I assume it means something to locals. I hope the memorial is visited often. Right next to the memorial was a cross, and a tiny chapel, and plenty of naked trees.

We figured out a way to get to the river that runs along one side of Belogorsk. While it was probably the prettiest place in the entire city, that's not saying much. We could see rubbish in the weeds along both sides of the water, I'm guessing people go fishing regularly. 

Not impressive.

We found another cafe to kill a couple more hours, the food wasn't any better or any worse.

After eating we tried to find a sculpture dedicated to the bottom feeder fish of the rivers, it was ugly as all get out. No thank you.

At that point we went back to the train station, picking up snacks nearby.

The next bit of our trip was also a bit of a splurge. We booked beds in kupe, which is 2^nd class. There were four beds in the kupe, we had our cabin to ourselves the whole time. 

We were on the train for two nights and a day, before arriving in our next town. Our train tickets included lunch, but it was less than impressive. Thank goodness we'd brought snacks with us :)

We arrived on time in Chita, our next destination. Chita is another city without much reason to visit. 

Chita has 325,000 people, though it doesn't feel that big. The Cossacks founded the city in 1653, and it was one of the places the Decembrists were sent into exile in 1825. 

The guidebook says there is a large military garrison in the area, but there are no major sights to see.

As our train arrived at 0430, we hung out in the train station for a bit. When we left the train station we saw our first sights immediately, as they were across the street. We saw a statue of Alexander Nevsky, as well as a big blue church.

The big blue church was the Kazan Cathedral, it still had a couple giant easter eggs out front. The inside of the church wasn't impressive, but it was a nice minute of quiet.

Not far from the church was Lenin Square. Like Khabarovsk, this was the main square in town. The city of Chita was in full prep mode for the Victory Day events the next day. There was a stage set up on one side, some groups were rehearsing performances. There were more red, white, and blue stands set up next to what was probably the parade route.

Not too far away was a Lenin statue. Since it was still early in the day there weren't too many people around, so we took our team photo.

From there it was a bit of a walk to the flat we'd booked. We got there and called the number listed with the booking, only to find out we had to check in at a hotel in the city center. Sigh. We called a taxi, so we didn't have to walk for an hour.

The address of the flat was correct, the hotel gave us the key and took us over there to show us how to get into the flat. Sigh. We were annoyed that this information wasn't in the booking. Argh. At least the flat was all right. Warm, with good wifi.

There was a bus stop less than a block away from the entrance to the flat, so we caught a bus to a museum. This one honoured the Decembrists, a group of military officers and minor nobles who tried to force reforms in the country. It didn't go over well, of course.

The museum tried to charge us a foreigner price, we refused that. Especially because it was not big, there was no English, and there was an extra photo fee. We chose not to pay the photo fee, I'm glad we didn't. The best part of the museum was the building in which it was located, which was an old wooden church.

We only had to walk 10 minutes or so to get to the monument to Love and Faith. Either a ceremony or proposal had taken here recently, there were still flower petals all over the ground. We got the timing right to use them to take one of our most epic team photos.

From there we called another taxi to get to our next sight: a Buddhist temple on the edge of town. Chita isn't huge, but we wanted to get there before it closed to visitors, and weren't in the mood for a lot more walking.

The temple was exactly what I remembered from previous Buddhist temples. Very colourful inside, big front gate prayer flags in a few places. 

Absolutely lovely and sooo different from what most people think of when they think of Russia.

While we were inside the temple we realized some of the monks were making a mandala with coloured sand. I really wanted to take photos of the process, but I decided it would just have to be a memory in our heads. After the temple itself we stopped in the small cafe on the property for a snack of boozy, which are basically giant dumplings.

We had dinner at a branch of shokoladnitsa in the city center. The chain is all over the country, so we knew exactly what we were getting.

Nothing exciting. We stopped at a supermarket for snacks and breakfast food before catching the bus back to the flat.

The next morning we packed up, and were about to leave before realizing we could see the very end of the Victory Day parade from our windows. Since Claire and I had seen the parade in Moscow the year before we knew what was coming, but it was still neat to see. Since there is such a military presence in the Chita area I imagine it wasn't that hard to bring a lot of tanks to the city.

After the parade we called the hotel, they sent the cleaners to the flat to make sure we hadn't destroyed the flat. Then we had to take a taxi back to the hotel itself to turn in the key. A very annoying process, but they gave us each a free city magnet

. From there we went back to the train station to drop our bags at luggage storage. Finding luggage storage wasn't easy, it was on the outside of the back side of the station. We were able to put all our bags in one locker, and choose a code, which I wrote on my hand in pen, so it wouldn't be forgotten.

The main post office of the city had a 0 kilometer marker in front, which seemed like a good place for a team photo.

Even though the parade was finished, the city was not finished with celebrating the holiday. As we walked around the city center we saw the entire city out walking around. Loud music in a few places, some traditional dancing, etc...

We decided to visit the Park of Leisure and Culture, which was jam packed with people. There was another Lenin statue in there, this one painted an ugly yellow gold. It's not his best colour. 

There were also tanks, a plane, a small amusement park, and a couple cafes. Kids and families everywhere.

The park was behind the War Museum, which was free for the day. Apparently Russians only go to museums on free days, because it was full. At least the city was ready for the crowds, because there were volunteers in various places throughout the museum to keep kids from touching things, remind people not to go behind the barriers, etc... I generally like history museums, but not with that many people all around me.

We opted for a late lunch at an Italian place. The decoration was super kitschy, but the food was good and decently priced. It's entirely possible that I ordered too much ;)

Next up was a marshrutka ride, out to Park Pobedy (Victory Park,) to see the big WW2 memorial. Unfortunately I had us board a marshrutka going in the opposite direction, so we ended up with an unintended tour of the other side of the city and small village a few kilometers away. Whoops. Thankfully it was easy to catch the next one, which went where we wanted to go.

The WW2 memorial was indeed big. Tanks in one area, pillars with the years written, plaques with names carved, etc... There were mentions of all the hero cities, as well as an eternal flame.

There was a green area blocked off, and I think we saw soldiers setting up fireworks for an evening show. Unfortunately we had to leave before the show started.

Thankfully I got us on the right bus going back to the train station. We had some time to kill there, but it wasn't a problem to find a place to sit. As usual, the train departed exactly on time.

I really really doubt I'll go back to Chita or Belogorsk.