russia: vladivostok

While Claire, Angela and I were spending our last moments together in a coffee shop in Irkutsk, we ended up planning out our entire May holidays. It only took about 10 minutes to sort it all out. Actually making the bookings for everything took longer and happened later, but the initial plan was sorted out pretty quickly. All we used were a map, a guidebook, and our phones. Thankfully, all three of us had the holidays, and they were at the same time.

We started in Vladivostok. It's one of the easternmost cities in Russia, pretty much as far as you can go. 

Vladivostok is at the end of the traditional Trans Siberian railway, which takes a week to follow if you board the train in Moscow. Or you can drive, which will take you over 9000 kilometers, and at least 120 hours of driving time.

In other words, Vladivostok is in a different world from Moscow.

Vladivostok has over 600,000 residents, and for most of its history was part of China, or at least the various dynasties that ruled what is now China. Russia only took control of the area after the signing of the Treaty of Beijing in 1860. Due to several things, Vladivostok didn't become part of what is now Russia for quite a while, not until October of 1922.

Our flights left Friday evening from Moscow, took 8.5 hours, and landed in Vladivostok in the rain. Vladivostok is on the eastern coast of Russia, and is 7 (or 8?) hours ahead of Moscow in time. We arrived to rain, wind, and cold, which we didn't love, of course.

It was easy to catch an aeroexpress train into the city, which wasn't express at all. It made a number of stops along the way, but at least we got to the city center in less than an hour. We got off the train to find the very end of the (probably annual) Labour Day parade. Does Moscow have such a parade? 

We saw sailors walking away after they were done marching, and in my head I made fun of them as I've always heard soldiers make fun of sailors marching.

First stop was dropping our bags off at our accomodation, since we were too early to check in. Not too far from the hostel was a pie shop, of course I directed the girls there for a before lunch snack ;)

Fun fact about Vladivostok, Yul Brynner was born there as Yuliy Borisovich Brynner in 1920.

There is a statue of the guy in front of the building where he lived, but you don't get to go inside to look around. 

I don't know who he is, but Claire and Angela were happy to learn this.

As I was waiting for the girls to finish with photos around Yul, I realized we were close to a Lenin statue, so we walked there next. We almost always take team photos with the man, this was a chance to knock that off the list. Or so I thought. As we got there, we found a Labour Day rally, complete with flags that had Lenin and Stalin faces on them. Instead of a team photo I took a few of the rally, and we chose to come back later. If I understood more Russian I would've stayed longer, to listen to some of the speeches. 

Vladivostok is built on hills, so you can either see the water, or are in the middle of a whole bunch of buildings. Since the city is far more important to the navy than Moscow is, it was a different type of military atmosphere, if that makes sense.

Next up we headed toward the port area. There are commercial, shipping, and naval boats there, it's neat to see all of them. From where we were standing, we could see a bridge, but it was half covered by low hanging clouds. Very photogenic.

One street back from the port is a S-56 submarine museum. It's small, and a mix of what has happened in the area as well as the military exploits of the Russian Navy. 

The random tourists that entered before us kept slowing everything down by taking tons of posed photos, there wasn't enough room for anyone to go around them. Sigh.

The submarine is next to a war memorial, with lots of names carved into plaques.

Also nearby is a small victory arch, named for St Nicholas. Go figure, as we arrived, a group of Chinese women were all having photos taken with the arch, so we had a hard time taking a photo of just the arch. They were all dressed in their version of 'on trend' including short skirts and ugly sandals, which made us laugh.

We did take a team photo at a 'statue' of Neptune/Poseidon, as there was no one else around. King of the Sea, so it makes sense for Vladivostok.

One of the more interesting sounding sights listed online was a sea cucumber museum, we headed there next. It was a long walk, longer than anticipated. Whoops. It wasn't a museum at all, rather a store for Asian customers with 'health' items. There was one room with sea cucumbers in tanks, but all of them were dead and moldy!!! Yuck. Apparently this city used to be the place to come for sea cucumber medicine and ginseng items.

The best part of the museum was the shop next door, called 7-12. Too funny.

I couldn't convince the girls to walk back to the city center, (probably because it was raining,) so we called a taxi, which was cheap and fast. Dinner was at an Indian restaurant which was only mediocre.

It was a short walk from dinner to a small beach area. I don't think people come to this beach to hang out on the sand, there was a small amusement park and a few seafood restaurants.We took photos of the nice sunset and city sign, then got snacks at a small store, then went home.

The hostel in which we stayed was a capsule hostel, so each of us had our own little pod. We had control over lighting and air conditioning, though we couldn't completely turn off the lights. Argh.

The next morning we checked out then went back to the pie place for breakfast. They had a number of pie choices, both sweet and savory, as well as sandwiches so this worked for all of us. It was hard for me to stick to one piece of pie, I ended up with red fruit. When it comes to pie, I always want more. 

When we'd made the booking in the hostel, they only had room for us for one night, but we were staying in the city for two nights, so we made another booking, in a flat. We took a bus to the flat, only for me to realize I'd marked the address wrong on my phone. Sigh. I need to get better about that, and not letting google think it knows what I'm thinking. Thankfully we were able to walk to the correct address.

After getting settled in the flat, we called a taxi to get to our next sight. We could've taken public transport, but it would've taken a lot longer and not been all that much cheaper. 

Go figure, even though I correctly marked the destination on the map, the taxi driver took us to a slightly different spot, so we had to walk around a bit. Sigh.

Fort #7 is one of several ruined forts around the city. Remember how I said Vladivostok is built on hills? That means forts are great for city defense. Fort #7 is on top of a hill, and inside a hill. The views of the city and whole area were lovely, though the wind nearly blew us off the hill.

We could see a storm rolling in, the clouds were crazing dark and moving fast. Thankfully there was a little bit of shelter where we were able to take cover from the rain when it hit.

From there we called a taxi, having the same trouble with marking the destination on the map. Why don't the drivers get the same map I've marked? Anywho.

Our next sight was something I'd seen on social media. A broken glass beach, not a natural beach, not a sand beach. It's actually a rubbish pile, as all the pretty glass is what has been smoothed down by people and water from ceramic bottle rubbish pieces. Do not walk around barefoot, though this should go without saying. 

There are a bunch of picturesque rocks near the water, there were people climbing all over them. Clearly you need to get here early in the day to avoid all the Instagrammers. As usual, we had fun watching people, it is amazing how oblivious some of them were to what was going on around them.

It took me a bit longer to call a taxi back to the city. There was a direct bus, but it wasn't coming for another 5 hours, and we had zero desire to wait that long. Finally, a car picked up my order and we were good to go.

Our drop off point was a random point on a street not too far from the city center. We ended up walking past another war memorial on our way to the next sight. I love war memorials, and I love that Russians at least try to remember so much more than Americans, but I tend to lose track of the specific groups and events that are honoured. Even if I could remember it wouldn't help me much, since I don't know the military system very well. 

Eventually we got to a church. This one was different because it was German Lutheran, which isn't common in Russian. There was a British phonebox in the yard, which looked even more out of place than the church.

To get to our last sight of the day we got to ride a funicular. I was surprised at how cheap it was, as I'm pretty sure tourists are the only ones who ride it. It takes you up to a viewpoint from which you can watch the light change as the sun sets off to the side of the port. It's a gorgeous view, especially without clouds.

From there it was easy to catch a bus directly back to the supermarket across the street from our flat, woo hoo!!

The next morning we packed up and gave back the keys to the flat, then took a bus to the city center. We headed straight for the train station to drop our bags in luggage storage for the day. The train station is pretty impressive, I loved the stairwells and ceiling of the waiting room. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so, as there is a tourist office desk offering tours.

Lenin isn't far from the train station, so we went back to take our team photo, avoiding all the Chinese tourists in the process. 

Since we were on that street already, we decided to visit the art museum. None of us absolutely love art, but we had the time, so why not. Figuring out what tickets we wanted and where to buy them ended up being the hardest part of the visit. We just wanted to see the permanent exhibit, nothing temporary. 

The museum was nice. A number of different rooms with different styles and subjects of work. I've seen more than my fair share of icons and Madonna paintings by now, we sped through that section. Each room was painted a different colour, which was also nice. 

At that point we realized we hadn't gotten any souvenirs from Vladivostok, so we went back to the main square not far from the port to find a shop. There were heaps of choices for magnets, not so much for postcards. Sigh.

We hadn't had breakfast, and felt as though we'd seen much of the city, so Claire suggested lunch next. Since Vladivostok is on a peninsula, surrounded by water, so seafood is important. We wanted a decent seafood meal, but weren't able to find something decent nearby. Darnit. Vietnamese food instead!

The last thing we wanted to see was also associated with water: a lighthouse. This one has become popular with the social media crowd, so we definitely weren't alone. Still, it was pretty, and I can see why people come here. I'd seriously come back in the middle of winter to see it covered in snow/ice.

After getting back to the city center we went back to the pie place to get food to go. As expected, our train departed on time.

I'd definitely come back to Vladivostok, partly to explore more of the wooded areas of the peninsula. Or to see the city in another season.