russia: oryol

Oryol is listed in my guidebook, that's the reason it ended up on my list of places to visit in Russia. When I told one of my coworkers where I planned to go the upcoming weekend, she told me I was saying the name wrong, and I'm glad she did. The way the name is written in English indicates one way of saying the name, but the name in Russian indicates the correct way. Sometimes transliteration doesn't work properly with names. The pronunciation is actually arrrr-yol, not or-yol. Even knowing this, I still tend to mispronounce the name, I expect most English speakers do.

Oryol is a little over 360 kilometers south/southwest of Moscow, with a current population of just over 315,000. The population is slowly shrinking, I'm guessing people are moving to other cities with more opportunities.

Like heaps of cities in this area, evidence of habitation in this area predates written historical records. Archaeological evidence shows that there was probably a fortress settlement there as early as the 11^th century. In the 15^th century the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (which at the time was the largest state in Europe,) swooped in and ruled the area.

As neither the Grand Duchy of Lithuania nor the Golden Horde were good to the locals, they soon abandoned the city. As a result, Russia took over in the 16^th century. Ivan IV had a new fortress built, but it wasn't strong enough to fight off the Poles when they invaded in the 17^th century. As soon as the Poles sacked the city, the locals left again, abandoning the city once again.

The powers that be decided the fortress was useless, so it was taken apart in the early 18^th century, not long after Oryol was granted official town status in 1702. 

Not long after the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks took the city, and it stayed that way except for a week in October of 1919, when the White Army was in control.

Oryol was a sight of fighting during WW2, and was ruled by the Wehrmacht for a couple years. If I'm reading Wikipedia correctly, Oryol was one of the first cities to be liberated, on 5 August 1943. This is the date the city now uses when it celebrates its birthday.

Oryol was the hometown of several well known (in Russia,) writers, there are a few sights around the city related to the writers.

My arrival in Oryol was exactly on time, at 0351 on Saturday, obviously not a convenient time to arrive anywhere. I was thrilled when I found rows of seats in the waiting room that didn't have armrests between the seats, allowing me to lay down for a few hours. I didn't really sleep, but I did doze off a bit.

The main hall of the train station was quite nice, with a few stained glass windows and a chandelier. I'm not sure how often anyone walked through that hall, since getting from the tracks to the waiting room did not take you through the main hall. 

There was also a tiny little chapel in a small area between the main hall and the waiting room, definitely the first time I've seen anything like that.

When I left the train station I realized it was very different from other stations I've seen in Russia. First, it seemed to consist of two buildings, one above ground and one below. Second, the above ground building was between sets of tracks, instead of being on one side. I walked through a tunnel connecting the two buildings to get out, after which it was easy to find a main street to head toward the city center.

Just outside the train station was a unique sculpture of an eagle on a globe. I think it is supposed to 'say' something like the earth is full of cities and towns, but Oryol is unique among them all.

From there it was an easy walk to my hostel. Check in was easy, and I stayed inside for a little bit to warm up. It was a beautiful sunny day, but pretty cold. My phone told me it was -3C, but felt like -9C. Normally I don't find -9C to be all that cold, but touching the metal of my camera, tripod, or phone made me nearly lose feeling in my fingers, not fun.

After I started walking, my first sight was a war memorial. This one was a tank memorial, with an eternal flame. Nothing terribly unique in Russia. My next sight was a memorial to the man known as Ivan the IV, or more often Ivan the Terrible, or Ivan the Formidable. In the memorial he is a man on a horse.

This memorial was only a few meters away from a church. The outside of the Epiphany Church is all white, but the inside is all painted, with a gold iconostasis up front. I liked it, though the inside felt rather small.

This church sits on a small peninsula in the river right where the Oka and Orlik Rivers come together. Right near the tip of the peninsula is a monument honouring 400 years of the city. I nearly fell on my butt a few times getting close to this monument, as the pavements were covered in ice, and I don't have a lot of balance when I'm walking.

After crossing a bridge, I walked up Lenin street, which did not feel like the main street it usually is. Despite not being a main street, the House of Soviets was on the street, with a big statue of the main man in front of it.

Off the back side of the House of Soviets was a stelae that designates Oryol as a city of military glory. It was quite different from all the other such stelaes I've seen, as it was just the one stelae, and nothing else in the monument. Usually there are four cubes on corners around the stelae, with scenes of fighting and the city history on each side of each cube.

After the stelae I kept walking, making my way to what was listed as one of the house museums from the writers of Oryol. Unfortunately I got there to find a sign on the door saying it was under renovation, and pointing me down the street to another one of the house museums a few blocks away. 

I'm not sure whether the exhibits inside were moved or not.

I made my way to the Bunin Museum, another house museum. Ivan Bunin was the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1933. From what I can tell, he was actually living in Paris at the time he became a laureate.

The houes museum was well done, with several rooms of photos and information about Bunin and his family. One of the rooms was set up as his office had been, complete with desk and books. I was particularly happy to see beautiful wood floors throughout the house, I'm such a fan of beautiful floors. I was the only person in the musem at the time, it was easy to wander around and look at everything in detail.

It was already getting dark as I walked out of the museum, so I wandered through random streets before finding a fast food dinner and going home. As always seems to happen on my weekend trips I went to sleep early on a Saturday night.

The next morning I eventually packed up and checked out, and was able to leave my backpack at the front desk.

My first sight was nowhere near anything else in town, back off the other side of the train station. Getting there took me under a bridge that wasn't yet finished, on small trails that weren't common places of walking, and across the train tracks.

The doll museum is listed as one of the top sights in Oryol, (how does the algorithm decide this sort of thing?) but it is a new museum, and privately owned. The woman who owns it made many of the dolls on display, complete with face paint and clothing.

The dolls were grouped according to style, and 'who' they were supposed to be. There was a section of Gone with the Wind dolls, and a section with British royal dolls. There was a huge section with characters from Hollywood movies, as well as a section of celebrities.

It was fun to walk through, but creepy at the same time, since it always feels like all those eyes are watching you whereva you go.

Walking back to the city center took just as long, and of course there was a short snow storm as I walked along. The kind of storm where the snow comes out of nowhere, makes it really hard to see much of anything for about ten minutes, then just goes away completely.

After crossing the rivers again, I headed toward another house museum of a writer. Ivan Turgenev was a writer of novels, short stories, poems, and plays. 

He also translated and popularized Western literature in Russia. That being said, I'd never heard of him until I arrived in Oryol.

This house museum was bigger than the Bunin museum, but had the same types of exhibits. Photos and his writings, as well as items from his life. There were also exhibits and information about other Russian writers.

Just like the day before, it was almost dark by the time I walked out of this museum. I ended up doing the same thing I'd done the night before for dinner, I had fast food. 

I suppose I could've done a little research to find something 'better' to eat, but I'm not into food enough to care. 

From there I picked up my backpack and walked back to the train station.

Another great weekend trip, though I doubt I'll come back to Oryol.