I chose to go to Belgorod because I saw the name listed as the end of a train line. After traveling around this country, that seemed like as good a reason as any.
The city is nearly 700 kilometers south by southeast of Moscow. It's pretty close to the Russian border with Ukraine, which is only 40 kilometers away.
Belgorod has a little over 350,000 people, and seems to be growing. The city name means 'white city' which probably came from all the limestone in the area.
Belgorod can be found in historical documents as far back as 1237. Like so many other cities along the western border of Russia, it has been involved in a LOT of fighting throughout its history. For the most part it has been Russian, though there were a couple years of belonging to Ukraine near the end of WW1, and Germany was in charge for a few years during WW2.
Perhaps the most well known (internationally,) person to come from Belgorod is Svetlana Khorkina, an artistic gymnast. She competed in the Olympics in 1996, 2000, and 2004, for Russia, of course.
My train arrived at Belgorod's rather boring train station exactly on time (as nearly all Russian trains do,) at 0805 on Saturday. I was excited to find multiple hot chocolate machines in the station, each of them with rather odd prices. 28 rubles for a 130mL cup of hot chocolate, woo hoo.
It was an easy walk to my accomodation, where I was able to check in early. During this walk I was passed by two large groups of soldiers. I have no idea where they came from, and where they were going, but it was somewhat intimidating to be passed by so many people in uniform.
After charging my phone and warming up for 90 minutes, I started exploring.
Before arriving in Belgorod I'd looked up Lenin statues in the city, the maps showed me two. I was somewhat surprised when I stumbled on another one not too long after leaving my hostel, meaning there were three in the city.
Belgorod has great pavements for walking around the city, it was easy to get to my next sight: the park of culture and leisure. There are several ways to get into the park, but I think most people walk in through the main gate. Just after the gate I saw my second Lenin statue of the day. Both statues were on tall pedestals.
This park has several benches and cafes and such, and is probably quite a nice place to walk around and hang out in spring and/or summer. During winter there aren't many people, the cafes seemed closed, and the mini amusement park was closed.
I did find a monument to a family, as well as a monument honouring Marx and Engels, two of the original political theorists.
I kept going, and made it up to the 50th anniversary of victory park, slightly further north in the city. It is also probably a better place to hang out in spring and/or summer.
There is a fountain running down the middle of the area, though there is no water at the moment.
There are also several memorials in the park. One is to the victims of political repression, I always wonder how 'honest' this type of memorial is since Russia isn't known for political freedom now.
On the other side of the park was a small church, painted in two shades of blue on the outside. The inside was beautiful, and a total surprise to me. The entire interior was painted, I loved it. Smaller churches are usually less decorated inside, so this was a pleasant surprise.
While I was inside I got to listed to two women singing. I'm not sure if they were singing verses of the Bible, or prayers, but it was beautiful.
I headed back toward the city center, eventually stopping in a cafe for a pot of tea. After warming up I kept going, and went to a convent. Or, as it is sometimes called in Russian, a monastery for women. The Mary and Peter convent, I think.
There were two main churches inside the walls, with completely different exterior appearances. I was able to look around one of them easily enough, in the second one a priest asked me to put on a skirt.
(Thankfully there was a box of wraparound skirts near the entrance, available to borrow.) I was the only person in this second church, which gave me the time to look at each iconostasis and absorb the atmosphere of faith.
Next up was a stop in a bakery, yum.
Near the bakery was the huge building that is Belgorod State University. I ended up walking around the entire building, because it looked completely different from each side. One had mirrors and windows, another was boring Soviet, and yet another had a statue in front. The school dates back to 1876, and now has around 23,000 students.
The university building wasn't far from the Vezelka River, which was mostly frozen, and quite pretty. Crossing that river was a pedestrian bridge, which had the flag of the university in the middle.
I kept walking, and after just wandering for a while, ended up at another religious spot. I'm not exactly sure what I saw, but it seemed to be a small chapel, and a dome over some old relics. Online I was able to see that it is possible to take a tour, as the main building holds items from a saint, but that would be in Russian, which wouldn't help me at all. Oh well.
Further down this street I found a couple huge pieces of modern art. Both were made of wood, and I have no idea what each of them was supposed to be. More walking brought me to an eternal flame, which probably exists in nearly every Russian city/town/village.
This war memorial is on one side of Cathedral Square. (Which doesn't have any cathedrals on any side of the platz.) On another side of this platz is a big government building, the regional Duma. Rather boring, very Soviet. Just in front of this building was a stela marking Belgorod as a city of military glory.
On a third side of the platz was a big theatre, the fourth side was bordered by a street.
Though I'd only been walking around for around 6 hours, that was basically the end of my day. I stopped in a supermarket on the way back to my hostel to get food for dinner, and crashed early.
The next morning I was awake pretty early, but I didn't get moving for quite a while. I was excited to look out the window and see another sunny day waiting for me. I'm always a big fan of cities when the weather is good while I visit :)
I packed up and checked out, leaving my backpack in the hostel for the day. I walked to the third Lenin statue of the city, which was also on a pedestal, but a lower one than the two I'd seen the day before. On the way there I passed what used to be the city girls school.
On the way back from Lenin #3 I passed the only city sign I found. This one was a heart, with the name written in Russian on top. I was happy to see the name in Russian, as I think it's weird when a city name is written in a language that isn't native.
From there I kept going, to yet another church. (Now that I'm writing this post it seems I saw a lot of churches. Is Belgorod that religious?) This one was sea green on the outside, with beggars sitting outside the main gate.
The inside of this church was painted all over. The ceiling and main iconostasis were gold, the ceiling of the dome was painted with Jesus. There were people all over the place, praying to various icons. While I was inside a red carpet was rolled out, I got to watch the setup for a wedding.
From what I've seen, Orthodox weddings are quite small, it's the reception afterward that has all the people. Orthodox weddings also involve crowns!! I didn't stay for the ceremony, as that would've been way longer than I wanted to wait. (And it wasn't my wedding, nor of anyone I know.)
My next sight was another park, Victory Park. Like every other 'green' area of the city, this park must be better in spring, summer, or fall. In the park I found another war memorial, as well as an alley of heroes, with a row of busts. I didn't recognize any of the names, but that wasn't a surprise.
Right next to Victory Park were the three main museums of the city: a war memorial museum, the city history museum, and an art museum.
I started with the city history museum. The entry fee was cheap, woo hoo. The exhibits started with the flora and fauna of the area, which were as interesting to me as such things usually are: not very. The exhibits of human life were a lot more interesting, they had items, photos, and dioramas on display. Very nice. Nothing was in English, but I didn't mind.
The war memorial museum annoyed me when I entered, as they wanted me to pay a higher price because I'm a foreigner. I said no, because I live and work in Moscow. In other words, I pay the same taxes Russians do, so I should be paying the same entry prices Russians do. I wasn't able to get around the photo fee, but I bet they didn't charge that to any Russians. Sigh.
The museum was quite nice, it focused on WW2. More photos, and items, particularly various medals. The main attraction of the museum is a HUGE diorama.
The biggest diorama in Europe, or something along those lines. The whole thing is based on a tank battle which took place in 1943, as part of the overall Kursk tank battle.
The last museum was the art museum. Buying my entry ticket actually got me four tickets. One was to a temporary exhibit, another was to the main exhibit hall, and I'm not sure what the others were for. The temporary exhibit wasn't exciting, but I liked the main exhibit hall. I tend to go through art museums pretty quickly. Any specific piece of art catches my eye or it doesn't.
After leaving the art museum I went to yet another museum. This one was blue, and the outside looked pretty similar to a couple other churches I'd seen. The inside wasn't particularly memorable, but I'm always happy to see the interior of any house of faith.
By that point I was hungry, and I'd seen all the sights that had been on my list, so I walked to a pizza place. The pizza was decent, and my table had usb ports to use for charging my phone.
After eating I walked back to my hostel to pick up my bag, then walked to the train station.
Anywho, I didn't have to wait long in the station. The train departed on time, and was a smooth ride all the way back to Moscow.
I doubt I'll come back to Belgorod itself, but there might be smaller towns worth seeing in the area.
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