russia: the end of the BAM train line: oktyabrskiy and vanino

I went to Oktyabrskiy and Vanino because the BAM railroad goes there, I did not go there because there was anything in particular that I wanted to see. The station at the very end of the line is called Sovetskaya Gavan Sortirovochnaya, but it is in the small town/village of Oktyabrskiy. There is actually a town called Sovetskaya Gavan, which Google maps tells me is about an hour away. Why the station name doesn't match the town is a mystery to me.

The town is small enough that there is no Wikipedia page for it, and Lonely Planet only mentions it as the end of the line. I feel like the name of the station is longer than the village/town is big. 

My train arrived in Oktyabrskiy at Sovetskaya Gavan Sortirovochnaya station exactly as scheduled, which is what I always expect with the Russian train system. Normally the conductor comes through the car and wakes me up 30 minutes to an hour before arrival, she did not do that this time. She woke me up about four minutes before arrival, eeeep. Thank goodness it was the last stop, so it didn't matter if I wasn't quite ready to walk off the train when the train stopped.

It was rainy and cold when I arrived, ugh. I think it was around 12C, cloudy, and rainy. Not fun at all, and not the kind of weather that made me want to get out and start exploring straightaway.

In the end, that didn't matter, because Oktyabrskiy has nothing to see. Nothing at all. There are no statues of Lenin, no parks, and no memorials. There are no tanks, very few stores, and no supermarkets.

I stayed in the train station (which thankfully had a plug I could use to charge my phone,) for several hours, hoping the rain would die down. It didn't, much to my annoyance. There was no bag storage in the train station, so I had no choice but to risk getting completely soaked as I ventured out.

I think it took me about an hour, maybe 90 minutes to walk every street and path of the town. At least I could say I'd been to the end of the line, and done more than just stay on the train.

I came back to the train station and hung out for another couple hours, before jumping on the train for 20 minutes, heading back to the previous town called Vanino.

I got off the train in Vanino, which has a much bigger train station than I would've expected. Wikipedia tells me there are just over 15,000 residents, and the population is declining. 

The town is named after the bay on which it sits, called Vanin, which was named in 1853 and appeared on nautical charts in 1876. (Also according to Wikipedia.)

The first name of Vanino was Tishkino, after a timber seller named Tishkin. This was all the way back at the beginning of the century, I'm not sure when the name changed, and why.

This bay and the port built there became more important in 1943, when the Soviet government decided to extend the railway line from Komsomolsk na Amure all the way to the coast, and develop the port as a useful shipping route.

Like most of the other infrastructure of Russia, the was built by prisoners and soldiers. (So was much of the road coming to town, and the railway.) The town of Vanino was the last 'civilization' known by many prisoners before they finished their journeys to Kolyma or Magadan.

The port of Vanino is particularly important because it stays open all year, despite the fierce winters for which Russia is known. More reading on Wikipedia tells me this is the biggest transport hub in the Khabarovsk territory. Goods end up in other parts of Russia, Japan, Australia, South Korea, and more. 

It didn't seem particularly busy while I was there, or even that big, but I didn't really take a good look either. 

I stepped off the train into rather miserable weather. Light but steady rain, dark clouds, cool temperatures. I'd tried to book accomodation before my trip, but Vanino is one of the cities that doesn't have any options on booking.com. I found a hotel marked on Google maps, walked there and asked about a room, but the lady said they were full up. She wasn't at all helpful in suggesting anywhere else I might go. Argh.

I found another place marked on Google maps, said to be a hostel. I called the number listed, but the lady who answered the phone said they were closed for renovation. She gave me the number of another possibility, but when I called, I got a message saying the number I'd dialed was incorrect, ugh.

At this point I was getting rather stressed. I walked back to the train station, found the information counter and asked about where I could sleep that night. For the first time in my life, I slept in one of the rooms run by the train station, thank goodness for these rooms. 

There was no wifi, and it wasn't comfortable, but it was a place to sleep. It turned out the price was for 24 hours, so I was able to leave my bag in my room the next day when I went out to see the city.

Vanino the next morning was much better looking. The sky was blue, and the temperatures a lot warmer. It is a small town, so I didn't need a lot of time to see everything.

My first stop was a Lenin monument. Unlike the usual statue I'm used to seeing, this one had a big mosaic face of Lenin, with a propaganda phrase. 

Since Google translate isn't amazing in Russian, and deepl.com isn't great at propaganda slogans, I had to ask a couple people what the phrase translates to in English. I'm still not sure, but I think it said 'Lenin, even now, more alive than all living people.' I took my photos and moved on.

The next couple stops were small shops for snacks, partly because I knew I needed to kill some time. There are no major supermarkets in Vanino, which came as no surprise to me.

I walked up the 'main street' in town, which has two lighthouses, despite not being on the water. The town in general is on the bay, but this main street is not even parallel to the water. In other words, I have no idea why there are two lighthouses in random places.

I got to the end of the street which brought me to a large platz. One side of the platz had a big government building, the other sides had adult size swings and benches. One corner had the city WW2 memorial, which contained a small tank, shells (the big kind that are shot out of big guns, not the kind you find at the seashore,) with flowers in them. It was a surprisingly comfortable area to hang out and relax for a while, to enjoy the nice weather and watch people.

After sitting for a while I started walking again, trying to get to a church I saw marked on the map. I wasn't able to get to the church, as it ended up being in a complex of some kind, behind high cement walls with barbed wire on top. Oh well.

I did find one church to see and enter, on the other side of town. It took me a whopping 15 minutes to walk to, I think it was the longest walk I had during my time in Vanino. Pretty, small, wooden, no one else around.

At that point I'd circled around the entire town. I went back to one of the shops to get something to drink, then back to the platz to swing for a while.

From there I went back to the train station and up to my room to kill the last few hours before my train left. Obviously, I will not be back to Oktyabrskiy or Vanino, but I'm glad I was there this once.