russia: krasnodar

 

Krasnodar was once known as Yekaterinodar. It is now a modern city of nearly a million residents, almost 1400 kilometers straight south from Moscow. Google says the drive time should be around 16 hours, though I imagine it would take longer in reality.

Krasnodar started out as a fortress/military camp built by the Cossacks; they were determined to protect the borders of Russia, and claim Circassia, though Ottoman Turkey didn't agree with that claim. The official year of founding was late in the 18^th century, in 1793.

City status was granted nearly 3/4 of a century later, in 1867.

Wikipedia tells me Yekaterinodar quickly became a trading and transport center of southern Russia, with around 45,000 residents by the end of the 19^th century.

The name Yekaterinodar comes from Catherine the Great, who granted the land in this region to the Cossacks. The other Catherine involved in the name was Saint Catherine of Alexander, who is the patron of the city.

The name Yekaterinodar means Catherine's gift. After the name changed to Krasnodar in 1920, the name means 'gift of the Reds.'

Yekaterinodar saw a lot of fighting during the Russian Civil War, which took place from 1917-1922. (Imagine dealing with a civil war AND a world war at the same time!) During the Civil War the city changed hands several times between the Red Army and the White Army. During my visit I saw quite a few war memorials, some big some smaller.

When WW2 (the Great Patriotic War) rolled around, Krasnodar was again the sight of lots of fighting. The Germans controlled the city for around six months, starting in August of 1942. During the war years most of the city was destroyed, like other Russian cities where fighting took place. Though Germany didn't have any camps in Russia, some of the Gestapo and SS killed thousands of Jews, Communists, and partisans; these unfortunate souls were shot, burned alive, and even sometimes gassed to death in specially built vans.

Before the war was even over the government started trials, even of their own citizens, for collusion with the Nazis and other war crimes. The Wikipedia summary says the tribunal handed down eight death sentences, which were carried out in a city square with an audience of 30,000 people.

Modern Krasnodar has many industries. These include agriculture and food, fuel, forestry, and machine construction. Tourism is said to be a big part of the economy, and those numbers continue to grow.

(Though maybe not so much in the summer of 2020.)

Despite my misadventures in catching the train from Voronezh, I arrived in Krasnodar early in the morning. Since it was mid-August, it was hot and sunny, despite being early in the morning. The train station in Krasnodar is quite big, with the name of the city on both sides. The main level was full of people when I walked in, but I found a waiting room upstairs that was completely empty. Woo hoo!! Despite being an upper level room, it wasn't nearly as hot as I would've been expected.

I wanted to check into my hostel as soon as I could, but I wasn't expecting anyone to be awake when my train arrived around six in the morning.

I loved the train station for another reason as well: I found the first of seven Lenin statues in Krasnodar inside the station!! It was a full size statue, much to my surprise. I've seen mosaics of the man in train and bus stations, or even a bust, but this was the first time I saw a full size statue. I was a bit nervous about setting up my tripod to take a photo inside the station (sometimes security officers don't like seeing me get out the tripod,) but it went off without a hitch.

After waiting around a bit, I walked to my hostel, and was able to check in straightaway. It was a cheap hostel, so the bunks wobbled a bit, and there was no airconditioning. I think the family that ran the place lived on the first floor, with the second floor having the dorm rooms. Some of the girls in my room appeared to actually live in the hostel, they weren't just traveling through.

After relaxing for far too long, I finally walked back out the door, heading toward Lenin number two for the day. It was a long hot walk, but easy enough.

From there I passed a quirky monument: a horse made of holiday ornaments. Unique, to say the least.

To get to my next sight I decided to use public transport. I was able to take a bus directly to Krasnodar City Park, which is relatively new. I'm not sure if this area was always a city park, but what is there now was renovated and opened in 2017. It's a big park, with a lot of landscaping, and lots of cute little areas.

I walked all over, finding heaps of spots to take Instagrammy photos, and I definitely wasn't the only one doing so.

I decided to walk from the park back into the city center, to get to a tower designed and built by a Russian engineer called Shukov. I didn't get what was worth seeing in this tower, as it was just a bunch of wires, but he is well enough known that there are several of these towers around the country.

After seeing the tower I figured out public transport to get back to the hostel. Even though I hadn't been outside for all that long, I was still zonked, and crashed early. This kind of heat wears me out, fast, no matter how much I drink every day.

The next day I got moving a bit earlier, heading in the same general direction as the day before. I had a big itinerary on my list for the day, including three more Lenin monuments! After quite a long walk, I got to my first monument, this one was a gold covered head on top of a pedestal.

The monument wasn't particularly exciting, but I really enjoyed the building behind the monument, as it was decorated with tiles like those you often see in Portugal. Beautiful.

Lenin number two was a full size statue painted white on a pedestal. Another boring-ish statue, this time without a redeeming building behind the monument. Oh well. Not far down the street from the man I found a church to visit. I realized I had spotted the church the day before, but hadn't gone inside. There are times when I'm so hot that even though something catches my eye, I'm just too tired to walk a little out of the way I originally planned. 

I decided to take public transport to Lenin number three for the day, but go figure, the tram I wanted to take didn't come for quite a while. If I understood some of the muttering I heard from people around me, there was a wreck somewhere on the line, blocking some tracks for a while. Ugh. I could've started walking, but I was hot, and just didn't want to walk.

When the tram finally came I didn't ride it all the way to the man. I hopped off early when it drove past a building with a huge mosaic mural on one end. I wanted to get closer, and did. It turned out to be part of a local science university, absolutely gorgeous. And huge.

Eventually I did get to the last Lenin of the day, which turned out to be the biggest I'd seen yet. Unfortunately the best framing of the photo was totally backlit, which I didn't love. I suppose that helped cover up some of the sweat pouring off me. This statue was another full size one on a bigger pedestal, in the middle of a small park, surrounded by flowers and benches. (No one was sitting on the benches in the sun, but the shady benches were full.)

I kept walking, following a main road back toward the city center. As I walked I realized the city had a decoration scheme all over the city, in the form of sparkly flags along the streets. There were flags with the Russian tricolor, and the city colours.

As I walked I had to stop to take another photo, because I was standing in front of a shop named after me. As I was packing up my tripod a couple of the employees came out to look at me, I'm sure they were wondering why someone was posing in front of their shop. Hee hee.

Next up was another memorial, this one to the Civil War. After that I saw yet another monument, this one to Empress Elizabeth. She is in the middle of a park, and the fences around the area all have scrollwork with the letter E.

Even though I hadn't wanted to walk earlier in the day, I hit my stride later in the day. The monument to Empress Elizabeth sits at the bottom of Red Street, which I then walked almost the entire length of.

This walk showed me a few more sights of the city, including a GIANT flag on a flagpole.

Even though I couldn't feel all that much wind, there was enough to keep this flag going. Better than the flag were all the people (mostly kids) running through the fountain/splash pad just in front of the flag. If I'd brought a change of clothes, I would've joined them in the water.

Near the northern end of the street there is a gate leading to a park. The park was not amazing, but it was a good place to people watch. I'm pretty sure half the city was at the park I saw the day before, another quarter at one fountain or another, and the last quarter parading along the sidewalks through this park.

Eventually I decided I'd had enough, and found a marshrutka that got me pretty close to my hostel.

The next day I took the elektrichka to Novorosiisk, where I stayed for a couple nights. Then I came back to Krasnodar for a day before catching a night flight.

The elektrichka brought me back to Krasnodar just before 11 in the morning. I stored my bag at the train station, then started walking. Even though this post already mentions seeing five monuments to Lenin, I knew there were at least two more I hadn't yet seen!

The first Lenin of this day wasn't that far from the train station. He is just a random monument, nothing unique at all. Thankfully there was a church near this monument, which was much more interesting to see.

I took a tram to get closer to the second Lenin of the day. He turned out to be standing on an almost nonexistant pedestal, at the end of a random shopping street. When I find monuments like this I always wonder how the placement was chosen.

After finishing the tour de Lenin in Krasnodar, I found a bus stop where I was able to catch a bus to the last area of the city I wanted to explore for the day. There is an 'island' in the middle of the river that runs through one side of the city, and the bus took me close enough.

To get to the island I got to cross a pretty pedestrian bridge, though the river at that point was quite ugly just then. Not much water, so I could see (and smell) a lot of mud and rubbish. The island itself was better, as it had a park, complete with submarine memorial.

For families there were also a few amusement park style rides, and stalls with amusement park style games.

After leaving the island I made my way to another church. Then back to Red Street to go to a bakery and kill time. Though probably somewhat overpriced, the baked goods were yummy and the chairs were comfortable. When the time came I made my way back to the train station to pick up my bag.

It was easy to catch a bus to the airport, check in, fly, and land back in Moscow. Since my flight landed in the middle of the night I slept/dozed in the airport for a while before catching a train back into Moscow.