russia: belogorsk and chita

Our next stop was Belogorsk. We chose it more as a place to get off the train for a few hours than for anything the city offered. During our trip planning we'd looked at a map and this seemed like a decent distance from Khabarovsk.

There is nothing to recommend Belogorsk, absolutely nothing. It's in the middle of nowhere, a relatively small town. The town is so unimportant to the world at large that it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.

We might've been the only tourists the city saw all year.

As we arrived, I looked at my phone to see what was in the city, as well as checking Trip Advisor. One museum was listed, but we were there on a Monday, so it wasn't open.

We opted to find Lenin statues. The first one was on the back side of the train station, just as we got off the train. We hadn't expected him, it was one of the few pros to the city. 

We ended up walking up a dirt track to find the second one. Both google and yandex maps had us going up this hill, but the path looked pretty sketchy, we weren't sure it was the right way until we got to the top, where it joined up with the end of a driveway which met up with a street. 

I would not have considered this a proper place to walk.

We found the man at one side of a patriotic park. I think the building I saw on one side was officers' quarters, I think there are a few military stations around the city, but I'm not sure. There were old tanks on display, as well as a couple other military memorials.

Nearby we saw students practicing marching, which reminded us it was getting close to Victory Day, one of the biggest holidays in the Russian year.

On the way back to the train station we saw an 'I Love Belogorsk' sign. I'm not sure why that was there, as I doubt anyone actually feels that way about the city. That didn't stop us from taking a team photo, as we love city signs as much as we love Lenin statues.

After crossing to the front side of the train station we realized we were pretty close to a store that was a Russian version of a super Walmart, or super Target. Obviously, we went in. We knew we had hours to kill, so why not. We didn't see anything we hadn't seen before, but I love supermarkets, I can wander around for an hour. Or days, or howeva long I need to waste time. 

Heck I'm happy to visit a supermarket even when I have a limited amount of time. 

Across the street we found a random cafe with pizza on the menu. It was greasy, but once I used napkins to soak up some of the grease, it wasn't bad. Plus we used up another 90 minutes of time. We also saw a monument with the profile of Lenin's head, which we counted as Lenin #3 of the city.

It tells you something about Belogorsk when I say that our next stop was another supermarket. This one had some foreign foods, I got a couple flavours of Canadian ginger ale. Yum.

In the city center we could see where the city was preparing for their Victory Day parade. There were red, white, and blue stands set up on one side of the platz. Not far behind the stands we saw one of the few sights of the city: a monument to nice people. It was a chubby police officer who probably tells people where to go more often than solving criminal mysteries :)

More walking brought us to yet another Lenin statue. How does a city this small have three full size Lenin statues, and a Lenin profile on a monument? Why?

In the same park as Lenin was a monument to the victims in a nearby mass grave. I didn't recognize the event causing the mass grave, but I assume it means something to locals. I hope the memorial is visited often. Right next to the memorial was a cross, and a tiny chapel, and plenty of naked trees.

We figured out a way to get to the river that runs along one side of Belogorsk. While it was probably the prettiest place in the entire city, that's not saying much. We could see rubbish in the weeds along both sides of the water, I'm guessing people go fishing regularly. 

Not impressive.

We found another cafe to kill a couple more hours, the food wasn't any better or any worse.

After eating we tried to find a sculpture dedicated to the bottom feeder fish of the rivers, it was ugly as all get out. No thank you.

At that point we went back to the train station, picking up snacks nearby.

The next bit of our trip was also a bit of a splurge. We booked beds in kupe, which is 2^nd class. There were four beds in the kupe, we had our cabin to ourselves the whole time. 

We were on the train for two nights and a day, before arriving in our next town. Our train tickets included lunch, but it was less than impressive. Thank goodness we'd brought snacks with us :)

We arrived on time in Chita, our next destination. Chita is another city without much reason to visit. 

Chita has 325,000 people, though it doesn't feel that big. The Cossacks founded the city in 1653, and it was one of the places the Decembrists were sent into exile in 1825. 

The guidebook says there is a large military garrison in the area, but there are no major sights to see.

As our train arrived at 0430, we hung out in the train station for a bit. When we left the train station we saw our first sights immediately, as they were across the street. We saw a statue of Alexander Nevsky, as well as a big blue church.

The big blue church was the Kazan Cathedral, it still had a couple giant easter eggs out front. The inside of the church wasn't impressive, but it was a nice minute of quiet.

Not far from the church was Lenin Square. Like Khabarovsk, this was the main square in town. The city of Chita was in full prep mode for the Victory Day events the next day. There was a stage set up on one side, some groups were rehearsing performances. There were more red, white, and blue stands set up next to what was probably the parade route.

Not too far away was a Lenin statue. Since it was still early in the day there weren't too many people around, so we took our team photo.

From there it was a bit of a walk to the flat we'd booked. We got there and called the number listed with the booking, only to find out we had to check in at a hotel in the city center. Sigh. We called a taxi, so we didn't have to walk for an hour.

The address of the flat was correct, the hotel gave us the key and took us over there to show us how to get into the flat. Sigh. We were annoyed that this information wasn't in the booking. Argh. At least the flat was all right. Warm, with good wifi.

There was a bus stop less than a block away from the entrance to the flat, so we caught a bus to a museum. This one honoured the Decembrists, a group of military officers and minor nobles who tried to force reforms in the country. It didn't go over well, of course.

The museum tried to charge us a foreigner price, we refused that. Especially because it was not big, there was no English, and there was an extra photo fee. We chose not to pay the photo fee, I'm glad we didn't. The best part of the museum was the building in which it was located, which was an old wooden church.

We only had to walk 10 minutes or so to get to the monument to Love and Faith. Either a ceremony or proposal had taken here recently, there were still flower petals all over the ground. We got the timing right to use them to take one of our most epic team photos.

From there we called another taxi to get to our next sight: a Buddhist temple on the edge of town. Chita isn't huge, but we wanted to get there before it closed to visitors, and weren't in the mood for a lot more walking.

The temple was exactly what I remembered from previous Buddhist temples. Very colourful inside, big front gate prayer flags in a few places. 

Absolutely lovely and sooo different from what most people think of when they think of Russia.

While we were inside the temple we realized some of the monks were making a mandala with coloured sand. I really wanted to take photos of the process, but I decided it would just have to be a memory in our heads. After the temple itself we stopped in the small cafe on the property for a snack of boozy, which are basically giant dumplings.

We had dinner at a branch of shokoladnitsa in the city center. The chain is all over the country, so we knew exactly what we were getting.

Nothing exciting. We stopped at a supermarket for snacks and breakfast food before catching the bus back to the flat.

The next morning we packed up, and were about to leave before realizing we could see the very end of the Victory Day parade from our windows. Since Claire and I had seen the parade in Moscow the year before we knew what was coming, but it was still neat to see. Since there is such a military presence in the Chita area I imagine it wasn't that hard to bring a lot of tanks to the city.

After the parade we called the hotel, they sent the cleaners to the flat to make sure we hadn't destroyed the flat. Then we had to take a taxi back to the hotel itself to turn in the key. A very annoying process, but they gave us each a free city magnet

. From there we went back to the train station to drop our bags at luggage storage. Finding luggage storage wasn't easy, it was on the outside of the back side of the station. We were able to put all our bags in one locker, and choose a code, which I wrote on my hand in pen, so it wouldn't be forgotten.

The main post office of the city had a 0 kilometer marker in front, which seemed like a good place for a team photo.

Even though the parade was finished, the city was not finished with celebrating the holiday. As we walked around the city center we saw the entire city out walking around. Loud music in a few places, some traditional dancing, etc...

We decided to visit the Park of Leisure and Culture, which was jam packed with people. There was another Lenin statue in there, this one painted an ugly yellow gold. It's not his best colour. 

There were also tanks, a plane, a small amusement park, and a couple cafes. Kids and families everywhere.

The park was behind the War Museum, which was free for the day. Apparently Russians only go to museums on free days, because it was full. At least the city was ready for the crowds, because there were volunteers in various places throughout the museum to keep kids from touching things, remind people not to go behind the barriers, etc... I generally like history museums, but not with that many people all around me.

We opted for a late lunch at an Italian place. The decoration was super kitschy, but the food was good and decently priced. It's entirely possible that I ordered too much ;)

Next up was a marshrutka ride, out to Park Pobedy (Victory Park,) to see the big WW2 memorial. Unfortunately I had us board a marshrutka going in the opposite direction, so we ended up with an unintended tour of the other side of the city and small village a few kilometers away. Whoops. Thankfully it was easy to catch the next one, which went where we wanted to go.

The WW2 memorial was indeed big. Tanks in one area, pillars with the years written, plaques with names carved, etc... There were mentions of all the hero cities, as well as an eternal flame.

There was a green area blocked off, and I think we saw soldiers setting up fireworks for an evening show. Unfortunately we had to leave before the show started.

Thankfully I got us on the right bus going back to the train station. We had some time to kill there, but it wasn't a problem to find a place to sit. As usual, the train departed exactly on time.

I really really doubt I'll go back to Chita or Belogorsk.

russia: khabarovsk

The train ride from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk was long, about 12 hours. Thankfully I love night trains, and the girls tolerate them because they're so convenient.

Wikipedia tells me Khabarovsk is bigger than Vladivostok, but the number of residents given is smaller than the number for Vladivostok, so I don't know. Wikipedia says Khabarovsk has a bit over 575,000 people.

Though there was habitation (mostly military forts with their soldiers,) in the area as early as the 17^th century, the official founding date of the city is 1858.

 That date doesn't seem to acknowledge that the area was part of China for centuries before, so the history seems rather confusing to me.

When Claire booked our accomodation she booked a place on the backside of the train station. Before realizing that we walked out the front and took a team photo with the statue of Khabarov, after whom the city is named. (Duh.)

Khabarov was a Russian entrepreneur and adventurer, one of the early explorers of the area, he did his best to claim it for Russia.

Getting to the hostel was interesting, I'm not sure anyone there had seen a foreigner previously. They seemed dumbfounded to have us there, both in the hostel itself, as well as in the city in general.

It was easy enough to walk back to the pedestrian bridge over the train station, to get to the city center. It was a warm day, we were all in short sleeves. (Little did we know this would be the last warm day of our trip.)

With the nice weather we decided to get ice cream. There were a few ice cream stands around, we chose a random one. When you buy food in Russia there is usually a serving size listed in addition to the price. They don't usually weigh the ice cream, but this lady did. Serving size was 50 grams, but her scoops were nearly 100 grams, and we paid accordingly. 

I hate that, I'd rather have smaller scoops, but I didn't feel like it was an option to tell her to put some back.

In a park area through which we walked we saw a bunch of zodiac sign statues. It was fun to look at each of them and figure out which one it was. I'm terrible at zodiac anything, I failed miserably at this game.

The main city square is called Lenin Square, but the statue of the man is actually on the sidewalk across the street on one side of the platz. Rather difficult to get a decent team photo. On another side was the city duma, a boring building as usual.

There was a fountain in the middle of the platz, the spritzing water felt really good. If we could've carried it with us I would've been happy.

As we walked down another street I noticed we were walking past a cupcake shop, it seemed like a good place to stop. Who am I to turn down cupcakes? The frosting wasn't all that good, but the flavours were exactly what they should've been. Yum.

We found Komsomol Square next, it wasn't much of a platz. 

A tall monument stands in one corner, there is a church in another corner, and a small gathering of souvenir stalls near the monument. The outside of the church was pretty, the inside felt smaller than I'd expected. Tall ceilings, but a narrow room.

On the other side of the church was a city of military glory stelae. I'd love to see all of these around the country, but I don't think that's possible. Taking a good photo of this one wasn't possible as it was backlit by the sun. That being said, we didn't find it worth coming back at a different time of day to get better photos. 

Our next sight was the regional history museum. A typical museum, we've seen a number of these all over the country. I have to admit I don't pay much attention to the geologic sections, nor the flora and fauna exhibits. I definitely prefer the sections with pictures and dioramas of human life from the past century or two.

The museum was pretty big. It was spread out over two buildings, on two floors in each building. There was no English, but plenty of exhibits, so we were happy.

Hands down the best part of this museum was a temporary exhibit of carpets. CARPETS! 

More than one of them had faces of Stalin and/or Lenin, as well as other people important in Russian history. We loved them all. The ones that stick in my head are a tractor going through a field of wheat, andone with a whole bunch of sailors.

After the museum we walked toward the river, to see what the city had done with the embankment. As we got there we realized a water tanker plane was making loops in the area. Picking up water, flying over to the woods, dumping the water on the fire, repeat. Really impressive.

The beach area down by the river was not great. I can usually handle any beach, but I wouldn't want to spend time on this one.

After walking for a bit, we followed a big set of stairs to get back up to the city. I'm way out of shape, we stopped more than once for me to catch my breath.

Next up was dessert. Totally unnecessary, but quite tasty. After that we were tired, so we figured out where to catch a bus back to our room. Thankfully there was a supermarket nearby, so we were able to get dinner supplies. I wanted and found frozen vegetables.

The next morning we followed our routine of waking up slowly, packing up and checking out. We walked back to the train station to drop our bags, then headed in the same direction as the day before.

Almost immediately we realized the fire we'd seen the day before was having massive effects on the air quality that day. Everything was hazy, though there were no clouds to be seen. There was also a slight smell of fire everywhere we went. We didn't know whether the first was still going strong, or if all the water from the plane the day before had done what it was supposed to. Khabarovsk is also built on a few hills, we had to go down and up to get to the first thing we wanted to see, a church. The church sits on one side of a big platz, it's a nice view of the whole building. It looked pretty new, with a white exterior and gold domes. 

The inside was rather plain, not much in the way of frescoes.

On another side of the platz was a big war memorial. Very big. Impossible to get the whole thing in a single picture frame. There were tall 'pages' with names, as well as an eternal flame. Quite impressive, and definitely worth a few minutes of silence. Over history Russia has sacrificed so many of its people in various wars.

We walked down the hill, and found our way back to the embankment we'd walked yesterday. Not too far along we found the same steps we'd climbed yesterday, we climbed them again. 

This time we stepped off on one of the side trails, and followed it to a statue of Nikolai Muravyov-Amursky, who is on one side of the 5000 ruble note.

Muravyov-Amursky was a Russian general and diplomat, quite important in the early exploration of the region, he was a part of expanding the Russian empire to the Amur basin. Perfect for a team photo, of course.

Since we hadn't spent much money in Khabarovsk, and didn't think we'd be spending much for the next couple stops, we decided to splurge a bit on dinner. We went to a place called Meetmeat, a steak place. I have to admit, it was nice to have good food, a comfortable place to sit, and a nice atmosphere.

From dinner it was easy to catch a bus to the train station, stocking up on snacks at a nearby store. We picked up our bags, boarded our train, and took off.

I doubt I'll come back to Khabarovsk, though there is an airport there, so it might be convenient as a launching point for other spots further north and northeast.

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.