Other sights in Russia
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Antique Automobile Museum
If you’re a bit of a car (or Soviet) nerd, the newish Antique Automobile Museum – stranded under the smoke of a nearby factory in east Vladivostok – is an absolute classic. A room full of Sovietmobiles (motorcycles, too) from the 1930s to 1970s, includes a 1948 M&M-green GAZ-20 ‘Pobeda’ (Victory). If they start selling reproductions of the poster with an acrobat on a motorcycle holding a Stalin flag, send us one, please! Take bus 31 along ul Svetlanskaya and exit after it reaches ul Borisenko’s end.
reviewed
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Ethnographic Museum
In a forest clearing 6km from central Ulan-Ude is the worthwhile Ethnographic Museum, an outdoor collection of local architecture plus some reconstructed burial mounds and the odd stone totem. Although lacking the pretty lakeside setting of equivalents in Bratsk and Irkutsk, it features occasional craft demonstrations, has a splendid wooden church and sports a whole strip of Old Believers’ homesteads. Marshrutka 8 from pl Sovetov passes within 1km and upon request will detour to drop you at the door for no extra charge.
reviewed
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A
Perm State Art Gallery
Housed in the grand Cathedral of Christ Transfiguration on the banks of the Kama, the Perm State Art Gallery is renowned for its collection of Permian wooden sculpture. These brightly coloured figures are a product of an uneasy compromise between Christian missionaries and the native Finno-Ugric population. The latter, while agreeing to be converted, closely identified the Christian saints these sculptures depict with their ancient gods and treated them as such eg by smearing their lips with the blood of sacrificed animals.
reviewed
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B
Summer Palace
St Petersburg’s first palace is the modest, two-storey Summer Palace in the summer garden’s northeast corner. Built for Peter from 1710 to 1714, it is pretty well intact with little reliefs around the walls depicting Russian naval victories. Inside it’s stocked with early-18th-century furnishings of limited appeal.
reviewed
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C
Samara Art Museum
The Samara Art Museum exhibits mainly Russian art, including works by artists who came to the region to paint. Look for Boyarishina, given by Surikov to a local doctor who treated him when he fell ill. The museum also holds an impressive collection of early Malevich.
reviewed
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D
Lutheran Church
Reminiscent of a medieval German basilica, the Lutheran Church was built by a growing German population, who settled here from the 1760s under Catherine the Great’s agricultural development program. This church often hosts concerts on Sunday afternoons.
reviewed
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Geological Museum
The town’s neat, widely spaced concrete-block architecture is hardly an attraction, but there’s a new, central Geological Museum
reviewed
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E
Alabin Museum
The massive Alabin Museum has exhibits on regional palaeontology and archaeology, including dinosaur fossils found in the Zhiguli Hills.
reviewed
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Ferapontovo Monastery
The well-preserved 1398 Ferapontovo Monastery was largely rebuilt in 1640 and a museum since 1924, the monastery retains its famed 1502 frescoes, painted by medieval superstar-artist Dionysius. He reputedly did the whole lot in an amazingly quick 34 days. They do indeed look rather hurried but that didn’t stop Unesco giving them World Heritage status in 2000. Note that, to protect them, the museum closes on humid days. The ticket also allows access to three other display rooms including a vaulted chamber with an ethnographic section dominated by a remarkable collection of decorated pryalky (L-shaped wool-carding paddles). A separate ticket (adult/pensioner/student/child…
reviewed
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Fortress
Everything of interest lies along the main street Volkhovsky pr. The highlight is the fortress at the southern end of the village and with an excellent view along the river. Within its partially ruined 7m-thick walls you’ll find the stone St George’sChurch, only open May to October, to protect the delicate 12th-century frescos still visible on its walls, and the cute wooden Church of Dimitri Solun. Inside the fortress’ main tower is the Historical-Architectural & Archaeological Museum housing an interesting retrospective of the area’s history, including a scale model of how the fortress once looked, items found on archaeological digs and English explanations.
reviewed
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Lindstrem’s Dacha
Opposite the entrance to the palace and scoring high on the modern kitsch factor is Lindstrem’s Dacha, once the home of the Grand Duke’s doctor Peter I von Lindstrem. Restored for the 2005 G8 summit, the modest-sized building was used by Putin to entertain his opposite numbers and their wives. One can only wonder what they thought of the garish nouveaux Russe interior, which has since been supplemented by a small shrine to all things Putin including a chance to have a three-minute audience with a life-sized hologram of the former prez. The stairwell is hung with a massive portrait of the G8 leaders, including Silvio Berlesconi rather than Romano Prodi, who was actually …
reviewed
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Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam
The vastly more impressive Sayano- Shushenskaya Dam, Russia’s biggest and the world’s fourth in terms of energy production, is 15km further south. Privatised in 1993, it cunningly survived a recent renationalisation battle with the Khakassian government by nominally ‘relocating’ itself in Krasnoyarsk territory. No physical move was needed as the dam straddles the provincial border. To join by-appointment Russian-language tours of the dam’s turbine rooms you’ll need copies of your passport, visa and registration plus an invitation letter arranged by a local hotel or Sayanogorsk agency. Expect to wait around three days for permission to come through.
reviewed
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Petrodvorets
It’s a tough call, but the gilded fountains and gardens of Petrodvorets give it a slight edge over St Petersburg’s other suburban palace. Hugging the Gulf of Finland,29km west of St Petersburg, this ‘Russian Versailles’ is a far cry from the original cabin Peter the Great had built here to oversee construction of the Kronshtadt naval base. He liked the place so much he built a villa, Monplaisir, and then a whole series of palaces across an estate originally called Peterhof (pronounced Petergof), which has been called Petrodvorets (Peter’s Palace) since 1944. All are surrounded by leafy gardens and a spectacular ensemble of gravity-powered fountains.
reviewed
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Sakhalin Regional Museum
The pagoda-roofed Sakhalin Regional Museum has a 21st-century exhibit exploring the Japanese/Soviet overlap of the city’s history, typified by the building itself, which served as the home of the Karafuto administration before the Soviets seized the island from the Japanese in 1945. The 1st floor is full of much older exhibits, including realised dreams of taxidermy and some fascinating Aino artifacts and photos from back before the original south Sakhalin inhabits fled to Japan. The front gardens are a popular sitting area for locals, as are the armoured vehicles next to a jet fighter at the old Officers’ Club (Dom Ofitserov), a block east.
reviewed
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F
Museum of Diplomatic Corps
This unusual two-room museum chronicles a little-known blip in WWI history. In February 1918, with the Germans approaching Petrograd, Allied ambassadors were ordered to evacuate. US ambassador David Francis suggested simply relocating. Studying a map, he chose Vologda. Other embassies followed his lead, the French, Italian and Serbian ministries sharing a luxury rail carriage parked in Vologda station. That proved handy since in July all the embassies decamped again to Arkhangelsk. The eclectic and impressively researched exhibit has some notes in English and is housed in the former US embassy, a tired if once-grand timber house with a four-pillar wooden portico.
reviewed
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Museum of Volga People’s Architecture & Culture
The open-air Museum of Volga People’s Architecture & Culture has a pleasant woodland setting and a collection of traditional wooden buildings from Russian and Mordva (a Finno-Ugric people) villages. Young history enthusiasts stage colourful celebrations of five main village holidays a year. That involves a lot of singing and dancing, as well as teaching Russian visitors their forgotten rituals originating from Slavic paganism. Dates vary, so check with the staff if this might happen during your stay. The museum is located in the remote Shchelokovsky Khutor park, which is the final stop of bus 28 (every hour), which passes ul Belinskogo in the centre.
reviewed
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G
Dostoevsky House
The simple, two-storey Dostoevsky House on the small Pererititsa River is now open as a museum. The house never left the family’s possession before becoming a museum, and some original pieces remain. Dostoevsky’s desk has copies from his mazelike drafts, and you can see his doodlings on the pages. His bookcase holds books from the period, and his wife’s bedroom still contains her bed and chest. A keyboard instrument that Dostoevsky supposedly tinkered with sits by a window overlooking the river. You can take a tour in Russian, or do a self-guided tour using the English-language handout available at the ticket office.
reviewed
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Flat
Just west of the square, across the Griboedova Canal, is the flat where the peripatetic writer (he occupied around 20 residences in his 28-year stay in the city) wrote Crime and Punishment; the route taken by the novel’s antihero Raskolnikov to murder the old woman moneylender passed directly under the author’s window. The old woman lived at flat 74, naberezhnaya kanala Griboedova 104; you can visit the hallway outside the flat (residents are quite used to it). Entering from the canal side, walk straight back to entrance No 5 (apartments 22–81); the flat’s on the 3rd floor.
reviewed
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Architecture Museum
The pretty village of Nizhnyaya Sinyachikha, about 150km northeast of Yekaterinburg and 12km north of the town of Alapaevsk, is home to an open-air Architecture Museum. Here there are 15 traditional Siberian log buildings, featuring displays of period furniture, tools and domestic articles. The stone cathedral houses a collection of regional folk art, which is one of the best of its kind. This impressive grouping of art and architecture was gathered from around the Urals and recompiled by the single-handed efforts of Ivan Samoylov, an enthusiastic local historian. Three buses a day go to Alapaevsk (R160, 3½ hours).
reviewed
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Taltsy
About 47km east of Irkutsk, 23km before Listvyanka, Taltsy is an impressive outdoor collection of old Siberian buildings set in a delightful riverside forest. Amid the renovated farmsteads are two chapels, a church, a watermill, some Evenki graves and the eye-catching 17th-century Iliminsk Ostrog watchtower. Listvyanka–Irkutsk buses and marshrutky stop on request at Taltsy’s entrance (look out for the roadside ‘ Музей’ sign), and the ticket booth is a minute’s walk through the forest.
reviewed
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Nizhnesvirsky Nature Reserve
On the southeastern shore of Lake Ladoga, the 416 sq km Nizhnesvirsky Nature Reserve, 240km from St Petersburg, is an important stopover for migratory birds and home to a variety of animals, among them the Lake Ladoga ringed seal, a freshwater subspecies particular to the area. Arrangements to visit the reserve can be made directly, or through the American Association for the Support of Ecological Initiatives (AASEI). In St Petersburg call the AASEI’s local branch ADONIS, or contact the US headquarters.
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Military Museum
The dry, Russian-language-only Military Museum is only for those with a passion for Eastern Siberia’s military history, though it does contain some semi-interesting exhibits on Beketov’s Cossacks, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and communist repressions. Each of the six floors bristles with weapons, and the museum’s collection of tanks and artillery can be seen by walking up the passage between the museum and the impressive Officers’ Club building next door.
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Pskov State Museum
The Pskov State Museum, located near the entrance to the kremlin, is a spartan collection of archaeological finds from the Old Town. The first floor contains displays include knives, jewellery and old keys dating back to the settlement’s earliest days when Scandinavian Vikings lived in the area. An attached room has revolving displays by local artists. A second exhibit upstairs, the fairly dry Chancery Chamber, presents old documents on the administration of Pskov during the 17th century.
reviewed
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J
Gostiny Dvor
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Arkhan-gelsk’s raison d’être was the Gostiny Dvor, a grand, turreted brick trading centre built between 1668 and 1684. Luxurious European textiles, satin and velvet arrived here while flax, hemp, wax and timber for ships’ masts were exported. The once-huge complex is now only a shadow of its former self but some partly restored sections host exhibition rooms that usually have a couple of worthwhile historical and/or art displays.
reviewed
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Superdeep Borehole
Unappealing Zapolyarnye is the site of the world’s deepest artificial hole. The superdeep borehole, 12km deep but only 14cm in diameter at its widest point, started as a seismological experiment aiming to investigate conduction of sound waves at depth. A newer, wider hole has now reached over 8km, and sceptical geologists are curious to see if drillers can make it as far as the earth’s mantle (16km). A sample rock-disk from the borehole can be seen at the Mineralogy Collection in Apatity.
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