After my visit to Cheboskary, Anna and her friends decided to take me to a small nearby city called Yoshkar-Ola.
Upon arrival, I realized I had finally veered off the beaten path. This was the first city in Russia which the banks did not advertise international exchange rates for currency.
Yoshkar-Ola still has a standing Kremlin. Although small and simple, it still stands as a monument to a by-gone era.
View from inside the Kremlin.
Big cannon inside the Kremlin!
The city center is an area that draws inspiration and recreates many of Russia’s architectural wonders. There are elements of the Moscow Kremlin, Cathedrals (particularly Church on the Spilled Blood in Saint Petersburg), the Palace Embankment, and other examples I was less familiar with. My friends described it as almost being in an amusement park, like Disneyland. I took a bit more of an optimistic view. I felt it was likely this area had a strong Soviet look or perhaps an industrial feel to it and was redeveloped to a nicer aesthetic.
The Main Gate reminds me of a tower of the Moscow Kremlin.
This reminded me of Church on the Spilled Blood in Saint Petersburg.
This is similar to the Palace Embankment in Saint Petersburg.
A closer look at some of the buildings on the embankment.
Also, the most rewarding part of the visit was to see a clock tower show. I had not actually seen anything written about it while I was doing my own reading about the city! I would have missed it had it not been for her Anna and her friends. They are called the Mari Chimes and they represent the story of a special religious Icon that was smuggled out of its original home by a donkey to this region!
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There is also a cat sculpture. I appreciated its carefree pose and like many statues, rubbing it leads to good fortune and I joined in this tradition 🙂
Cat Sculpture
After we returned to Cheboksary, I was taken to a Soviet Era restaurant, named Comrades, which still maintained much of its decor from that era. I can not imagine every restaurant looking this way in the past!
Inside lobby of the restaurant.
// Oliver