Over the past five years, thanks to the Western European-style neighborhoods built here, Yoshkar-Ola has transformed from an uninteresting backwater into a fairly popular and well-known destination among travelers, and is slowly becoming a staple of blogs.
At first, life-size models of the Spasskaya Tower, the Bruges embankments, and Dutch courtyards, along with a square Kremlin, a monument to Grace Kelly, and Christ riding a donkey, sparked heated debate about both the funding sources for this entire construction project and the aesthetic value of the result. Regardless of the specific opinions, the effect was achieved: Yoshkar-Ola became known, and people with cameras and money flocked to it.
Besides this Disneyland, the city boasts numerous interesting Stalin-era buildings, as well as a complete lack of landscaping that is outrageous even by the standards of the 1990s, outrageous even for the scale of the construction.
Our walk couldn't have started better—along the far end of Pobeda Boulevard. I'll show you the boulevard itself in other parts. The key thing is that it begins with the typical Yoshkar-Ola neighborhoods of barracks and Stalin-era buildings. Only as we walked, right at the end of the boulevard, did we begin to discern the silhouette of the Spasskaya Tower. Most of the people on the walk (despite my warnings) were stunned and suffered from cognitive dissonance:
The area behind the Spasskaya (officially Annunciation) Tower, where we began our walk through the new city center, has its own name: Republic and Blessed Virgin Mary Square. The decision to name the Virgin Mary in a Catholic manner was apparently part of the overall pro-European style of this part of the city.
The Dutch-style houses on this square are inexplicably called the "Arkhangelskaya Sloboda" microdistrict. It sounds distinctly Russian, but the explanation is simple: it's named after the Archangel Gabriel, who stands in the middle of the fountain in the previous photo.
All these crazy new buildings are made of painted brick. In some places, it's downright jarring—the brick is new, smooth, and even, unlike the original European buildings, where each brick has a unique shape due to its irregularities and cracks.
In some places the paint had already peeled off the bricks by the time we walked, so it’s better to admire all this splendor from a little distance.
Our trip took place in May 2013. Much has probably changed in the past eighteen months, but back then the space between the Dutch houses was quite empty and lifeless.
Besides the buildings, the monuments here are also striking. A small park near the embankment houses a sculpture of Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, "the Magnificent." He was a Florentine statesman and the leader of the Florentine Republic during the Renaissance. The park and sculpture are meant to symbolize the rebirth of the Mari El Republic, including its artistic and philanthropic roots.
If a bust of Railway Commissioner Stepan Terentievich Kovylkin were placed next to the Medici Magnificent, the wow effect might be even more powerful…
The Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been under construction on the square since 2007. It is intended to resemble St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow and the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg. A monument to the Virgin Mary stands next to it, but it's not included in the photo. Together with the Archangel Gabriel (pictured in photo #2), they are intended to symbolize the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel informed the Virgin Mary of her future birth of Jesus.
From Arkhangelskaya Sloboda, we emerge onto the banks of Yoshkar-Ola's main river, the Malaya Kokshaga. Immediately, we see a long, unified façade of European-style buildings lining the shore. This is the Bruges Embankment (its official name), the most famous part of Yoshkar-Ola's Europe.
The reasons for transforming Yoshkar-Ola into such a tourist attraction are never officially disclosed. It's all part of a plan to improve the urban environment. There's an unofficial theory that the head of the republic, Leonid Markelov, is an avid traveler and decided to incorporate the best of what he saw on his travels into the capital of the republic he controls.
It's difficult to say how true this is. The Yoshkar-Ola new building, like the head of the republic, has become shrouded in a certain layer of legend and speculation, making it difficult to separate truth from fiction.
The city is quite lively, despite its population of just over 250,000. The streets are crowded, cars and vehicles scurry, and commerce is underway. However, all this applies more to the "old" part of the city (in this post, I'll use this term to refer to everything outside the new buildings). Here, in an oasis of eclecticism and brick replicas, there are relatively few people.
Those strolling through the "new" part are mostly tourists or employees of the businesses located there. The locals I spoke with strongly disliked their new center. It's easy to understand—the main part of the city, where people live and work, is in such a neglected and unsightly state that, imagining the huge sums of money invested here, you can't help but hate all those Brussels mansions and Bruges embankments.
Some buildings are clad in marble. While it's brand new and shiny as a penny, it only spoils the look—it gives off the air of a cheap shopping mall somewhere on the outskirts. On the other hand, when all these walls, both brick and marble, age a little, absorb dust, and become worn, they'll look quite nice. As long as they don't peel, of course.
Yoshkar-Ola continues to deliver surprises. Opposite the registry office on the Bruges embankment, a monument to Prince Rainier III of Monaco and his wife, actress Grace Kelly, stands. It's meant to symbolize marital love and fidelity. I learned of the existence of such people from this monument—the monarchs of this tiny state had previously held little interest. They've probably never visited Russia, much less Yoshkar-Ola. Compared to them, Medici the Magnificent would probably look the other way.
In light of deteriorating relations with the West, this monument already looks controversial, to put it mildly. If they really wanted to illustrate love and fidelity with famous figures, they could have chosen, for example, Valeria and Iosif Prigozhin.
The workers at the local brick factory haven't been left without work. Not only the newly built city center, but also many ordinary buildings on the outskirts, are built entirely from bricks of two or three distinctive shades. Something similar has already been seen in Kovylkino, Mordovia, but in Yoshkar-Ola, the scale of brick overload is simply staggering.
A house on the Bruges embankment with 13 Christian-themed figurines on its façade. These aren't the apostles or Jesus, as one might expect, but rather, apparently, local religious figures—the first Kazan Archbishop Guriy, the compiler of the Mari grammar, Veniamin, and others.
This is what the buildings on the embankment look like from the other side. It's a typical working-class Yoshkar-Ola street with nine-story buildings. Judging by the installed streetlights, they're planning to improve this part as well. I hope the city planners' zeal doesn't stop there and they'll see the project through to completion:
A boarding school for gifted children, housed in one of the buildings on the embankment, is surrounded by a fence with a turret, seemingly stolen from the Yoshkar-Ola Kremlin (see below) and scaled down. Here, the mixture of styles goes beyond all conceivable limits—a Flemish house is guarded by a dwarf Russian tower:
Perhaps the most serious flaw in this project is the lack of greenery. Trees and shrubs would have perfectly filled the empty gray spaces, brightened the already attractive views, provided shade for strollers, humidified the air, and created harmony in a scene dominated by concrete and brick.
Almost all the buildings on the Bruges embankment are occupied by various government agencies. Besides the civil registry office and the boarding school, there are five other republic ministries here. It's good that these buildings won't remain empty decorations. But given the city's tourism focus, it would be nice to add a couple of cafes and restaurants, a hotel, and perhaps a tourist information center. I think the tourist flow to Yoshkar-Ola will only increase from now on, and we've been having trouble finding hotels since 2013.
Perhaps I've started too abruptly, but my attitude toward the new Yoshkar-Ola is still largely positive. At the very least, I can't imagine another Russian city offering such a powerful break with convention and, as a result, such a diverse range of experiences. It's no secret that Yoshkar-Ola was once a more than a little dull and uninteresting place. Today, the city has a distinct personality and a distinctive look. It's a bit unexpected, but intriguing and memorable.
A fascinating monument to Elizabeth Petrovna stands on the façade of the boarding school—a young woman on horseback, in motion. Originality has been a welcome addition here:
The Republican Puppet Theater, which perfectly suits the magic castle style, is now completed, open, and hosting performances.
Source: travel.ru
