Ulan-Ude (June 19-20, 2019) #6

Ulan-Ude (ooh-LAN ooh-DAY) is our third city in the Russian Far East, and this one is special.  This is the centre of the last remnant of the Mongols, they of Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde, THOSE Mongols.  They once held what was probably the largest empire in the history of the world, but all things must pass and the Chinese pushed them west, the Ottomans pushed them north, and the Russians pushed them east until all they held was this area.  Then Peter the Great sent the Cossacks to the Pacific and that was the end of the Mongol Empire.  These days they are known as Buryats, and they ride Kias instead of shaggy ponies, and they are just as Russian as all the other Russians, but they still LOOK like Mongols.  And their history, culture, and architecture is very much alive.  A very interesting city indeed! It was a closed city until the 1980's due to its secret military plants. Apparently there are still mysterious blank spaces on city maps.

Coming out of the station after 48 hours on the train was the usual mayhem, but eventually the ducks all lined up and we arrived in our cab to - where exactly?  The cab driver couldn't seem to get us there.  Turns out our apartment is on the Arbat, which is a pedestrian-only street so you can't drive to the front of the building, and he was trying to find the right courtyard for our building, and of course there weren't any building numbers because its Russia.  Eventually our very nice host came out of the back of one of the buildings and put the cab driver out of his misery and led us to our apartment.

There are two flavors of apartment buildings in today's Russia; the old Soviet buildings and the new Russian ones.  This was our first of the old Soviet ones.  Only 2 flights of stairs.   The outside door looked like something out of a former crack house, but when our host opened it with a key fob and led us inside we immediately downgraded the place.  After climbing the cracked stairs in the dark unpainted stairwell we arrived at a massive steel door designed to make the KGB send back to the office for a cutting torch.  She then brandished an enormous key that would have been perfectly at home in a medieval dungeon, showed us how to turn it twice completely around in the lock, and then opened the door to reveal - another door.

This one, happily, was just a door, and it opened to reveal - a very nice apartment!  That was a pretty weird experience, but perfectly normal for these older Soviet buildings.  The hosts have converted the apartments into surprisingly nice places, but you would never know that until you get into the third door as no one is spending money on the stairwells.

If you see this roll of toilet paper, drop everything and find the closest store.

The tub is VERY deep and a bit tricky getting in and out.

Our apartment is very nice; two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, and bath, and we have a second floor balcony right over the Arbat with some big trees right in front of us.  There were street musicians playing very good music just outside, and our host assured us that they always stop by 10 pm.  We can do this!

Looking left onto the Arbat off our balcony.

Looking right. The Arbat is a wonderful area to stay

These dudes were from Brazil.

These 2 were right under our balcony and thank goodness we liked the music they played.

One of many statues on the Arbat.

The pigeons were well fed and entertained the young and old..but, keep your street food covered.

Ulan-Ude isn't a tourist city by any means, there aren't a lot of people flogging tours and there's no Ho Ho Bus, but Deb found the Tourist Information Centre and the very nice lady there filled us in on a ton of things to see and do.  And we spent the next two days just walking around and seeing stuff.  The city doesn't have the same energy as Khabarovsk or Vladivostok; it feels just a bit laid-back and a tiny bit shabby, but it's a fascinating mix of old and new.  Lots of historic wooden buildings with wonderful gingerbread trim right smack beside modern office complexes.

The old.  Lots of this type of building around, festooned with gingerbread and sporting a strong Chinese influence in roof-lines, cornices, etc.

Lovely older commercial building.  The building lines and colours and the trees just go together so well!

And the new.  That pointy thing on top is a traditional Buryat hat.

The city has a river-walk, but it is very different than the one in Khabarovsk.  This one is completely undeveloped and everything between the river and the walkway continues to be shaped by nature.  Lots of fishermen, lots of birds!  The main river here is the Selenga, which is the main contributor to Lake Baikal.

And as we walked along, what did we come across but an archery range!  Archery is still a big deal here, it's a cultural thing with Buryats like curling is in Canada.

Judging from the number of butts, archery is VERY popular here!

These young ladies are shooting modern adaptations of the traditional Mongolian horse long-bow, and they know what they are doing.

This is one of their targets.  Not bad for 50 meters with a recurve!  I don't know many active hunters and shooters who can shoot this well with a recurve...

On the way home we found a shopping mall, and who among us hasn't wasted a couple hours prowling the mall?  It looked surprising like a shopping mall, with the lower floor dedicated to niche shops and the upper floor a multiplex theatre, arcade, and kids entertainment and shopping.

Kids play area with one of the kids.

 A pretty cool mural on the side of a building..with a real car parked beside it

The next day we set out to find the Regional Museum as the one in Khabarovsk was so cool we wanted to try another.  On the way there we stumbled across the Opera House and Lenin's Head (that doesn't sound right...), which was a Good Thing as the museum was farther away than Steve thought (this is becoming a pattern), remarkably hard to locate, and of course there was a 6-lane highway between us and the probably location of the alleged museum.  If it wasn't for Google Maps we'd still be wandering around the city.

This was absolutely stunning!!! I would have paid big bucks to take this home with me. It is not painted, it is the hide of some animal, with the etching off  of the natural hair. Might not look much in a photo, but it was one of the best pieces of art I have ever seen.

 This guy was seriously scary but pretty impressive. He is Shanlon, is a wrathful guardian of the "Four Tantra's" of Medicine, on of the protective Deities of Buddhism. The Deity is seated on a lotus with a jewel and a vessel with the immortality of elixir.

 The Lenin Head:  IMPRESSIVE.   This is Ulan-Ude's main square and is entirely dominated by the worlds largest Lenin head. The head is 7.7 m high (25'), bronze, and was installed in 1970 to celebrate Lenin's 100th birthday.                   

Locally it is also known as "the world's biggest Jewish head" although not for religious reasons.  Each winter when snow falls on the head it sticks to the top, creating what appears to be a sort of snow-yarmulke!













                                                                                The Opera & Ballet Theatre was built in the Stalin era. It was renovated in 2011, and is very attractive with the fountains in the plaza. We tried to get a look inside but it was a no go. The Buryat national academic Opera and Ballet house is the only one in Eastern Siberia. It was designed to house a theatre, a library a concert hall and a museum. Construction started in 1938 but stopped due to the Great Patriotic War, resumed in 1945 and opened in 1952.

And eventually we got to the museum!  Once we figured out how to open the front door, we found ourselves in a large anteroom with about 100 people jammed into it, listening to what appeared to be a number of local politicians and nomenclature expounding in Russian on what a great job they were doing. Looked very familiar, I guess people really are the same everywhere...  Eventually we threaded our way through the herd and the nice museum ladies took our money, gave us a ticket, and shared with us the best strategy for attacking the exhibit rooms.

A reconstruction of the inside of a yurt.  Much nicer than I would have thought.  Mongol glamping!

A yurt restaurant..gotta love the helmets

These cotton wood trees were incredible. The fluff was coming down like snow. Never seen anything like it in our lives before.

Odigitriya cathedral named for Holy Mother Hodigitriya. 1741

 To get to the main square - the Soviets square you pass through this arch built in 2006..pretty impressive

 These little stands sold specific food or drinks. One would sell just water, or just lemonades, or just iced drinks or just...whatever

Those are just wooden pecker poles holding up all that cement..where is WCB and the engineering department?

The next morning it was time to head on to our next adventure, so we said goodbye to our apartment and balcony, took and final walk along the Arbat, and headed for the train station. Off to Irkutsk.

Goodbye little balcony.