In the Sengileevsky Mountains, marmots hide from tourists in burrows. The wind blows soft feather grass across the meadow in the national park. The most beautiful feather grass is the picture and the name it fully deserves. The steppe grasses are blooming purple and white, the sun is setting, and ahead is an evening pilaf, herbal tea and an overnight stay in a luxurious designer house with a cat that came to itself. It seems that the Ulyanovsk region is an ideal place to relax in silence.
Ulyanovsk has never been the most obvious destination for a summer vacation – unless you have a beloved grandmother living in the area, of course. The city was perceived more as the birthplace of Lenin and UAZs, as well as a mandatory stopover for cruise ships (again, to visit Lenin’s places). But it is definitely not a quiet haven where you can forget about the noise of big cities.
Today, the Ulyanovsk region is also not among the most popular holiday destinations. And in vain. As travelers who visited these places as part of the Tutu service’s “Media Intelligence” project admit, the trip was a real surprise. You will definitely want to come back here again.
Lenin when he was a child
A trip to Ulyanovsk for a person over 40 is a reason to close childhood gestalts (now forever) and remember that “sometimes you can eat inkwells.” Stories about the Ulyanov family from children’s books here find real embodiment in the House Museum of VI. Lenin, Lenin, respectively, on the street.
The house-museum is located in a building purchased in 1878 by the Ulyanov family, who had previously moved six places of residence in Simbirsk, gradually improving their living conditions. The exhibition includes personal belongings of the Ulyanov family members (including those given by them) and household items of the late 19th century. The interiors of the rooms have been recreated; in the room where the nanny lives, there is a chest decorated with sweets given to her by the little Ulyanovs; a gymnasium tunic hangs on the wall in Volodya’s room. Of particular value is the authentic fur coat of the father of the family, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, which Lenin later wore. Locked in a glass cabinet, it is stored in a vacuum, into which argon gas is pumped. Thanks to this, even in the 21st century, we can still distinguish the fibers on the fur collar.
Konstantin Parfenyev PARFENEVK/VK
The house-museum is part of the city museum-reserve “Motherland of VI. Lenin”. In the very center of Ulyanovsk, part of the street named after the leader of the world proletariat has been completely preserved in the form in which it appeared as Moskovskaya Street at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Fences, front gardens, one- or two-story wooden houses. The only difference is that once upon a time Simbirsk citizens lived here, worked, studied, and traded – and now in these houses museums of everyday culture of the last century have been created, exhibitions and concerts are held.
The Lenin House Museum, and all the other museums named after him, help us feel like we are in the past—even though the man who ensured its preservation caused that past to disappear completely. You can see how Ulyanov and his peers trained at another museum in the city, the Simbirsk Classical Gymnasium.
The educational institution is active and has never been closed. The Simbirsk male gymnasium was opened in 1809 and remained the only gymnasium in the city until 1911. In 1918, as the gymnasiums were abolished, the educational institution was transformed into the First Proletarian Workers’ School named after K. Marx and now named after VI Lenin.
The museum here opened on April 22, 1990 in a late 19th-century annex. Today it is considered one of the best in Ulyanovsk, and rightly so. The original cast-iron staircase, the corridors of the gymnasium, an assembly hall that has been converted into a classroom, examination room or ballroom, a physics room with original 19th-century instruments, even a chandelier from Lenin’s childhood. Nowadays it glows with electric light, but in those days candles were used to heat small bells so that they would ring softly.
Konstantin Parfenyev PARFENEVK/VK
You should definitely take a tour of the museum – and this will only partly tell the story of how wonderful Volodya Ulyanov studied here, graduating from high school with a gold medal. For example, you will be surprised to learn that the director of the gymnasium at that time was Fyodor Mikhailovich Kerensky, father of Alexander Kerensky, the future head of the Provisional Government. You will also be able to sit at the old and very comfortable tables of Erisman, see what physical experiments were demonstrated to high school students, and learn about the purpose of mysterious devices such as the Mercedes electrophore machine.
In addition to these two museums, in Ulyanovsk there is a monument to Lenin (currently under reconstruction), next to which is the “house where VI was born”. Ulyanov (Lenin)”, the apartment museum of the Ulyanov family – you can not hide from the Lenin theme in the city. But you do not need to fully embrace it – you can also relax, walking along the Volga embankment (its widest part is located in the Ulyanovsk region), admiring the Imperial and Presidential bridges. You can also ride a sapakh on the Sviyaga River, drink coffee with coconut milk and lemon balm, eat currant and mint tartlets in the Volsov cafe, have lunch with a view of the Volga in the Khochu Puri restaurant, and have dinner in the Gopak restaurant (the okroshka festival is currently held).
Outside the city – for the sake of pine trees and silence
After a busy day in Ulyanovsk, you definitely need to go out of town. In addition, the region has created ideal conditions for various types of recreation.
For those who want to get away from the hustle and bustle, but only conditionally break from civilization, it makes sense to go to the “Hills” glamping site, an hour’s drive from the city. Located on the border of the Sengileevskie Mountains National Park, this resort is a small designer complex of barn houses, one-story houses with bathrooms and comfortable tents, well integrated into the steppe landscape surrounded by gentle chalk hills.
Konstantin Parfenyev PARFENEVK/VK
The project is the brainchild of married couple Anton and Olesya Eichmann, where everything is thought out to the smallest detail: hammocks on the terraces overlooking the meadows and mountains, an interactive performance by the fire, wooden flooring among wild meadow grasses, a stylish gray color. – The beige color scheme in the houses is so popular that there are purple wildflowers around, organic soap in the bathroom. Glamping, as its founders understand it, is a place that loves silence. Officially, music is not allowed here, but you can warm up in the sauna and soak in the keg, walk along the surrounding hills and see the marmots living here, and look at the rather low mountains with a cup of herbal tea.
For a holiday with children, a place where you can make noise is more likely, but in moderation. Eco-park “Russian Coast” in the Staromainsky district is a large complex on the banks of the Volga, in the middle of a pine forest, with an equipped beach and wooden houses, a playground, a riding club and even a zoo where peacocks, goats, hedgehogs live and a wolf is kept right across from the rabbits. By the way, silence is also maintained here – music is not allowed to play from the speakers. It turned out that there is an atmosphere of a Soviet recreation center with excursions to the river and sports games. But now everything is cozy, comfortable and modern. And they let you hold a funny black boy in your arms.
For those who need not only rest, but also treatment, it is better to go to the settlement of Undory, 40 km from Ulyanovsk. Here is a huge sanatorium named after VI. Lenin, where the treatment is based on local mineral water (similar in composition to that produced in Karlovy Vary) and local blue Kimmeridgian clay.
Konstantin Parfenyev PARFENEVK/VK
In 1983, in the Ulyanovsk region, on the steep left bank of the Volga, a sanatorium of Union significance was opened (by the way, the widest – from coast to coast as much as 43 km). But not quite on the coast – there is still 35 km to the abyss. But what views open from the windows of the eighth floor!
16 programs for treatment have been developed here, but the basis of them are those designed for people with gastrointestinal tract and kidney problems.
The sanatorium is a full-fledged balneological resort. Here they drink two types of mineral water in sodium chloride-bromine brine, extracted from a depth of 1000 m, and bathe in a special pool. Here they also breathe mineral water. On the territory of the sanatorium there is an aerarium – a structure made of branches of various tree species, along which drops of sodium chloride salt water flow. This therapy improves blood microcirculation, normalizes blood pressure, and is also incredibly calming.
Romance with stone
You can go to Undory not only for treatment in a sanatorium. Here, on the banks of the Kuibyshev Reservoir, is the only cozy Undorovsky Paleontological Museum in the world, located at the excavation site.
In the museum you will learn that you were at the bottom of the Russian Sea, which occupied the area from present-day Moscow to the Urals 120 million years ago. See the restored skeletons of fossil waterfowl. You can play in the interactive sandbox. Also as part of the excursion you can go to the shore of the reservoir on your own to find something interesting there.
There are interesting things lying at your feet on the shore – you may return home with pockets full of belemnites, fossilized mollusks that we called “devil’s fingers” in our childhood. If you are lucky, you may also come across another fossil piece: ammonite. Or for those who love all things shiny, a stone – spectropirite (also called fool’s gold or mouse gold). This is a truly beautiful, sparkly piece that sparkles with all the colors of the rainbow. Even if it is not gold, it still shines!
Konstantin Parfenyev PARFENEVK/VK
In the Ulyanovsk region, another unique stone is mined, which was formed in the shells of ammonites and the skeletons of fossil ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and pliosaurs for more than 120 million years. Outwardly resembling amber, simbircite received its name only in 1985 and is now gaining popularity as a souvenir and jewelry stone. What came out of it can be seen in Ulyanovsk – in the museum-hall of simbircite stone. By the way, there you can see what the unprocessed spectropirite blocks and inconspicuous ammonite circles look like, and find out what they turned into during processing. At the same time, touch what happened on Earth 120 million years ago.
What are you thinking?
Source: Gazeta
Calvin Turley is an author at “Social Bites”. He is a trendsetter who writes about the latest fashion and entertainment news. With a keen eye for style and a deep understanding of the entertainment industry, Calvin provides engaging and informative articles that keep his readers up-to-date on the latest fashion trends and entertainment happenings.