The day before yesterday I was on a trip. Street. At -12°C. It was called “Tyumen Merchant”. They opened a pedestrian street lined with Khrushchev-era buildings, new paneled buildings, and a few houses with restored carvings. We put benches, swings, souvenir shops, a counter with donuts there and organize excursions. Tourists from all over the country. I’m not kidding. I signed up for a tour to see the guides. I wanted to find out what kind of cunning people these were. The city of merchants and Old Believers showed fantastic business acumen. Where two gather, the third will lead a tour. In fact, while I was waiting for fish and meatballs at the restaurant of an old cultural center, I was offered a tour of the establishment.
There is nothing to see in Tyumen. Really – nothing! The museum includes a mammoth, a cave bear and a woolly rhinoceros. One of the rare cases is a stuffed flamingo that once stupidly flew to the Tyumen region. There are hot springs containing salt water. Slides, skates, ice castles. Perhaps great for a change of impression in winter. We, St. We’re happily hanging out in the snow here, victims of a snowless New Year’s Eve in St. Petersburg. It’s nothing special, but it’s so cleverly set up that even in the cold you can’t get out of the street, so tourists roll up and down the hill.
The specter of tourism flies across the country; free money offends many people; And rightly so, people got fed up, got dressed, bought washing machines and blenders – they had time to travel. It is also inappropriate for foreign countries to become inaccessible; Everyone rushed to develop tourism.
What do you say to cities that have nothing to see? And we need to go out! In front of me in Tyumen, young men with fishing rods were getting out of the car. Petersburgers! They were complaining that they couldn’t buy plane tickets, but they had been dreaming of fishing in Tyumen for a long time!
Wha-ooo? Tyumen has never been famous for fishing. Famous for opisthorchiasis (a disease caused by flatworms of the genus opisthorchis; infection occurs when eating raw, slightly salted or insufficiently heat-treated river fish. – “socialbites.ca”). This is a terrible thing. When I was a kid, decent housewives didn’t even feed river fish to their cats. On my last visit, I asked a fisherman on his way to the airport if he knew about opisthorchiasis. He knows! That’s why the fish are thrown back into the river!
How was it necessary to advertise the city where people come here to fish in summer and winter, even though the fish have to be thrown away? Especially in summer. You would have to have an inhuman commercial spirit to persuade tourists to feed on taiga midges!
A tourist in a hurry. Groups of travelers abandoned our train and all headed towards Tyumen. Although my daughter and I took the train for lunch on January 1, there were no other tickets. I would never have believed that it was possible to ignite the industry in this way, where a sane person would go to see Tyumen immediately after the New Year’s table!
On the contrary, there are cities that sabotage the party’s tourism pipeline, as if out of spite. Even Tyumen Tobolsk. Everything is very beautiful, interesting, slides, Kremlin, prison fortress. But they almost died of cold and hunger: they rode on slides and sleds, but there was no food or nowhere to warm up. Several restaurants and cafes, all busy. Waiting time for a taxi with a child seat is 20 minutes. And your child has already been out in the cold for two hours. Weak? On the first day, we somehow settled in the dining room; On the second day, we saved ourselves with Lenten soup in the monastery’s refectory. People are flocking to Tobolsk in droves. In response to my anger, the Tobolians accuse me: the table had to be booked in December! Oh my god. But because it was not a trading city: scenes, prisons, exiles. No grip!
The new reality revealed the nature of each city without embellishment. It’s as if they deliberately imposed sanctions on us so that everyone’s stupidity would eventually be exposed. It can be said that a restless tourist wanders around the country, keeping the money in his hands. Then all the cities were divided into three groups. There is a place like Tyumen, where there is nothing to see, but they are so excited that there are only tourists in the center. Among the large cities I will also name Yoshkar-Ola: there is nowhere to look except the gingerbread reconstruction and “Belgian” houses on the embankment. But if you only knew how many tourists there are! The streets were cleaned, garbage was swept away, stalls and cafes were set up – tourists entered the jamboree.
There are examples of a successful combination, when and what to show, and there is a business line: both Novgorod are like that, Kazan, Yaroslavl.
And there are towns that resist the flow of tourists. Moreover, intelligence does not even depend on regional authorities, but on the character of the city. Like Tyumen and Tobolsk – heaven and earth in terms of service. The Yaroslavl region is very unstable: they completely turned Rybinsk into a showcase city. Myshkin is a view point but they put mice everywhere, opened a mouse palace, tourists go and go, though to be honest there is nothing to see there. There is also a beautiful town of Tutaev. The left bank played the role of old Moscow, the old Volga region in dozens, even hundreds of films. The beauty is in the landscape itself. And there is still no bridge between the two parts of the city: on the left bank is the old Romanov, which contains all the sights except a cathedral, and on the right bank is the old Borisoglebsk, which is the transport hub. You can get from one to the other by boat or by walking in a circle of tens of kilometers. It is not clear where to eat. A few restaurants on the left bank. There is devastation, everything is falling apart except the churches, wood carvings are rotting, huts are falling to the siding, in some places there is waist-deep grass.
Ossetia is also like this. Magnificent Vladikavkaz with a wonderful center, many cafes, hotels, museums and terrible conditions in the mountains: no food, no accommodation.
There are regions that do not need anything. For example, Ryazan region. It happened twice, 10 years apart – changes of zero point five. It is not a single tourist city, although there are many attractions.
Oh, I forgot one more guy. We have cities and regions that really want tourists and actively invite them, but the houses are dirty and in ruins. For example, Vladimir region: only Suzdal was put in order, and this was because Muscovites bought it as a summer residence. In Vladimir, almost everything except pre-Mongol architecture is still dusty, chipped or wrapped in facade panels. There are polluted villages and urban settlements along the Nerl. Cities are in very bad condition. In Yuryev-Polsky, near shopping centers, I saw a public toilet that looked like a “bucket” without a door. The city was horribly littered with garbage in 2017; There were bags and cans around the Kremlin. The guard complained that the film crew threw garbage at them… Kirill Serebrennikova: They were shooting the movie “St. George’s Day” and left garbage behind. Apart from that, it’s a 2008 movie! And garbage was lying under the walls of the Kremlin even a year ago.
The Kostroma region is the same. Kostroma is surprisingly preserved, but everything else is neglected. Tourists are invited, but the window is open only for the reception, only to receive money; The district does not appear to be trying to respond.
Ingushetia is from the same category: people invite you to see the mountains and ancestral towers, and there is a cafe in the mountains where special services are booked a month in advance. If you go from Vladikavkaz to mountainous Ingushetia, there is nowhere not only to eat, but also to drink. There are wooden toilets near Vovnushki, nearby tourists buy boiled eggs and fried chicken from crates… Unlike Chechnya: the landscapes are so, the mountains are small, but you can have lunch and spend the night anywhere. Even taxis go to the mountains! The trunks of the birch trees in the mountains have turned white!
The situation in the mountains is not very good, but in Sochi they say we are in good shape. Mountain tourism in the Urals is a tear. The Urals are workers, not merchants, there is no intelligence. “Seven Brothers” Peak – If you do not cry from destruction when you get there from Yekaterinburg, you can go skiing. Or the Perm region: People from all over the country come to the Kungur caves to look at stalactites and stalagmites. But before reaching the cave, tourists will have to pass the test of the city of Kungur, which seems to have decided to completely ignore the flow of tourists and even hints that they are not welcome in this town.
Guys, we need to level up somehow. People have money, they are curious about their own country, and they are adventurous enough. Very few people will succeed abroad, and even if they do, many won’t even need the hassle of cash. We want to travel around Russia. But this issue is still extremely unpredictable. In some cities you may become so involved that it will discourage your desire to travel. Some have entire industries built around a single attraction – an ice slide – while others are falling into disrepair and bricks from pre-Mongol temples are nearly collapsing, cockroaches are crawling around hotels. Guys left behind, catch up – we want to travel around Russia.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.
What are you thinking?
Source: Gazeta
Dolores Johnson is a voice of reason at “Social Bites”. As an opinion writer, she provides her readers with insightful commentary on the most pressing issues of the day. With her well-informed perspectives and clear writing style, Dolores helps readers navigate the complex world of news and politics, providing a balanced and thoughtful view on the most important topics of the moment.