Chernikovka

Saturday night Renat asked me if I wanted to go on an adventure, and I said, "Yes!" I took the bus (after waiting 30 minutes for one and then taking his suggestion of just getting on a different one) about 20 minutes north of where I live to an area of the city called Chernikovka. It was my first time there so he took me to Victory Park. One thing you will notice is that Russians are very proud of their accomplishments in World War II. They have statues every where. We started off at a monument for mothers and he translated one the poem for me.

One of the biggest Mosques in the area is located at the park, but since it was getting dark and we wanted to see the views we didn't walk around to the mosque. I'll definitely go back to take pictures.

Just like at the Salavat Yulaev Monument the views from Victory Park were beautiful! It was the perfect time to go also because the leaves were changing colors. I will have to go back again though to see the mosque and museum that are in the park.

After walking through the park we walked around Chernikovka. Renat knows a lot about the history and buildings of Ufa. You can tell by the number of floors when the buildings were built and it's very interesting to hear about. I feel like Russia has more history since the 1900s than the United States does, but it's probably because I'm more familiar with the US.

As we were walking a cat started running towards us. I swear it was a monkey running and I had to stop for a second to just get through my brain what it was. The cat stopped also and I decided to kneel down to take a picture. The cat ran right towards me and jumped on me. I was petting it then when I got up it ran back to the wall. I bent down again to get another picture and it ran at me again. Every time I'd kneel down the cat would jump on me to get some love. It was just so funny because the second I'd kneel it would run towards me and then when I got up it would go for the wall. After several attempts I finally got the least blurry picture I could of the cat. It followed us for a little bit then went its own way. It was so cute and I wanted to take it home. Renat joked that it was going to follow me on the bus and they were going to tell me "No cats allowed."

After walking around for a while we went to an anticafe, which are very popular in Russia. We talked some more and drank tea. Pretty sure all I do here is drink tea, but that's probably better than alcohol, right?