Kazan Pt. 3

Sunday, February 21, 2016

We started out our morning going to Добрая Столовая (Dobraya Stolovaya) because honestly it's the cheapest most filling breakfast you will ever have. On our way to the metro we stopped by McDonalds for coffee. One thing I miss about America is American coffee. I miss being able to drink coffee with cream without having to get an Americano, cappuccino, or whatever! Nowhere in Europe is there just plan coffee from a coffeemaker. Okay, rant over. We don't have a metro in Ufa, so A took full advantage of taking the metro in Kazan. So much so that we only rode it one stop.

We decided to walk around and find the Lenin Statues because it's my goal while in Russia to take pictures with as many as possible. We took the metro to тукая площадь (Tukaya Square) and walked around Кольцо, торговый центр (Ring Shopping Center - named for the giant ring coming out of it). We thought a Lenin statue might be near the center so we walked around a bit, but it ended up being a statue of some other guy. There are so many statues in Russia it's hard to keep track of who is who. Even though we didn't see the Lenin statue we had a pretty great view of the beginning of Bauman street.

A looked on 2Gis for the Lenin Statues so we started heading towards Kazan Federal University where we knew there would be a statue of Vladimir Lenin as a student. He attended the university until he was kicked out for trying to protest the Czar's power. The building of the university was beautiful and I'm sure in the spring and summer the grounds look beautiful. Russia is seriously the most green country ever. Their parks are so green in the summer.

There is a big park near the university called Чёрное озеро (Black Lake), so we walked to it because A wanted to show me an arch that was there. It was also on the way to another Lenin statue that I wanted to see. The park isn't much of a sight in the winter but the arch was pretty cool. It's called Арка влюблённых, the Arch of Lovers but it literally translates to Arch Lovers. One person stands on one end facing the wall and another person on the other and you can whisper to each other and hear what the other is saying. It's really neat, but A wouldn't understand anything I was saying in Russian. He wanted me to write my name on the arch, and as I was doing so this man, woman and child came up. They were talking in Russian and the man was trying to get the woman to stand at the arch and she kept refusing. This was all happening while I was trying to sign my name so the USA in "Jasilyn was here USA" looks a little off because the guy pushed me as I was writing it. After they left I asked A what the heck that was all about and he said the man was drunk and trying to get us to keep the woman standing there.

Afterwards we walked to the main government square where the large statue of Lenin stands. It was really empty because it was Sunday. Across from the government building was a movie theater. I just love the style of Soviet theaters. Doesn't it just make you want to go in and watch a movie?

We wanted to warm up a little bit because it was cold and snowy, but everything we wanted to try near the square was closed. We walked a little bit and found a restaurant called что делать? (What to do?) to get some warm drinks. Honestly, I wasn't really impressed with our drinks but the interior looked really cool. I would probably go back though to try the food.

We walked back towards Bauman Street then A wanted to take me to see the Puppet Theater. We didn't go inside, but the outside was so cool to look at. It reminded me so much of Disney World. Every city in Russia (at least the ones I've been to) have these ice towns where everything is made out of ice. Children are always going down the ice ramps. There are ice sculptures, benches, and even an ice cafe! How cool is that?! One thing I love about Russia is that they know how to take full advantage of winter.

We started to get really hungry so we walked to a restaurant called ПанКот (Mr. Cat). It's definitely a restaurant for children but the interior was like a fairy tale. The pillars were made to look like skyscrapers and they had shadows of cats and people in the windows. The ceiling had hot air balloon lights. It was so amazing. It's like my dream nursery if I ever have children. The food was kind of expensive, but the portions were huge! It reminded me of American portion sizes and everything we ate and drank was excellent. Afterwards, we decided to go back to the hotel and hang out since A needed to work and we had been out and about all day.