Advertisement
Published: February 28th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Ordered Icicles
The beautifully symmetric icicle formations are quite common because the roofs have ridged roofs Biysk. It is a lovely city, albeit a bit run down.
On Sunday (Feb 10th), Alicia (who will from now on be spelled as Olesya) and Sasha (and Danil) took me to the old part of Biysk with the historic buildings. *some of the pictures shown here are from a presentation on old Biysk buildings that Olesya has allowed me to use.
Biysk was built a little over 300 years ago by Peter the Great as an fortress to protect the South-eastern flank of Russia from the Mongols. The city is an ideal location for a fortress because it is at located on the Biya and is some of the last fertile land before the Altai Mountains begin. Furthermore, the main fortress was located on a hill that looks down on one of the only safe places to cross the river. It was a very good fortress.
Now Biysk is mainly an industrial city. I’m not positive, but I believe its location was kept secret during the Cold War because they manufactured weapons here. I know that there are a few manufacturing plants and research facilities here that have something to do with the space program and government
stuff. Stuff. Very specific, I know, but it’s a large city and those places are far away, and as I believe I’ve already mentioned, I don’t get out much because I am busy at the GCC and because it is too cold to go wandering around without aim (or at least a map).
But I did get to go see the old part of town, and it was very interesting. We went on Sunday because it was around -7ºC in the morning, so we thought it wouldn’t be too cold. The old part of the city is by the river, and therefore much windier. There, there are many old wooden buildings. These buildings have beautiful, ornate wooden trim and are usually painted with bright contrasting colors. Most of them are quite worn down; however, people are beginning to appreciate these beautiful old buildings and now want to restore them, but there are two large problems. Naturally money to restore the buildings is the first. The second problem is fire. Since the buildings are wooden, they are very prone to burning down. For example, the old bank shown in one of the pictures burned down a few weeks before I
Biysk in its heyday
Can you spot the bank that burned down? It used to be a mansion. arrived in Biysk. Previously it had a lovely blue and white dome, but the dome caved in because of the fire. The green and white dome on top of a building in the next picture is the twin of the destroyed dome.
The oldest buildings in Biysk are not wood, but stone. There is a lot of interesting masonry, very beautiful, and these buildings have a greater longevity than the wooden buildings. One of the buildings we saw used to belong to Olesya’s great-aunt. Another building we saw was once a mansion, then a hospital, and even Chekha (KGB during the 30s) headquarters. The area by the river on the side of this building is a very sad place, because it is where many people were executed during that terrible time. Also in this area is a large monument in a park. Not particularly beautiful. A long time ago, there was a church in this space, but unfortunately it was torn down in Soviet times.
We also went to the museum in downtown Biysk. The first floor of the museum is devoted to the old Altai culture and has different cave rubbings, artistic renditions of life from that
era, various artifacts (arrowheads, weapons, idols, plates, etc) and a few other items. In one of the photo, there is a man covered with tattoos. This is one of the frozen corpses I was talking about in an earlier post. The skin was frozen for centuries, and is still intact enough that you can make out these prehistoric tattoos. I’m thinking about adding a similar symbol to my tattoo collection. On the way up the stairs they have a model of the old Biysk Fortress on the bank of the Biya.
The second floor of the museum has old mill equipment, salvaged wooden windowpanes, a model of a church, and old illustrations of Biysk in its heyday. Not quite as fascinating as the paleontology findings, but good photo fodder.
After the museum we went past a beautiful old church, Uspensky Cathedral, which is still intact. Last year, the domes were painted blue, but it was too expensive to keep up. The blue and white windowpane in the following picture is from the fence outside the church, and is maintained fastidiously.
Our final stop in the old part of town was to the old World War II memorial.
The old bank
This building burned down about 3 months ago, sadly. On three different walls they have all the names of the dead. There is also a lovely red marble wall with a plaque, and a huge wall with very simple decorations set behind an eternal flame.
At this point we were quite frozen, because while it was -7ºC when we left, it was -15ºC when we returned, plus windshield factor. My camera had given up, and my fingers were also less than willing to continue, so we headed home across the river on bus 23.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.318s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0615s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb