Kaluga

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Kaluga is situated on the banks of Oka 160 km away from Moscow. Kaluga is first and foremost famous due to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the outstanding inventor and theorist of cosmonautics, who lived there from 1892 till 1935. Nowadays Kaluga is a major transport hub, one of the scientific, cultural, economic and spiritual centres of the Central Federal District of Russia. And it has a lot of sights!

My train from Yanaul to Moscow arrived in the morning at 5.38. I have spent three days in Moscow with my wife at her friends’ place; we stayed in the Kommunarka settlement just outside the MKAD, visited the Vorobyovy Gory viewing platform, where nothing could be seen due to the fog, and walked a little along the embankment), then I spent nine days in my hometown. My companion for the journey was a 900-page volume of Rudyard Kipling’s Short Stories, a very agreeable book for trains except that it’s hardcover, large and heavy. I expected to leave my luggage at Oktyabrsky Train Station but the automatic lockers cost 300 Roubles, too expensive for rather a small bag, so I decided to leave it at Kievsky Train Station, where it also cost 300 Roubles, and thus my only hope was to leave it in Kaluga or carry everything on me.

The express train took about 2.30 hours and made several stops. Upon arrival to Kaluga I was disappointed at finding no luggage room there, but, after I went away from the information desk, a woman came up to me and said she could store my bag for several hours (4 or 5 in this case) just for 100 Roubles. I agreed and immediately went out for sightseeing. Kaluga turned out better than I expected and I’ve managed to see my favourite things: Soviet imagery and military monuments, old buildings and churches, and beautiful girls as well!

The Palace of Culture and the Moscow Square were not far from the train station, but still I had to walk a noticeable distance. I was looking for newspaper booths to buy a map. The weather was sunny and warm. I found a map and discovered that I had to walk several more quarters to reach the old centre. From this point on, my main axis of sightseeing was Kirova Street. The city centre boasts a number of civil architectural monuments, including Korobov’s stone chambers (dating back to 1697) and stone residential buildings of the XVIII century, plus a colourful handful of Orthodox churches of a venerable age. I made a mental note of a pizzeria for future use (I’d need a coffee and a rest for the feet).

As I was walking I realized I’d not have enough time to visit the Cosmonautics Museum – it was far from the centre, and I had to return to the train station, collect my bag, and drive to the other train station, Kaluga-2, from which my return train departed. I could of course take an electrichka from Kaluga-1, but I had a prepaid ticket for a better, and faster, train. A couple of words about the museum: it is the world’s first museum and Russia’s largest dedicated to this topic. Sergey Korolyov and Yuri Gagarin were directly involved in the establishment of this museum (the names should be familiar to the reader).

I went to take photos of a church and then retraced my steps to the pizzeria. After a short rest, I’d proceed along the pedestrian street just round the corner. I repeat I saw many beautiful girls everywhere. I ordered a cappuccino and a slice of pizza. In their WC it was rather funny: I heard chillout music playing and a female and male voice teaching sentences in the Italian and English languages to be used for eating out (for example, “un cappuccino”, “I’d like coffee with milk”, etc), repeating them many times.

After I left the pedestrian street, the city showed a different appearance: I saw litter in places and dusty, dilapidated buildings in the vicinity of two remarkable churches (the latter being kept in a much better state that the buildings), and finally came up to an old bridge across the Berezuevsky Ravine, quite an inspiring structure. It is called the Large Stone Bridge, 160 meters long, built in 1775-1796 in the Roman style. On the other side of the ravine were several statues, an historic building, and a narrow stretch of road overlooking the Oka River. There were construction machines digging right below, so a certain danger of falling down existed, there being no enclosures.

Then I went to the Park of Culture and Rest nearby. Inside was the Troitsky Cathedral (1786-1819) and many parents with children and other people were walking and enjoying themselves. I saw the post saying “I love you, Kaluga” nearby the entrance (it’s the third such post – two others were in Moscow and Ivanovo).

From the park I emerged to a square with the wonderful red-coloured Gostiny Dvor (built in 1782-1796) on one side and a government building with a Lenin statue on the other. The multitude of cars in front of the Gostiny Dvor did not please the eye. My next destination would be the Victory Square. Children in military uniform were on a small parade there, marching in two ranks. The victory monument is dedicated to the Soviet warriors perished in battles for Kaluga during the Great Patriotic War; the complex comprises an Eternal Flame, a 7-meter bronze statue of the Motherland holding in her hands the symbols of Kaluga – the first satellite of the Earth and the winding strip of Oka River, and a grave of the unknown soldier. There were also various victory-related slogans on white concrete pedestals such as “Immortal Glory for the Labour, Labour that Underlay Our Victory…”, “The Country of Freedom and Peace, Motherland of Lenin and October, Glory to You, O Great Motherland!”; brutal faces of a Soviet man and a Soviet woman schematically carved in white concrete.

The spirit of the whole city is authentically Russian.

I returned to Kaluga-1 train station, but didn’t know how to get to Kaluga-2. It turned out there were no direct buses between the two, so I had to walk a lot, then I took one bus, walked some more to the City Market area. The buses to Kaluga-2 departed from there and it took a certain amount of time. The train was quite fast and made no stops. I arrived in Moscow and stayed a couple hours more before my overnight train to St. Petersburg.

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