Sokolniki Park holds a special place in my heart.

It’s where I spent five years living in Moscow, from February 2016 to March 2020.

I rented a retro, two-bedroom apartment on the 10th floor of a typical soviet building.

The entrance was nothing special. The apartment wasn’t either. But the view. Oh the view.

Everything was worth it for the view.

In the summer, the days would stretch out really long, owing to how far north Moscow is. The sun would set after 10:00 pm, and already begin rising around 2:30 am.

Suffice to say, I did not sleep much when the summer rolled around in Moscow.

But as compensation I got to see the most beautiful sunrises in my whole life.

One of the reasons the sunrises were so great was because of the enormous park I lived next to, Sokolniki Park.

See all that green space stretching out in front of you? That’s Sokolniki Park.

And in this blog post, I’m going to give you a tour of what could be my favorite park in Moscow. Welcome to Sokolniki.

Here’s the entrance to the park. These photos were taken in September 2018 on a weekday, aroudn noon, so most people were stuck inside their offices typing away at their computers.

With a friend who visited me from the United States, we got to enjoy the afternoon sun and enjoy the park practically to ourselves.

Sokolnik park is centered around a large water fountain, with radial lines extending in each direction where you can go for a walk and enjoy the trees and greenery.

Here’s the from the fountain looking back at the entrance into the park. The large building in the distance is a controversial project. It was built right next to the Sokolniki metro stop in the 2000s. It is now the tallest building in Sokolniki, but if you ask locals who grew up in Sokolniki, they will remember a time when Sokolniki was dominated by wooden dachas, small one or two story European buildings, and the district was an extension of Moscow’s center with historical buildings at every corner.

Within the park you’ll find a monument to Vladimir Lenin. On two occasions in the summer of 1918 when the civil war was raging in Russia, he held protests in the park against the Czarist government and rallied the local population toward revolution. The first protest took place on June 21st and the second on August 9th.

Of course, to call Sokolniki Park is an understatement. The park takes up a large portion of the entire northeastern part of Moscow, large enough to fit an entire district of apartments and commercial building into its place. I’ve been to few cities in the world that have parks as large as Moscow, and that’s part of what makes living in Moscow so great.

There’s plenty of criticism you could level at Moscow for unrestrained development, but taken as a whole, Moscow remains an extrenely green city. Enormous parks surround the city from all sides, and Sokolniki is the biggest park in the northeastern part of the city.

Picnic tables are sprinkled throughout the park where people can meet up and play chess or checkers.

And the trees! Everywhere you look you’ll find trees. It would be more appropriate to call Sokolniki a forest instead of a park.

Sokolniki Park underwent a major reconstruction in the early 2000s to modernize the park’s infrastructure while preserving its historical heritage. One of the biggest changes the park made was to ban cars from driving through the park. If you look closely at the street, you’ll see that these bike paths and skating lanes replaced what used to be a two-lane car road. Since the reconstrcution, cars have been banned from driving through much of Sokolniki, and the public space that used to be dominated y cars has been given back to pedestrians. A major win for the city.

Here we see another road for cars that was given back to pedestrians. Now it’s a two-way bike lane.

A cute pedestrian bridge over a stream that has dried up over the years.

The deeper you wander into Sokolniki, the less commercialized it becomes, with dirt paths instead of asphalt paths.

Throughout Sokolniki you’ll find outdoor workout stations sprinkled thorughout the park. It’s a great place to work out, surrounded by trees, in the middle of nature, with cool shade keeping you from getting too hot. The only downside is mosquitos, so make sure to bring spray with you.

It’s incredible that a city like Moscow, where the official population is 11 million, but the actual population closer to 15-20 million, would leave a green space like this untouched and so close to the center. And in case you get stuck in the rain in the middle of the park, the benches come up with small rain protectors over them to keep you dry.

Incredible greenery.

The park also has a fair amount of ponds where people can jog or fish and enjoy being around the water.

In the winter, these ponds freeze over and you’ll find people ice skating on them.

At one point, Sokolniki park ends, and merged with Losiny Ostrov, an enormous national park that extends all the way out into Moscow Region and far past Moscow into the provinces. The park is named after the large amount of Moose that are found in the region.

It was the middle of September while we were there and the flowers were still out in full swing.

While the park is kept exceptionally clean, we did find occasional litter and trash in the area, like this tire. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to other parks I’ve been to in Eastern Europe, especially in the Balkans, which fail to provide enough trash bins and clean up after their litter.

At one point we strayed off the main path and got lost.

Some local residents decided to take care of nature and create a makeshift birdfeeder.

At one point we found an abandoned house deep in the park. In the 18th and 19th century, Sokolniki got it’s name for the word Sokol, which means falcon in Russian. At that time, Sokolniki formed the outer edge of Moscow, and the richer elite of the city would have hunting houses in Sokolniki where they would hunt game with their falcons.

Very oddly, deep in the middle of the forest, we found a place where you could recycle. You’ll rarely find places recycle even in the middle of Moscow, but here in the middle of the park, you’ll have all your recycling needs met.

A little later we found what looks like a private resident in the middle of the woods, sectioned off with security cameras and a tall gate. A very well-connected individual to the city government must live here, in order to get a building permit to set up their home here.

Further in the forest, you can find some older traditional wooden Russian homes. Russia needs to declare all of its wooden architecture a historic treasure and strive to preserve as much of it as possible before it gets lost forever. Unfortunately, all across the country, these wooden homes are disappearing at alarming rates as older generations die off and younger generations either tear them down to build modern homes or sell it to developers who build apartments in their place. Who knows how much of this unique form of architecture will be left by the end of the 21st century.

We couldn’t have picked a better mid-Septemebr day with clear blue skies. One of the best times to visit Russia is in late-September and early October, when it isn’t yet too cold.

At this point we were completely lost, trying to find our way to metro Belokamennaya, which is a new metro station the city opened in the middle of the park, where they converted an old, unused railroad ring into a new metro for the city.

Some more traditional Russian houses that have amazingly survived to this day.

We finally found the metro stop. From Belokamennaya metro we headed toward Bulvar Rokossvksogo and onto Izmaylovo Park, another enormous park on the eastern side of Moscow.

What are my final thoughts on Sokolniki?

On the one hand, it’s just another one of Moscow’s big parks. Nothing special. All of them are unique in their own way and have a lot of the same things that Sokolniki has to offer. On the other hand, these enormous, interconnected parks that are sprinkled throughout different districts of Moscow is part of what makes living in Moscow so great.

You could easily come here and spend an entire day exploring the place, and only see maybe 25% of what the park has to offer. In the summer there is a swimming pool, an outdoor movie theatre, music festivals, senior dancing clubs, a hedge maze and more.

In the winter, many of the bike paths get closed off and converted into ice skating rinks and cross-country skiing paths. All for absolutely free.

If you want to see an example of how cities should use their parks to promote living an active, healthy lifestyle, you should come to Sokolniki.

If you want to see cities that are built to encourage people sitting in their cars all day, you can visit any American city.

I have only one criticism of the park, and that is there’s no basketball court. As an avid basketball enthusiast, I find this unacceptable. And the park needs to fix this ASAP.

Otherwise, if you are an expat and live in Moscow, or a tourist just visiting for a few days, don’t make the mistake of skipping out on this beautiful park. There are few cities in the world which offer something better.

The post Sokolniki Park: Exploring Moscow’s Green Spaces appeared first on Slavic Travels .

The first stop on our trip to the Volga was the city of Penza. Penza is actually not located on the Volga river. We were headed to Samara, a city of one million people, but because the train tickets were expensive and we wanted to explore anyway, we decided to pick a city nearby that had the cheapest tickets and visit it. That city ended up being Penza.

Penza was a good choice. It is big, around 517,311 people according to the 2010 census, but not too big, so we had enough time to see most of it. It’s an old city with old architecture, founded in 1663. But a lot of it has been lost over the years.

The city boasts a very nice pedestrian street and cheap, good food. The people are friendly and attractive. While some parts of the city are in bad shape, overall it has a nice local vibe to it that could help turn it into a tourist attraction given proper marketing.

As things stand now, there are probably only a handful of foreigners who visit the city each year. Even the Russians I spoke with looked at me with surprise when I said I was visiting Penza. But we went anyway.

How to get there

The train ride was really cheap, only about 500 rubles (or $8). From Moscow the trains leave from the Kazansky Railway Station located at Metro Komsomolskaya. The train ride took around 14 hours and we had to sit the entire way. But luckily they had plugs so we could charge our phones and work on our laptops the whole ride.

Getting off at the train station in Penza.

The first thing that got me worried on arrival was the modern train station. After all, Penza was founded in 1663. It has been connected by railway since the late 19th century. So why was Penza’s train station a modern boring building? What did the train station look like in the 19th century and early 20th century? Why was it no longer there?

Well the story is a sad one. Here is what Penza’s train station looked like in the late 19th and early 20th century. The original train station was made out of wood, but looked a lot better than it does today.

Penza’s train station in 1915. In 1923 the train station was renovated and replaced by brick.

Here is the train station in the 1950’s shortly following WWII.

The old train station stood as a central symbol of the city all the way into the late 1960’s. It was a beautiful building, the type you can find in any European city.

And then the Soviets demolished it and replaced it with this monster in the 1970’s. Communist urban planning at its worst.

The city carried out renovations of the train station from 2013-2016 where it got its current look. Personally, I think the city should have torn down the station built by the communists and rebuilt the old train station. The result is a central symbol of the city has been lost forever.

Despite this sad story, the area in front of the train station was clean and well maintained.

Shawarma McDonalds style.

There was a decent park next to the train station that you pass through to get to the city center. Some people were lining up selling books.

Walking toward the city center Penza had its fair share of historical buildings sprinkled throughout the city. On the right you can see pre-revolutionary Penza architecture, before the communists took power in 1917.

This is the kind of architecture that Russia should work on preserving. These buildings document Russia’s Czarist history, its living evidence of the European nature of the country.

A small coffee and chocolate shop in an old building.

Near the city center there is a statue to Vissarion Belinsky, the famous 19th century literary critic who played a major role in catapulting Fyodor Dostoevsky’s literary career. In 1845 he praised Dostoevsky’s first novel Poor Folk which made Dostoevsky one of the most well-known writers in Russia at the time, and he would later go on to write the Russian classics Crime & Punishment, The Brother Karamazov and Notes from Underground. 

The statue is located in the middle of a small square named after him.

On the other side of Belinsky Square is the Penza Regional Drama Theater.

Penza’s main square and the start to Moskovskaya Street, the city’s primary pedestrian street.

Moskovskaya Street. This is Penza’s primary pedestrian street. Up until a few years ago this street was open for cars. But the city decided to turn it into a full pedestrian street closed off to traffic. It is actually one of the longest pedestrian streets I’ve ever walked on and leads almost all the way up to the small church in the background.

A nice ‘kvas’ stand to refresh yourself on a hot summer day. Kvas is a Russian beverage made from bread and tastes something like non-alcohol beer with sugar added.

The Gorodok Shopping Center, a small shopping mall located in a historical building.

Walking up the street. It was a hot summer day in the morning and the street was mostly empty, but it filled up later in the evening.

A converted Khrushchovka on the city’a main street. Khrushchevkas are apartment buildings built during the reign of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The distinguishing feature among them is that they were all built to be five stories high. Despite being an integral part of Soviet and Russian history and attempts by architectual preservation societies to declare them as part of Russia’s architectual heritage, they are at a threat of disappearing forever under government-run housing programs. You can read about how Moscow is massively destroying Khrushchevkas here. Thankfully, it looks like they are still standing in Penza.

Of course no Russian city is complete without a statue and square dedicated to Lenin. Behind the statue is the Penza regional administration building.

Lenin Square was nice, but as a rule, squares built by the communists tend to be too wide and large without enough attractions to make it a vibrant public space.

The Governor’s Office of the Penza Region.

Lenin towering over everyone.

An old shopping center with a McDonalds. A good example of how an old building can be used to host modern businesses.

Of course, Penza’s main attraction is the city’s impressive pedestrian street. It is one of the longest I’ve seen in any European city and stretches all the way to the church in the distance on top of the hill.

This converted pedestrian street was well kept and maintained, with lots of benches, trees and architecture.

Another old building in the center.

A bakery with tasty local food.

A restaurant with some outdoor seating. Café culture isn’t as developed in Russia as it should be. The weather is often blamed, but in the summertime this should not be the case.

More local restaurants, this one called ‘bread and salt’, a reference to an old Russian tradition of offering bread and salt to guests who visit people’s homes.

Looking back on the street in the other direction.

The centers of Russian cities are filled with one to two story buildings that are no different to the centers of cities all over Europe.

Unfortunately in Russia, as well as in other parts of Eastern Europe they are not as well maintained. And there is a constant threat of them being demolished to make way for more modern high rises.

Really the problem comes down to poor rule of law and corruption. What these cities really need is a master urban planning and zoning laws, where construction of buildings over a certain number of floors are banned in the center, and the recognition of all pre-WWII architecture, as well as a lot of post-WWII architecture as historically protected. This would keep developers from destroying the center of the city.

For now, what’s saving cities like Penza in Russia’s provinces is the lack of money and poor economy. These cities are quite poor, and there is no guarantee that if a developer builds office space of an apartment building that it will be profitable. Very few people are moving to Penza, most people are moving out of the city to biggest Russian cities nearby or Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

The problem is that as soon as a city begins to develop and money poors, developers come in and destroy the city. It’s what is destroying Moscow right now, and it happens in cities everywhere around the world. The only exception I see to this trend are some cities in Western Europe which have strong laws that protect their city centers and the historic architecture. This is the example Russia should follow.

Take a building that is three stories high, tear it down, and build one that is ten stories high on the same piece of land. Think of all the profit. The only thing that holds back developers from doing this are strong laws that protect historic buildings.

A beautiful street.

It’s amazing this street used to be open for cars up until a few years ago. But the local authorities did the right thing and decided to turn it into a pedestrian zone. In this sense, Penza is years ahead of most US cities, which have absolutely no pedestrian streets in their centers and continue to believe that cars are the only way to get around town.

As mentioned before, the street leads up to a huge church, but doesn’t quite go all the way. Here is where the pedestrians street ends.

I like these coffee stands built in the shape of coffee cup.

Here you can get a sense of what Moskovskaya Street used to look like before they pedestrianized it. Narrow sidewalks, parking for cars. Not much space to move around.

The view from the top of the hill looking back at Moskovskaya Street. They should pedestrianize the rest of this street.

A historic pharmacy.

Some of these buildings are really in terrible shape. Let’s hope the city does the right thing and renovates them instead of tearing them down. These buildings would make perfect locations to open book shops, cafes, hostels or co-working spaces.

On the left you can see an example of a second problem that many Russian cities face: cutting down trees. On the left you can see an example of a tree that was ‘trimmed’ to the point where they killed the tree. You can see this repeated all across Russia in many cities, trees that have their branches cut down to their bare bones to the point where the tree dies. I have no explanation as to why this happens, but you see it everywhere.

Thankfully though, the buildings behind the trees are in good shape.

Looking further back down the street.

Up ahead you can see Penza’s main church, the Spassky Cathedral. There is a sad story to this cathedral, as it was one of thousands of similar churches and cathedrals that the Bolsheviks tore down in the 1930’s in their attempt to get rid of religion in the Soviet Union.

Several European style buildings are located near the Cathedral as you walk up toward it.

It’s just amazing how you can find piece of Europe that stretch out this far east. It’s truly prove that Europe stretches all the way out to the Urals and beyond.

The Spassky Cathedral is currently under construction. Originally it was built from 1800-1824 and stood as the central symbol of the city up until 1934 when the Bolsheviks blew it up. For the following decades a park stood in its place, and this park still exists today. In the 2000’s a decision was made to rebuild the Spassky Cathedral in its historic location.

The view down Moskovskays Street from where the cathedral stands.

Some more historic buildings around the church. Penza is quite a hilly city.

An outdoor restaurant with a nice patio.

Another historic building.

And here is the church, standing tall at the top of the hill and looking out over the rest of the city.

Nearby there were several other historic buildings surrounded by trees and greenery.

Another view of the church hiding behind the trees.

Here you can see the construction that is still going on. In recent years the government has been rebuilding old churches that were torn down by the communists. The program is controversial. On the one hand, if you look at the sheer amount of churches the Bolsheviks destroyed, you realize to what extent Russia lost its cultural heritage under the Soviets. And its natural to want to bring some of it back.

On the other hand, there are thousands of churches across Russia that were never torn down, and that still stand today, but are in a terrible state and at threat of collapsing and being lost forever. Instead of building new churches to replicate old ones, some people believe more effort should be made to preserve the churches that are still standing, but that are at threat of disappearing forever.

Nearby the cathedral there was a smaller chapel, surrounded by trees.

Another historic building at the top of town. Penza’s historic core was actually quite large, at least parts that remain.

More old brick buildings.

Every effort should be made to preserve these buildings.

Next to the church was a nice park with lots of old trees and benches for people to sit on. There were people walking around and taking it easy on a working day. In general Penza had a very relaxed and laid back feeling.

Walking through the park.

More older buildings nearby.

Heading back down to the lower part of town on Kirov street.

On the right you can see the walls of the Holy Trinity Women’s Monastery.

This would classify as Penza’s mini-Kremlin, obviously with walls that are much lower than those of Moscow or in other Russian cities.

Inside the monastery.

Walking toward the Sura river. These are examples of trees that have been absolutely destroyed. For whatever reason, the government decided to cut off all the branches to the tree and leave only the stump. So now, instead of a beautiful tall tree creating lots of shade and fresh air, you get a stump with a mini bush. Why would you ever cut down a tree like that?

Classic Russian wood architecture in the center.

More examples of beautiful trees cut down and destroyed. There was a lot of construction going on in this part of Penza by the river. It’s very possible that buildings like these will be torn down soon.

More wooden architecture.

A pedestrian bridge over the Sura River.

The Sura River. The left embankment was being reconstructed.

Heading back toward the center.

More trees that should never have been cut down.

Back in the center on Moskovskaya Street.

Eating bread in a local bakery.

Street coffee.

A beautiful khrushchovka located in the center of town.

Back on the train headed to Samara.

So what can I say about Penza? It’s awesome!

Just like with any country, to truly get to know it, you need to head outside of the tourist spots.

In Russia tourists tend to only visit Moscow and Saint Petersburg. They then head back home and that’s all they get to see of the country.

For years afterward when people ask them whether they have visited Russia, they will answer with a resound ‘yes’.

But I would argue they didn’t really visit Russia.

Because the real Russia is hidden in cities like Penza.

You have to head deep into the provinces to these smaller regional towns, towns that only a handful of tourists visit each year and where the majority of the Russian population lives.

Only in this way will you truly get to experience the real Russia.

After Penza we headed toward Samara, a city of 1 million people located on the Volga River. Stay tuned for an upcoming post on that city.

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