Day 3-11 Russia Trip Summer (2015)

Ufa, the exorbitant city, was marvelous. I stayed for 7 days and I summed up into one post to save up the time taken to story-tell. Well, the whole journey in the city would elate me in another level of traveling. Here the major experiences:

Russian Day and City of Ufa

Russian day, because We love our Country

It was june 12^th, for Russian it was the Russian Day, yes the name was pretty obvious A RUSSIAN DAY, Day for all Russian. What did they celebrate for? The day was to commemorate the sovereignty of Russia from Soviet Union. As all I know, Russia celebrated so many national days. They have victory day, Russian flag day, Russian day, etc, Whereas in Indonesia we only celebrate Independent day for national day as holiday. it is comparable with Nepal or India where they have so many celebrations every day, the difference is Russia celebrate it as National day, where in India and Nepal they do for mainly religious purposes.

The bashkirs

The celebration was held together with Ufa day, yes every city in Russia has the city day, and it could be holiday in every city. They love so much for their country and city. There were many stalls selling Bashkir souvenirs, foods (yes, The amazing shashliks were ubiquitous), art performances, concert, and the main celebration was the fireworks.

The party ended at 1 am when the fireworks were adjourned to play. When it ended, the main area was chaotic as everybody started leaving the place to home. Taxis were all booked, and what I and my friends did was to stay in nearest McDonald until 2.30am to get home immediately afterwards. That was likely bad idea as many people had the same idea, the order time took us about 45 minutes to get our foods. Thanks to Friendly Russians there, my Russian day was super, I was so elated.

My first night in Russia

Vodkas And Vodkas

Yes, I made same friends in Ufa. They were as nice as other Russians. Vadik and Lena, the young newly weed couple invited me to have a dinner to their apartment.  Vadik is a Russian man, and Lena is a tatar woman. They were learning English for their fun, they might travel to somewhere so they armed themselves with sufficient English to cope while traveling. The idea of the dinner was Indonesian food party, and I was in charge for all the dishes. I and my friend, shamil, a Bashkir boy who spook excellent English as he was graduated from English department and worked as English teacher, accompanied me to get the amenities for my dishes. I decided to cook Indonesian fried rice and Sambal Ati (Spicy chicken liver with tick indoensianized gravy). Fortunately, I found most of the ingredients for these big meals.

In the Vadik’s apartment, I prepared for the meals with the sophisticated kitchen utensils for me. Also the kitchen was amazing. For about one hour, I finished all the cooking and we were ready to eat. There was also Maxim, a young 20 years-old boy who wanted to study English but the laziest amongst others. 

Vodkas are integral part of life

Everybody was happy. For Maxim, that was the first time he could eat rice as he had not liked rice for ages. And for others, chicken liver was a something new, not common for Russian. The conversation was helped over the countless of vodkas, yes vodka is the integral part of their life, well, not exactly just mostly. Vadik once told me that Vodka was essential to keep the conversation flow, and to not get drunk, we had to keep eating the pirogis (Russian cake) and some foods to keep brain alive. Well, that worked best for me too, a bit just a small tipsy for 8 bottles of Vodkas for 4 people.

View over the green lush forest outside the city

River bank Beach

Friendly Monument, for Bashkirs and Russians

Post-Apocalypse of the Party

City Sightseeing

Bashkir State University

Kvas, slurppppp....!

One of Park in Ufa

Gigantic Bee

Needless to say, The city enticed me with its electrifying ambience. The city sits over the mighty Ural mountain giving it the pleasant temperature. However, Ufa is an industrialized city, so expect for the fumes emitting from the factories and mining industry. The city was well-developed ad it hosted more than one million people, a big city for vast Russian land. The most bizarre that I saw was the conversation of river banks to beach-like sunbathing area with umbrellas and mistletoes. The obsession over beaches was the same all over Russian. Summer time was always the most-awaited time. Ufa was amazing and magically whimsical, I don’t mind to go back again.

Happy Ufa Day

Sunny summer day, a perfect outing for Russian Day

City of Ufa perching by the bay of Belaya River (the white river)

From the picturesque of the Hilton-Inn Hotel view closed to Hall for BRICS 2015 Conference to dozen of parks to stroll to. Some shopping center for the shopping sprees and Amazing foods are ready to serve the visitors. Likewise in other parts of Russia, Sashhlik is the favourite with Kvas, and Kymyz, known as horse milk fermentation. Bee is the symbol of the republic as so many bees farming and Republic of Bashortostan is known for high quality honey. For Transportation, sadly There was not any Subway train, and it may not happen in near future due to its contour, but the transportation system was good with buses, Mashrustkas, Gazelles, and Trolleybus, choose what you like!