saratov - САратов

Saratov was founded in 1590. The city lacks well-known sights of interest but makes a convenient stop on the way south to Volgograd or on the way north to Samara.

The monument to Peter Stolypin, the prominent Russian reformer prime minister assassinated in 1911 in Kiev.

The monument to Nikolay Radishchev, the earliest revolutionary who instigated a revolt against the tsarist regime back in the late 18th century.

In the city's center.

The monument commemorating the 1917 Russian revolution.

The drama theatre.

If you are bad, welcome to be shaved.

The bridge across the Volga River.

SARATOV oblast - САРАТОВская область

Former wolgadeutsche republic

The town across the Volga bears the name of Friedrich Engels. A large community of ethnic Germans settled around Saratov in the 18th and 19th centuries and in 1924 got their own Volga German Autonomous Republic within the Soviet Union. The republic was abolished soon after Germany attacked the USSR on June 22, 1941. Deportation in 1941 and massive emigration of ethnic Germans in early 90-ss have significantly decreased the Wolga Deutsch population. But some traces remained. For instance, a delicate Lutheran church in the village of Zorkino (Зорькино) (former Zuerich) built in 1877 to the design developed by a well-known Berlin architect Johann Yakobschtal the author of Alexander Platz metro station in Berlin and the railway station in Strasbourg. The village is 110 km north of Saratov on the left bank of the Volga River. The nearest town to Zorkino is Marx named after Karl Marx.

Travelers can stay in a cozy hotel next to the church.

The German Courtyard Hotel in Engels.

yuri gagarin

The first man in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, lived in Saratov and studied at a college and learnt to fly a plane at the Saratov aeroclub. The statue of Gagarin with rather unusual rough facial features stands on the Volga embankment.

So came that Gagarin landed in the vicinity of Saratov after his first ever manned space flight. To get to his landing site, cross the Volga River and head approximately 30 km south until you see a direction sign "Место приземления Юрия Гагарина". It is a 6 km detour from the main road.

The landing site is marked with a monument.

A landing module. Not Gagarin's. He was ejected from his module and landed as a regular parachutist under a canopy.

The billboard reads: Saratov is the city where Gagarin studied and landed.

Again, so came that the second Soviet cosmonaut Herman Titov also landed in Saratov Oblast. The landing site is about 10 km south of the town of Krasny Kut (Красный Кут). About 130 km east of Saratov towards Kazakhstan. His landing site is also marked with a cute monument showing a falling parachute canopy right after touchdown, Titov’s face and statistic details of his flight. The statistics: the spaceship “Vostok-2” piloted by Herman Titov landed here on August 7, 1961. The spaceship circled the Earth 17 times. Flight duration – 25.3 hours. Distance traveled in space – 700,000 km.

The village of Loginovka (Логиновка) in the vicinity of Krasny Kut. An old unrestored church lends charm to the view. A rather interesting combination of stone and wooden architecture.