On 19 September I flew from Moscow to St Petersburg, then on to Blagoveshchensk with an hour- long stopover in Novosibirsk. ![]() BlagoveshchenskMapSeptember 2022, 2005 China is indecently close — just across the river. I really wanted to go over there for a few hours, but didn’t have enough time. ![]() Blagoveshchensk is full of Chinese people anyway. ![]()
Shopping centre ![]() Chinese fair At the local market blonde women sell caviar while all of the other traders sell clothes and mobile phones at criminally low prices. ![]() The city is utterly uninteresting from an architectural standpoint. It’s impossible to get lost in it — it’s built like a grid. From time to time you see attempts to inject some variety into the landscape. ![]() Everyone recognises the font they use for patriotic propaganda from Chinese-made canned meat tins. ![]() The Declaration on state sovereignty of the Russian Federation was adopted on 12 June You also get maverick patriots. ![]() Since there are hardly any traffic lights in the city, particular care has gone into the road signs. In the city centre there’s a sign the size of a real-life pedestrian: ![]() Right behind it they laying the pavement. The road workers drew the attention of passersby with a handmade poster, its meaning shrouded in mystery. But it certainly did grab your attention, which the workers were inordinately pleased about: ![]()
Stop Public service advertising. ![]()
Break the speed limit Rubbish bins. ![]() Civilisation’s achievements come in clusters here. ![]() The style of the street signs is borrowed from the area inside Moscow’s ring road. ![]() Everything else is unabashedly Chinese. ![]() Chinese cuisine Or maybe not quite everything. ![]() Amur bready bread bread Some people actually have their knickers in a twist over this. ![]()
Men of Russia But the Chinese have a numerical advantage. ![]() Onwards to Khabarovsk by train. |
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Blagoveshchensk
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© 19952025 Artemy Lebedev |