Klin

Map

April 7, 2008

Clink with a Baltika #7? Doesn’t sound quite right.

Clink with a Baltika Cooler? Same thing.

Clink with a Holsten? No, no.

Clink with a Klinskoye? Yes, now we’re talking! We’re in Klin, the home of Klinskoye beer.

Klin is a baffling city. All the trash cans are tilted here.

They’re really straight at heart, but they haven’t been able to stay upright for a long time.

So the new trash cans are also made tilted, to blend in.

If a trash can in Klin is absolutely incapable of standing at an angle, it’s installed upside down.

Klin is one of the filthiest cities of our nation. There’s trash literally everywhere here.

This lends the city a certain charm.

Where there’s no trash, there’s road dust. Lots of it. And it doesn’t hesitate to gather into dust storms that could rival those of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

Even the walkways here are like in that Ray Bradbury story about stepping on a butterfly. One step off the path when it’s rainy—and you’re ankle-deep in mud, having irreparably changed the course of history.

The only thing Klin has been notable for in the past couple of centuries is being a transit point between Moscow and Tver on the way to Saint Petersburg. A section of the Leningrad Highway passes right through the center of town. So it’s always noisy, dirty and dusty here. This also makes Klin the best place for truck-watching.

Amazingly enough, local residents still haven’t begun to appreciate the beautiful views of the Sestra River from the hillside. This is the very center of the city:

Klin’s most distinctive feature is its reverence for the past. Ok, fine, Lenin is understandable.

Or, say, Karl Marx.

But they’ve kept a sign for a policing center of the Department Against Misappropriation of Socialist Property. Only time is allowed to touch it, not people.

A wall thermometer from the past.

The post boxes are all Soviet, they just have a sticker covering the old state emblem.

Russian Post

The fleet of mail trucks is on display like at a museum: all the models lined up in a row.

No one will touch an old sign here. Sure, you can hang up a new one—somewhere nearby.

Central District Library

The city’s main newspaper is the Hammer and Sickle. Its hard times are behind it now.

Newsstand. Hammer and Sickle.

Today, it’s safe to say that the city is looking to the future with confidence.

Klin is stepping firmly into the 21st century.

21st Century Plumbing. Shoe Repair.

Hold the banner of Klin sports up high!

Hold the Banner of Klin Sports Up High. Health and Beauty. Gold and Sports. Culture of the Third Millennium.

The MOUDOD has opened its doors to welcome young people.

Office of Youth, Physical Fitness, Sports and Tourism Affairs. Chess and Checkers Club. Klin Chess School for Children and Youth, MOUDOD Children’s Activity Center.

Municipal property is getting a facelift.

The appearance of private housing is improving.

A sign for Central Restaurant has already gone up on the roof of a building near the train station. Never mind that they haven’t started building the restaurant yet—that’s easily rectified.

Central Restaurant. Shareholder—That’s You!

But they have put up a monument depicting Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 next to the pizzeria. The resemblance is quite striking, if you ask me.

The lampposts on one of the streets instill confidence in Klin’s future.

The utility pole craftsmanship is top-notch here, I’m not joking. Wires and whatnot are attached to the pole with non-reusable metal straps. Even Moscow doesn’t have this yet; this is the very latest American technology (in the US, they use these straps to attach everything, from road signs to traffic lights).