YeletsMapMay 5, 2014 The outskirts of the city are awful.  At first glance, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything interesting here.  Labor Glory. Yelets, 1146–2013 Just an ordinary Russian city, nothing special.  But you absolutely have to go downtown and take a walk. Yelets is actually one of the most wonderful cities in Russia.  Yelets reminds me of Christiansted in the U.S. Virgin Islands in some ways. There’s enormous tourism potential here.  Agency of the Second Russian Fire Insurance Society. Est. 1835. The old buildings remain fairly well preserved.  And even the new buildings don’t always ruin the overall impression.  The city is green.  Very old.  Peaceful and quiet.  The street signs are clever: the modern name of the street is set in a sans-serif typeface, and the historic name is set in a pseudo-Slavonic one.  Mayakovsky St. — Old Moscow St. Shevchenko St. — Vvedensky Hill Yelets still retains two of the most important architectural features of a Russian city. High fence walls.  And courtyard gates. Every Russian city used to look like this at one point. Today, all that’s left is a few scattered reminders. But in Yelets, the gates are alive and well on every street.  It’s a place you absolutely have to visit.  |
