Taganrog

Taganrog is a very famous town in Russia. It is a small industrial sea port with a larger set of factories that today only operate at about ½ capacity at best. At one time the city was flush with capital as traders and merchants took up residence and moved mass quantity of goods through the region using Taganrog’s ports. Of course this was from the 16 to mid 18 hundreds, during the Soviet reign the city was turned in to an industrial center with many large factories. I think today the town has scene better days. But why is it so famous? For it is the birth place of at least incredibly famous and important Russians. The biggest name would be the writer Chekhov (the writer not the Star Trek character), there is also a romantic poet whose name escapes me but of whom statues litter the city, and finally the most important my wife RG. This is where she grew up, went to school, and where her parents reside to this day. In fact her mother’s 50 birthday is what brought us to the town for three days over my vacation last week.

Her parents live in a modest 2 bedroom house. It faces into a court yard with similar styled house. To enter the quart yard you must first pass through a large, green, metal gate. This is a common set up in the town and I saw very few single family homes that faced the road directly. The houses are generally brick with metal roofs and many have been around for a couple hundred years. I think the in-laws though is a quarter that old. The neighbor hood seemed to me to be not on the out skirts of town but not in the center or main area either. The roads were not paved and to be honest probably haven’t been graded in a decade. Other than that the though their house has all the creature comforts air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and so on. It has a surprise underneath it also, as it was build on top of a rich man’s cellar. So using a trap door in the kitchen you can get under the house into a large arched brick cavern. This was certainly a surprise for me, I love to find secret areas like this.

The main park of the city is quite nice and includes a small amusement park, a zoo, several cafes, an amphitheater, and lots gardens and green spaces. Though it is pretty dry it reminded me of the being out west in California. What was very amusing was to find out that even before the iron curtain fell the Russians knew of our love of roller coasters and the US was famous for having such rides. Because of this the small amusement park had what they called the American Coaster or some similar name. My Wife informed me that when she was a kid it scared her very much and she would not ride it. When I saw the ride it was obvious that A) it was not a roller coaster but a simple carnical ride that had cars the simply went in a circle, and II) RG must have been pretty small when she was scared of the ride because I couldn’t imagine the ride scaring anyone older than 8 or 9.

The sea coast could be a great tourist area if it was not dominated by large factories and cranes, not to mention the dirty water and litter everywhere. It really was the saddest part of the town. We took a brief trip to the market which I thought was quite fun. There was fresh fish, meats, vegetables, fruits, and the like. It was similar to the farmers marker but on roids. However at the sea I was finally able to try a drink the Russians have called Kavas. It was horrible. Imagine unfermented beer and coke mixed. People over there love it but I do not know why. Maybe it is an acquired tasted, and while I do try to eat what is offered to me when in Russia, I don’t think I am going to develop a taste for Kavas. Also while in town I was able to meet RG’s old school friends. Her two best girl firends actually. They were both very nice, but it was amazing to see how different each girls life is now. RG married to an American the only one of the three with a college degree and professional job, both of them had small children, one was a single mom, the other married to someone I expect to be an important man some day as he is currently a police inspector. It was nice to visit and meet with them.

The best part of our brief trip to Taganrog was watching my wife put a police officer in his place. When we went tot he Black Sea last year I had trouble getting through passport control because the police officer was basically trying to get a bribe. This year however RG was well read on the subject and put up a good fight. He and his counter part quickly backed off and we were through with time to spare to catch the flight. The fact that this happens actually discourages me from flying to these smaller towns in Russia, but it was fun to watch this big police start to eat crow when my wife read him the riot act.