Syktyvkar and the Komi Republic.
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Syktyvkar is the capital of the Komi Republic, and is the most north-eastern capital city of Europe, up near the Ural Mountains. The Komi Republic is part of the Russian Federation. It is larger than the united Germany and has a population of just over 1 million, plus several billion trees and not much else. The native Komi people – about 200,000 of them - speak a language akin to Hungarian, Finish and Estonian. The rest of the population is Russian – many are descended from prisoners of the gulags or criminal prisons, or work in the oil-fields of the second city, Ukhta. The least fortunate of all work (nominally) in the bankrupted coal-mines of Vorkuta in the extreme north-east of the Republic. Locals will tell you as you drive from Syktyvkar to Ukhta that you are passing over the bones of those who built the road – prisoners who were tossed in the roadway as they died.
Syktyvkar (population about 250,000) is my least favourite town in Russia. It has no night-life, nothing in the shops, crappy restaurants, a high level of criminality and its hotels are full of cockroaches. There is a marginally picturesque quarter of the town with old wooden buildings, named ‘Paris’ because it was there that captured French soldiers were deported in the Napoleonic Wars. The immigration police are b*****ds – if you have the misfortune to go there, make sure your visa is 100% correct.
The only good thing I found there was the sauna attached to the dacha of my friend Boris, about 30 km out of town. If you happen to meet Boris and get an invite to the sauna, don’t forget to bring a bottle or two of vodka, try the birch twigs and roll in the snow. And hope that the driver hasn’t got too drunk to take you back to your crummy hotel, so you can get the plane out to St. Petersburg in the morning.
Syktyvkar (population about 250,000) is my least favourite town in Russia. It has no night-life, nothing in the shops, crappy restaurants, a high level of criminality and its hotels are full of cockroaches. There is a marginally picturesque quarter of the town with old wooden buildings, named ‘Paris’ because it was there that captured French soldiers were deported in the Napoleonic Wars. The immigration police are b*****ds – if you have the misfortune to go there, make sure your visa is 100% correct.
The only good thing I found there was the sauna attached to the dacha of my friend Boris, about 30 km out of town. If you happen to meet Boris and get an invite to the sauna, don’t forget to bring a bottle or two of vodka, try the birch twigs and roll in the snow. And hope that the driver hasn’t got too drunk to take you back to your crummy hotel, so you can get the plane out to St. Petersburg in the morning.
