Escape from the City: weekend routes in Tatarstan. Day 5. The oilmen are in search of comfort
Realnoe Vremya online newspaper presents a new project called Escape from the City! We created our own tourist route to travel around Tatarstan. We invited a journalist from Ufa Oksana Mamontova and a historian of engineering Airat Bagautdinov to cover this route. Oksana is looking for emotions and impressions, while Airat is in search of a historical value! They travelled during a week and summed up what they saw every day in order to share their impressions with the readers of Realnoe Vremya.
The fifth day began for us, so to say, a day before, when our creative team was thinking how to schedule the day in Almetyevsk, where we were going from Chistopol next morning. In the city of oilmen the motorists-athletes were waiting for us, they promised Oksana a test drive. What to do with Airat, who loves history and architecture, in the city where history started little more than 60 years and the architecture begins with 'leningradkas', we really didn't know. Airat solved that problem himself, he said, among other things, that in Moscow he travels to work and home exclusively by bike. Almetyevsk in Tatarstan is now a platform for testing ambitions: you can try here all modern urban ideas — bicycle tracks, modern parks. For example, the mayor of the city Airat Khairullin said that during the year the city will build 50 km of cycle paths. And in September of last year there was opened the Park Shamsinur — a modern park on the remains of the ruined banks of the Zay River.
Almetyevsk became a city only in 1953. Before it was the rural area of Almetyevo and earlier — a village. The accurate data of the time of the founding of the village of Almetyevo is unknown. However, some indirect evidence suggests that in the eighteenth century. In 1795, 700 teptyari (the social group known in Bashkortostan from the XVII century – editor's note) and Bashkirs resided in the village, and in 1834 — 123 Bashkirs, 544 teptyari. According to the materials of the revision of 1859, at 214 households of the village there were 1518 state peasants and Bashkirs, as well as a mosque, a post office, a fair, bazaars and 2 plants.
So, we decided that Airat would test the bike paths in Almetyevsk, ride around the young city and see how it meets the stated ambitions. Pleased with the idea, we went to sleep. In the morning, it was a pouring rain outside. Airat was ready to test the city's infrastructure under the rain, however, the renters of bikes in Almetyevsk — no: 'Have you seen the weather outside?' — they asked. Even though the weather promised to become better for dinner, they refused to go to work on a rainy Saturday.
Thus, it turned out that the mayor wants the development of cycling in the city more than ordinary people do. Later those with whom we managed to discuss the topic of bike lanes, they confirmed that the residents of Almetyevsk treat this idea with skepticism so far.
But to the other transport, they have a special attitude. The city is rich, young, and cars are corresponding. And sometimes — not just cars. On Maidan, while we were cheerfully talking to the guys from Almet racing club, across the street from us someone was parking a private helicopter. An ordinary helicopter. 'This is Almetyevsk,' the guys told.
Those cars in Almetyevsk did impress us at first: old VAZ 2114, VAZ 2101 or 'kopeika' and 'zhiguli' — until they started the engines. Only the body was 'native' of these cars. They call these cars 'korchi', and when they take off the suits of riders — they change to 'civilian' cars.
So it was turned out that the female part of the crew came at the meeting with the guys from Almet racing club. No doubt, we were impressed when we were demonstrated the first police turn. Such hooliganism the guys allow themselves only at special venues and rings, with street racing they have in common only the love for cars. Their 'brotherhood' is a community of racers from Almetyevsk and neighbouring Bugulma, Aznakaevo, Naberezhnye Chelny. Today, the club is going through hard times, but it was extremely nice to chat with people who are so passionate about some business.
Apart from these speed lovers we met with fans of retro cars — the guys who repair and refurbish old 'yedinichka' and 'kolkhoznitsa'. Not the best vintage cars in the world. But in Russia today the restoration of Zhiguli is the main trend. Having bought a car for a penny, they can make it a 'candy'. And, by the way, a restored car you can also buy inexpensively yet.
We had been seeing the city with the eye of the Almetyevsk car drivers for about half of a day. Almetyevsk is 63, and just 152,500 people live there. It is one of the most landscaped cities of the republic; litter bins appeared here earlier than in Kazan. Almost every person in the city works in the oil industry or close to it. The guys say they did not want to leave the city. So now they are thinking about it. There is work to do, but the cultural life is not rich, and everything stops at 10 p.m.
Airat saw the city with his own eyes. There are big modern city malls, clean streets and many mentions of Tatneft — the source of the city's well-being. We deliberately did not go to the Oil Museum: whole Almetyevsk is an open-air museum. Not a search of tourist points of interests but a desire to breathe the air we don't know was the goal of our visit to Almetyevsk. If you are really interested in oil history of the region, which is, indeed, a very decent way, you should visit the Oil Museum in Shugurovo where there is a detailed description of oil extraction process. And not only with modern pumpjacks but according to a method used at the beginning of oil extraction. By the way, oil was found in Shugurovo, when it was expected very much during the Second World War in order to build the second Baku, where about 70% of all oil was extracted, in the Volga-Ural region.
Public places are the main points of interest in such a young city as Almetyevsk. Cascade of Ponds and Shamsinur park are the most important places.
Shamsinur park has everything in order to do sport in the open air: there is a wooden platform for yoga and dance, workout site, urban gym equipment, awning for table games, two playgrounds, amphitheatre for resting and reading and network of paths for pedestrians. A 2 km professional running track is located on the perimeter of the spring.
Airat did not manage to see much in Almetyevsk on foot: he visited these parks, had a lunch in a city mall and talked to local people. The picky Moscow man was satisfied with his walk. We had been asking Airat for a long time whether he really liked Almetyevsk. 'I did!' he replied and took a selfie and added a hashtag FavouriteAlmetyevsk.
We decided to stay overnight in the Karabash Reservoir — it is an artificial reservoir, the main bathing place and leisure area of oil cities: Almetyevsk, Aznakaevo, Bugulma and Karabash.
The Karabash Reservoir is located 20 km from Bugulma. It was put into operation in 1957 to provide oil facilities and industrial enterprises with water.
Many places on the riverbank are full of resorts (corporate and available for any citizen). We chose one of such places to stay. We planned to spend a calm evening at Altay base because our camera crew has covered a half of the way of our trip, accumulated tiredness and tension. We did not take only one thing into account: it was Saturday, tens of searches of beach and barbecue holiday, who were loud and not very sober, chose the Karabash Reservoir except us. This is why in search of a quiet evening we went to Bugulma, so we expanded our route (thanks to our partner MTS PJSC. We witnessed that only MTS worked in the reservoir). But if you have a chance to visit the reservoir, spend some time and have a look at it. The area of the reservoir is enormous! It is a good place for fishing: people say there is carp, perch, bream, ruff and many other fishes. By the way, we prepared a fish soup for dinner due to incredibly hospitable owners of Altay base.
Nature is not to everybody's liking: flat riverbanks and small forests. Nature is absolutely different from the nature we used to see near Kazan. We decided to sleep in one of the resorts — ask what comforts a house has in advance because some resorts are an absolutely ascetic option. As usual, we managed to see fewer things that this district has.
