Russian Cities: Astrakhan
A Silk Road City in the Russian Federation, Astrakhan is Adventurous
Astrakhan, on the delta of the Volga river, is a destination for tourists interested in wooden architecture, authentic provincial Russia, and history.
Inside the walls of the Astrakhan Kremlin on any Friday afternoon when the weather is good, there is a swirling parade of wedding parties. In front of the Kremlin gates, beribboned Mercedes fight for position with Ladas and Zhigulis. Laughter echoes off the walls of the cathedral and the main bell tower as the brides pose with their grooms in front of the Ascension Cathedral. The cathedral, built by masters from Yaroslavl, rises in Baroque-influenced magnificence, along with the main bell-tower, whose long shadow darkens the approach to the Kremlin gates.
Further into the Kremlin’s enclosure, the new cobblestones give way to packed earth and broken brick.
This juxtaposition of rebirth and neglect seems to define modern Astrakhan, where beautifully restored sections of the town, freshly revealed from under a skin of scaffolding, rise next to blocks of wooden houses sagging, quite literally, into the soft ground of the Volga banks.
Scaffolding is everywhere downtown as building after building is restored to grandeur. The architecture of Astrakhan is aweing—Moderne ironwork balconies writhe like living things, vegetal designs dance around window-frames, lions leer down from cornices and scrollwork corbels decorate every corner. The city’s side-streets are a chaotic display of architectural styles from local vernacular to exotic buildings stamped with the architectural imprints of the near east and Persia.
All of this architectural wealth is a result of Astrakhan’s status as the Russian gate to the Orient in the 17th century, when these streets were full of merchants from Persia, Armenia, Khiva and Bokhara. Multicultural Astrakhan's citizens reflect this heritage: they are a mix of Russians and Tatars, Kazakhs and Kalmyks, Chechens and Armenians.
Once a capitol of the Golden Horde, Astrakhan began to appear in texts as Xacitarxan in the 13th Century. Tamerlane razed the city to the ground in 1395, but it was reborn as an important city along the Northern branches of the Silk Road and the capitol of the Astrakhan Khanate.
In 1556, the expansionist Ivan the Terrible smashed the Astrakhan Khanate and the Medieval settlement of Astrakhan, and rebuilt the city with a Kremlin 12 miles downstream from the original location, on a hill overlooking the Volga. The Kremlin was built with bricks pillaged from the original site of the city. On the walls of one of the cathedrals, an Orthodox cross is defiantly constructed of pillaged Muslim tiles.
Ivan the Terrible’s new city on the Volga saw a series of sieges: from Ottoman troops, who retreated in disorder in 1569, to Stenka Razin, whose Cossacks held the city for a brief and blood-soaked year from 1670-1671 during his rebellion against the Czar. Astrakhan was, for centuries, a nearly lawless border-town, surrounded by the mostly nomadic Tatars and Kalmyks of the Volga Delta.
Early in the 18th Century, Peter the Great established a shipyard here and used the city as a base for his hostilities with Persia, and as the base for Russian expeditions into Central Asia, which would, centuries later, result in the destruction of the khanates of Khiva and Bukhara, and the capture of Central Asia for the Czar up to the present-day border of Afghanistan. In the meantime, the Persians managed to sack the city in 1719, and it was also the base of several minor rebellions against the Czar in the early 18th Century: the capitol city of a volatile region with constantly shifting alliances This has always been a city on the edge, a place of margins and change that is tied not only to the Russian economy but to the region as a whole.
Where to Stay: The Azimut Astrakhan, a semi-remodeled soviet tower hotel not far from the center of town, has comfortable rooms and views of the Volga. The restaurant on the first floor is surprisingly good, as is the breakfast. Rooms range in price, with deluxe rooms easily costing upwards of 3000 rubles. Ulitsa Kremlevskaya 4 Tel +7 (8512) 22 99 12 www.azimuthotels.ru
Getting There: S7 Airlines operates daily flights from Moscow. Tel 8 (800) 200 0007 (in Russia) 7 (495) 777 99 99 (In Moscow) www.s7.ru
What to See: A wander around the streets in the city center will allow you to take in most of the sites. Start at the Astrakhan Kremlin with its impressive architectural array of Yaroslavl-style cathedrals, including the Uspenskiy Cathedral (1710). Stop by the Astrakhan Historical and Architectural Museum, which features an extensive display of weapons of the Scythian and Sarmatian periods, as well as the bones of a 150 thousand year-old mammoth. 15 Sovetskaya St. Tel: 8 (8512) 22 78 75.
