Yaransk: don't miss it on the way to Yoshkar-Ola

Stan and Karina at the junction of the Kirov Region and Mari El

Introduction

Yaransk is 214 kilometers of road from Kirov via Sovetsk and only 84 km from Yoshkar-Ola, the capital of Mari El. It was founded at the end of the 16th century as a fortress town after the Third Cheremis War.

It’s hard to find an easy description for it, like for Nolinsk, Slobodskoy, or Lalsk, but you can try quoting Oxxxymiron*:

All of this is mixed up in me
Over a slow fire
All of this is mixed up in me
Like in a dinner pot

(c) Oxxxymiron – Nameshano

* – performs the functions of a foreign agent

We decided to go there quite spontaneously (we made the decision to go on the weekend in a couple of minutes mid-week), without much bother with preliminary study of the town and making maps, routes, and all that stuff Stan usually does. Yaransk turned out to be favorable for such an approach.

And now let’s find out what you might have missed when you drove from Kirov to Yoshkar-Ola and didn’t stop for a day in Yaransk!

How to get there?

From the Kirov bus station by direct bus to Yaransk (at 6:35 AM) or to Yoshkar-Ola (at 9:15 AM) in 4 hours for 610 rubles. Tickets are conveniently purchased through the service’s app or website.

The direction is popular both ways (thanks, Yoshkar-Ola), so it might be easier and faster to hitch a ride or use BlaBlaCar for the same money. For the way back, that’s what we did. We lost about 100 rubles on ticket refunds, but gained 2 hours. This isn’t very safe, so we won’t recommend it :)

The briefest history of Yaransk

Yaransk is

thanks to the city’s presentation at the comfortable urban environment competition for the figures

What to see in Yaransk?

For a general idea of the areas of concentration of interesting things and everyday logistics, here’s a map with our minimum program:

Want to look around from above? Please ^_^

Kirov Street

Kirov Street is one of the city’s first established streets. It often changed names; one of them you can even guess if you imagine how streets used to be named. Yes, it was Troitskaya.

The Yaransk Local History Museum is located in the former house of merchant Rodygin. And, hurray, it’s open on weekends!

By the old proven tradition, we began our acquaintance with the town there.

We walked through the halls without a guide (from past trips, we’d forgotten that this needs to be requested and paid for. A connection somehow always happened on its own), and encountered halls classic for the genre.

Among the surprises — an “upside-down room.”

The handout at the museum won’t greatly help a tourist, souvenirs aren’t sold, but you can get them in the shops across the street.

At the “Natasha” shop — magnets (in Stan’s taste — so-so) and little plates.

You might ask yourself questions about the acceptability of bringing someone a magnet with a picture of a cemetery chapel as a gift.

At the “Low Prices Store” we recommend the board game (!) “Memo. Landmarks of Yaransk.” It’s cool as a precedent, plus it comes with a large map of all the landmarks, very helpful for tourists.

The game has a VKontakte page, with a list of shops where it’s sold and authors you can arrange delivery to another region with.

Here’s more beauty from Kirov Street:

The first thing that catches your eye even if you don’t want to catch anything in them — the Trinity Cathedral Ensemble in Yaransk

The Trinity Church was built to a standard design by architect Konstantin Andreyevich Ton. The very one who authored the original Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow and the Grand Kremlin Palace.

If the design is standard, then somewhere there’s an identical one, right? There was. The Church of St. Catherine the Martyr in Saint Petersburg, not preserved to our days.

The New Trinity Bell Tower was built a little later, in 1878–1889, to a design by architect A.S. Andreev

Nearby — the Old Bell Tower of Trinity Church.

By the way, it’s the second-oldest structure in Yaransk, among those preserved to our days.

Its height — 40 meters.

The bell tower’s dome was torn off after a thunderstorm in 1955.

Wonderful 2023 technologies make it possible to turn photos into almost 3D, which you can view from any angle or just fly around the area. Thanks to them for such an opportunity!

Another option — a walk around the Trinity Cathedral district, made using Gaussian splats. You can move and inspect the space from any point.

Karl Marx Street

Karl Marx Street runs parallel to the Yaran River. There’s a high concentration of beauty here. With one very important minus — it’s also part of the Vyatka highway, so there are a lot of passing cars here.

The Annunciation Church was built in 1652. Previously, the church belonged to the men’s Ascension Monastery, which ceased to exist in 1764. A new milestone in the life of the Annunciation Church was the decision to open a monastery at it, as in the old days. This time, a women’s one.

The District House of Folk Art, originally — the shopping arcades of merchant Nosov. Filimon Roslyakov is responsible for the architecture.

The Assumption Cathedral was originally wooden, and at the end of the 18th century changed its “coat” to stone. It’s interesting in that it never interrupted its activities during its entire existence, and the stone building has been preserved to our days.

What else?

A separate story of our trip — the Yaransk Necropolis, or Ascension Cemetery.

Tombstones of incredible beauty, burials of Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war from the First World War and Yaransk heroes of subsequent wars.

A chapel was built in 1990 over the grave of the locally venerated saint, Venerable Matthew of Yaransk. In 2015, his relics were rediscovered and transferred to Trinity Church.

Meet the Yaransk water tower.

Not only beautiful, as it is now, but also useful, as in 1912 — when, with zemstvo money and merchant donations, the city administration built a water supply system in Yaransk.

A spontaneous walk — the key to beautiful photos in the gallery

Where did we stay? What did we eat?

You remember that we don’t earn money from ads? So everything we talk about — we’ve tested on ourselves and paid with our own money

About lodging

Guest House “Vybor” (Choice)

We chose to stay at the guest house — “Vybor.” Royal chambers, a gazebo, a grill, if your hands are from the right place, a toilet and shower in the room, and good renovation. The price starts from 2,200 per room for two, but it’s worth it:

Now about the food

In 24 hours, we managed to check only two recharge points for our organism in terms of food. For recharging with liquids (without water it’s hard in summer — and what did you think of?) the familiar “Bristol” and “K&B” are available.

About outcomes and the future

What we understood for ourselves right away is that Yaransk has a very special atmosphere: preserved architecture from the 17th–19th centuries, lots of beautiful window casings, and its own atmosphere of wooden architecture. And if one word could describe the whole atmosphere, it’s this — good. No, like this — gooooood

Karina A.

The Yaran River. It’s what gave the town its name.

The town gave us a reason to return.

And its real gold — the residents who want the best for it. The local self-governance (TOS) movement is well developed, thanks to which urban spaces are being transformed. We won’t judge the modernity of the squares and the Main Square — we should look at ourselves in Kirov first. But it works, something is happening, and it reminds less of sadness.

In 2021, on the third try, Yaransk won the V All-Russian Competition for Best Projects for Creating a Comfortable Urban Environment in Small Towns and Historical Settlements with the “Streletskaya Sloboda” project. Yaransk residents really need a quality crossing over the Yaran River from Gogol Street and new functional spaces. We tourists want new viewpoints and beauty. And it should happen.

We found the application-project on the competition website, there’s an archive with many files, you can browse for interest. Below — a few slides from it

What’s alarming is that according to the project implementation roadmap, something should have already appeared, but we saw no signs of a new embankment :(

And separately we recommend the video “A Weekend in Yaransk,” where we spotted the shawarma and the hotel. It’s great support for inspiration for a trip and a tourist who has decided!

One of the authors of this video is also involved in the Tourist Map, the “Memo” game, and even the successful fundraising for the Local History Museum renovation-restoration through the Local Initiatives Support Program.

Karina talked to the girl from the video for work, in case you’re interested.

… another batch of photos for the atmosphere!

Video

The part of the material where we suggest watching the video from the trip