In Russia – with love. Tula. Reborn from the ashes

You can see the country without the help of an airliner. Excellent high-speed routes connected Moscow with almost all neighboring regions. For example, Tula. Once upon a time, only electric trains went here – three and a half hours. And now on the “Swallow” – only two with a tail.

I have a special relationship with the city of gunsmiths. He served urgently in the local training aviation regiment. And the civil airport in the 80s worked properly, used the same take-off with the military. It was located in the village of Gorelki within the city. Today, only a monument to the aircraft and a couple of destroyed barracks remain from the entire economy.

Again, in the 80s, when we went on leave or went to the city bathhouse, I got the impression that Tula was full of people. Public transport is crowded, the streets are clogged with pedestrians. It was believed that the population then amounted to about 600 thousand people.

About 15 years ago I nostalgically stopped in Tula. And found an empty city. The population – officially – 460 thousand. But there was little work in those years, and I suspect that in reality there were much fewer people living here. Most of all, the Kremlin was depressing then. To the left of the entrance were overflowing rusty garbage cans, and the whole area was overgrown with weeds. There was definitely nowhere to eat.

The next time I came to Tula two years ago. The Kremlin shone with a fresh renovation, the embankment (the territory used to belong to the arms factory) closed by a wretched fence with barbed wire has turned into a stunning public space, Metallistov Street, coming from the Kremlin, has become a pedestrian street, and now restored historical buildings with shops and restaurants stand on both sides of it , cafes, souvenir shops.

The most beautiful building of the commandant’s office remained in place and was also luxuriously restored, but the barracks and terrible outbuildings disappeared. Instead, there is a parking lot and a restaurant complex, a kind of tasty street where you can find cuisine for almost every taste. It is a pity, of course, that there is no room left in the guardhouse, where your obedient servant spent three days, meeting his 20th birthday. However, her boss, a senior warrant officer, treated me to a glass of Pinocchio and wished, on the occasion of the anniversary, not to be in such places anymore. Here I did not appear.

Last year, a fantastic Tula Defense Museum opened in the city. All modern computer interactive technologies are used here, and in addition there are many real and very large-scale dioramas. It is clear that there are museums here and weapons, and gingerbread, and a samovar. But most importantly, the city has become cozy. Alive and living.

There was our eternal question with hotels. Azimuth renovated a small historical building almost on that Metallistov street. They did it soundly and beautifully, but the house is not very suitable for a hotel. The rooms, apparently, stuffed, as it turns out. All of them are very small, even those that, by their status, such as deluxe or junior suite, should actually be quite large. In cold weather, the hotel is unbearably hot, the air conditioning is turned off, and the heat is on, as if they want to fry alive. In winter, an open window in the bedroom is not the best way to avoid a cold.

There is also a very pretentious SK Royal hotel, to the entrance to which someone screwed five stars. At least two, or even three of them, in my opinion, are clearly superfluous. I had to stop there a couple of times, and there was always something going on. One room was leaking, something was making a frantic noise in another, in the third the closet at the entrance stood in such a way that even I, for all my fragility, had difficulty going inside (it was a suite, by the way). And somehow the waiter at breakfast finished me off. I took a sip of coffee and asked a passing waiter, “Is there any other way to get coffee besides from this machine?” “No, unfortunately not,” the young man replied. “But you can’t drink it!” I said somewhere in the air. “Yes,” agreed the waiter, “rare rubbish.”

Prices in these hotels are not very encouraging. In “Azimuth” – for 3600 you can rent only a 16-meter attic room, without breakfast. Breakfast – 800 rubles. And in the “five stars” it starts from 6 thousand. There are, of course, other sleeping options, but they look more like bunkhouses or inns.

You can, of course, ask me: why spend the night there? Two hours there, two hours back, a day to walk around Tula. And I will answer: if possible, it is better to go by car for a few days. Because around Tula there are a lot of interesting places that are also worth a visit. At the same time, the roads in the region are excellent. But more on that in the next post.

Alexey Vishnevetsky.

Author’s photo