Sergei Rubtsov
Tula traveler Sergei Rubtsov visited Grozny and talks about his impressions.
This is not the first gulbarium about the capital of the Chechen Republic, so if you want to compare Grozny 2017 and Grozny 2019, you have this opportunity. And who knows, maybe you’ll want to do it in reality yourself
— I very often come across information on the Internet that Grozny occupies top places in various city rankings. At the same time, I didn’t personally know people who went there, and most of the pictures show only postcard views of the city. But this spring I decided to see for myself what the “add any word” city in Russia actually looks like. Below there will also be mainly postcard views, but I will try to dilute them with my impressions of the city as a whole. I'll start from the very beginning.
About hotels
As for hotels, prices in Grozny are not particularly steep; even staying in the most expensive hotel in Grozny City costs around 7,000 rubles. per night for two, but I planned to see the city, so I lived in a small hotel with a decent rating on booking and a price of less than 2000 rubles. per night. When I checked into my room, the young Chechen at the reception asked if I was at work and was very surprised when he heard that I had just come for a walk and to see the city. He even asked if I was scared, which left me bewildered, but he clarified that many in Russia perceive the opportunity to fly to Chechnya with fear. In principle, among my acquaintances there are also a lot of people who twisted their fingers to their temples when I talked about my plans. I didn’t rent the hotel itself, but it’s worth the money, the only downside is its location, but more on that later.
About transport
The idea of visiting Grozny had been in my head for a long time, but, as often happens, there were always other plans and other directions. Having immediately received a newsletter that you could fly there for 5,600 rubles with Utair airlines for the weekend (Fri-Sun), I decided that the time had come. And now, on the last weekend of April, I am already leaving the Northern airport in Grozny:
I always prefer to get from the airport to the city by public transport to immediately immerse myself in the atmosphere of the city, although taxis in Grozny cost very reasonable money. One evening it was raining heavily and in the dark I had no desire to get to the other end of the city on my own, so the trip cost 85 rubles (I ordered through the Maxim app). The public transport stop is located near the parking lot (landmark - parking meter), which is no more than 200 meters from the entrance. I needed minibus No. 111, which goes to the railway station, the fare cost 22 rubles.
As I understand it, minibuses are the main form of transport here, because all the times I traveled by public transport, they were the ones who arrived.
For some reason, the minibus from the airport that I was traveling on was less than halfway, and the driver suggested that everyone change to another one, and, of course, took money for the journey. I don’t know if it was just me who was so lucky or if it was supposed to be this way, but I decided to continue walking. I stayed quite far from the center (2.5 km) on Zhukovsky Street and I can say that while I was walking to the hotel, I probably saw the largest concentration of tire shops and car services per square meter. In principle, I can say the same about the concentration of domestic cars (in the neighboring city of Argun, Priors have even been assembled at the Chechenavto plant since 2011), and for some reason it seems to me that these facts are related. By the way, local services are always busy.
About the urban environment
When booking an overnight stay in a city, I often focus on the distance to the attractions that interest me. It was also in Grozny, I figured that 2.5 km is half an hour of walking at a normal pace, so I considered this distance acceptable. However, there is something I didn't take into account. Firstly, it was still spring and it was getting dark outside early, so we often had to walk in the dark for those half an hour. And no, walking around Grozny at night is not dangerous, but it’s just that in the part of the city through which my route lay, the lighting was very bad, and in some places I had to walk using my phone to illuminate my way. Secondly, the weather was a little let down and it rained all day on Saturday, but, as it turned out, the further from the center, the fewer not only asphalt sidewalks, but also sidewalks in general. As a result, a theoretical half-hour night walk around the city sometimes turned out to be an obstacle course. Photos on the Internet usually give an inaccurate impression of the city; in fact, most of Grozny appears to be private houses, although the houses here are very decent. As a local taxi driver told me, Chechens build housing for the whole large family and for a long time, so do everything on a large scale and thoroughly. Of the interesting details in the private sector, I noted for myself the methods of throwing away garbage. The bags are hung on special hooks near the road, then they are collected by a garbage truck passing along the street.
The central part of Grozny is strikingly different from its main part, and Putin Avenue can easily be confused with a street in some European town.
Here you can already find smart bike paths that automatically count the number of cyclists, bins for separate waste collection and benches with built-in solar panels and phone chargers:
Recently they even invited street artists to paint graffiti on buildings, some of which look really cool, but I found myself at a time when most of the work was still unfinished. Personally, I think the coolest image is the three-dimensional tower on Kadyrov Avenue.
In fact, walking along two avenues, you are surprised how cool everything is here, from parks to workout grounds and modern football “boxes” for children:
Only then do you go a couple of blocks to the side and don’t understand how to normally cross the bridge over the Sunzha if there are no sidewalks or they suddenly disappear.
