Perm, the city built on salt: an ideal
pit stop on your Ural route
The up-and-coming city of Perm, 1,400 km east of Moscow,
is no longer associated solely with the horrors of the Gulag.
It has reinvented itself as one of Russia's new meccas of
modern art
Levi Bridges, for RBTH
rbth.ru
According to local legend, the residents of Perm, Russia have
salty ears. As an industrial capital near some of Russia’s
largest metal and salt mines, workers are said to have once
lugged so many sacks of salt on their shoulders into Perm
that a briny smudge rubbed off on their skin. Today, this
city of a million inhabitants is casting off this working-class
image and reinventing itself as a cultural capital to rival
Moscow and St. Petersburg. Once a closed city during Soviet
times, Perm is now a vibrant urban center with a rich artistic
tradition that has opened its doors to visitors.
Perm, the Ural Mountains
Before Russians started mining salt here, the region was called
Great Perm by the Komi, a group of Finno-Ugric people who
share ethnic and linguistic ties with Hungarians and Estonians.
The Komi lived on the Kama River, which runs through the modern
city of Perm, and in the surrounding Ural Mountains, one of
the world’s oldest mountain ranges that separates Europe
from Asia.
In addition to naming one of Europe’s most eastern cities,
the Komi also supplied the moniker for an important geologic
age, the Permian
Period . English geologist Sir
Roderick Impey Murchison coined the term after conducting
research in the Urals during the 19th century. Murchison’s
Permian Period ended with a cataclysmic event that killed
nearly all the world’s species known as the Permian
extinction.
Although Perm’s name recalls destruction, within Russia
it has long been a place of opportunity. In medieval times,
the Urals represented the beginning of Russia’s ‘Wild
East’, a land of untapped resources that attracted explorers
and traders as Russia expanded into Siberia. When minerals
and precious metals were discovered in the Urals, Peter the
Great founded Perm in 1723. The mountains still produce a
lucrative export trade in metals and salt.
During the Soviet days, Perm was renamed Molotov after Joseph
Stalin’s foreign minister and right-hand man, Vyacheslav
Molotov . In the Second World War, weapon’s factories
were relocated to Perm further east from the Nazis. Perm got
its original name back after Stalin’s death, and the
city was opened to outsiders in the final years of the Soviet
Union.
Today, city planners and local politicians have sponsored
large-scale investment in Perm’s cultural life. New
theaters and art galleries are sprouting up as construction
projects take shape along the waterfront district on the Kama.
Visitors here can enjoy ballet and theater without navigating
chaotic Moscow. Hiking and rafting opportunities abound in
the Ural Mountains and nearby expanses of northern Asia. The
refined culture of Europe and ruggedness of Siberia together
form the very essence of Russia; Perm offers both.
You can reach most areas of interest in Perm by foot. It’s
believed that Boris Pasternak, winner of the 1958
Nobel Prize in Literature , based the town of Yuriatin
in his novel Dr. Zhivago on Perm. Pasternak visited Perm
frequently and lived nearby for several months in 1916. Start
your walking tour of Perm with a visit to the Pushkin Library
(Ul. Petropavlovskaya 25) a striking yellow building with
a small exhibit about Pasternak in the room that he is thought
to have envisioned Zhivago meeting his lover, Lara, in the
library of Yuriatin.
Close to the library lies another sight referred to in Dr.
Zhivago as the “house of figures,” a beautiful
blue edifice decorated in white bas-reliefs of female heads
and which today houses the local branch of the Russian
Academy of Sciences (Ul. Lenina 13a).
Just north of Ul. Lenina is the Perm
Museum of Modern Art PERMM (Ul. Ordzhonikidze 2). Located
in the old river station hall by the Kama, PERMM is famous
for its contemporary, and often controversial, rotating art
exhibits. Further east along the Kama is the Perm
State Art Gallery (Pr. Komsomolsky 4) inside the former
Cathedral of Christ Transfiguration. The Gallery houses an
impressive collection of paintings as well as wooden sculptures
made by the region’s Finno-Ugric peoples.
Perm is one of best places in Russia to see ballet and home
of the famous Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. The city
has a museum dedicated to Diaghilev (Ul. Sibirskaya 33), and
you can catch a show at the Tchaikovsky
Theatre of Opera and Ballet (Ul. Petropavlovskaya 25),
originally founded in part by a donation from Diaghilev’s
grandfather.
Outside the city is Perm-36
the only gulag in Russia that is formally open to visitors.
During the repressive Stalin years, thousands of dissidents
and intellectuals were sent to gulags, or labor camps. Coils
of barbwire fence still surround Perm-36’s original
buildings; concrete cells where prisoners were jailed, and
a new museum
. A visit here is a moving journey through one of the country’s
darkest eras. The
Perm Tourist Travel Agency (Ul. Lenina 58, inside The
Hotel Ural ) and other local outfits lead tours to Perm-36
that run upwards of $100. Alternatively, the museum’s
website contains valuable information on how to organize
your own transport and book a cheaper guided tour through
its Perm office (Bul. Gagarina 10).
Perm is also gateway for rafting, trekking, skiing, and horseback
riding adventures in the Urals. Tour operator Krasnov
can help you embark on any of these outings. Their 7-day
rafting expedition ($750-1,000 depending on group size) is
highly recommended.
Perm’s calendar is chock-full of festivals. The White
Nights festival features a month of art and concerts
every June when the Russian sun hardly sets. The Kamwa
Festival starts every July and is both a celebration
of modern art and music as well as the artistic traditions
of Perm’s native peoples.
