You may have gotten the impression that Mama never takes us anywhere outside of Moscow, but you would be wrong. We recently spent the day in Dubna, which is over 100km north of Russia’s capital.
While we were on the bus going there, Papa interrogated the conductoress as to where would be the best places to visit. She seemed a little nonplussed, which wasn’t very encouraging. Mama has since found out that Dubna has the second largest Lenin statue in the world, which you might think was worth a mention. There are also not one, not two, not three but four museums.
But we knew nothing of this so on the advice of the locals we got off at the far end of town, next to the infestation of fancy new apartment blocks and generic shopping malls. It’s an object lesson in the difference between what residents think is important versus what might attract visitors.
Dubna is principally not very famous for being a science town (this is an official designation). Nuclear physics to be precise, but as far as Mama can tell, not the blowing shit up end of the field. It’s more theoretical physics, elementary particle physics, condensed matter physics, computing networks and nanotechnology. No, I don’t know what any of that means any more than Mama, but it all sounds very cool.
These endeavours are organised by a Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Joint with whom, Mama wanted to know, and the answer seems to be everybody. They are very proud of their participation in the CERN super hadron collider for example. There is also a university, which leans hard on the sciences, and the town seems to hang on to a lot of its graduates, who have what is to Western eyes an unusually high proportion of women. Science, in Dubna, is a hereditary profession rather than discriminatory, apparently.
This is probably, says Mama, scratching her insect bites, because Dubna was built in a strategically isolated position on a virtual island at the intersection of a couple of rivers and the canal linking the Volga to Moscow and surrounded for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and (look, you do realise how big Russia is, right?) MILES by boggy forest. A forest which goes, my Babushka tells me, all the way to St Petersburg! Once the scientists were relocated here in the late 1950s, after the town had been specially built by prisoners of the Gulags, there was no getting out. You, or rather your children, might as well surrender to the siren call of STEM, regardless of your birth gender.
Of course, after Dubna was designated an area of special economic interest in 2016 and investment incentives for science and technology firms set up, people probably are less interested in leaving anyway. This is the significance of the regeneration the bus conductor wanted to draw our attention to.
They are also constructing in a new bridge over the Volga, which seems like a good idea as the nearest one is that thing in the far distance, which is actually the wall of a dam for a reservoir. Otherwise you have to queue for a ferry.
And on the other side is likewise a fancy looking complex going up apace.
But while Mama is not unappreciative of having had this pointed out, we were much more into the Volga river itself, where Papa spotted people swimming. Before we knew it he had stripped down to his pants and plunged in. Mama, ever the spoil sport, kept a firm hand on our collars. Well, the last time she let us mess about in a river (the Firth of Forth in Scotland) we spent the next twenty-four hours tag team projectile vomiting.
Then up ahead Mama spotted what looked like a beach. After we rambled and rambled and passed the river cruise station, and Mama bought a souvenir mug and magnet at the hopeful looking stall next to it, and rambled a bit more we discovered it was, in fact, a beach.
Yes, with actual sand. Which was a bit of a surprise. So Mama surrendered to the inevitable because splashing about in water in inappropriate clothing is my FAVOURITE THING. And since there was shade for Mama to avoid the plus 25 degrees centigrade heat she didn’t clench her teeth as much as she usually does when we come across unexpected water play situations. She was even kept moderately entertained by the number of boats that swished past, some of which were very wizzy. We got an impromptu WAVE MACHINE effect! Wheeee! Gurgle, splosh!
However, Mama did draw the line when I started to turn blue and shiver uncontrollably, this not actually being the Mediterranean sea, and so having unlocked that most Russian of childhood achievements, baptizing ourselves in the Volga, we went for another long walk back though the town and admired the outsides of the various apartment blocks the Soviet scientists had gotten to live in.
This was our top favourite.
But this block looks pretty cool from the outside, doesn’t it?
And how about this one?
Less enticing Soviet apartments.
In fact, clearly Dubna has everything, and a (one) hipster bar and open plan work out space as well.
A few more pictures. This is a scrubby little park that smelled of overheated dog poo, but the flowers are rather attractive.
The smell from this building was much better as it is a bread factory.
This public building didn’t smell at all.
And neither did this man, a large physicist, not a giant Lenin.
Here is the war memorial.
And some random pictures of urban decay to finish with.
Anyway. Who knows when you might find yourself in Dubna? But if you do, it might interest you to know that we suffered no unpleasant after effects from our wild swimming experience. So don’t listen to women on buses, who clearly think that you are a hick who has never seen a MacDonald’s before. Make them take you to the beach in the old town and enjoy.
More information
The town’s website (in Russian).
Address: Dubna, Moscow Oblast, Russia
Getting there: There are trains and coaches to Dubna, which depart from Savolovsky station (Savolovskaya metro on the grey line). By car you follow the A104 out of Moscow.
Pin for later?
