MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS Correspondent Irina Skalina/. Whenever speaking about Arkhangelsk attractions, I use most often the word "embankment." That's history. Most monuments, historical and modern points of attraction are either on the Northern Dvina River, or within a walking distance from it.

The city along the river

Arkhangelsk is a long and narrow city, stretching for 45 km along the Dvina River. Until recently, the city life has literally concentrated by the water. It was only in the 20th century that buildings appeared further than one kilometer from the river. The embankment is the center of active life, and speaking about the city, people in Arkhangelsk still mean the part 'from bridge to bridge': from the Zheleznodorozhny (railway) [Bridge] to the Kuznechevsky Bridge, leading to the Solombala Island. The locals would tell taxi drivers: "Within the city." The embankment stretches from one bridge to the other - 7.5 km. It will take at least a day to see local attractions, and in winter, which continues to mid-April, every visitor must have a spare battery for the cell.

Some would say about Arkhangelsk: board, cod and sad. However, this is not that straightforwardly right nowadays. Wood is used to create sculptures, cod is still popular, sightseeing tours to historical marinas take quite a time, besides, the city has a small monument to the cod-eater - it and many more things successfully cope with sadness or longing.

Walking on top the Dvina River is a popular winter fun for visitors, especially for those coming from the southern regions. "Look, people are walking on the river! We want it too!" both students or reputable businessmen at some forum would say. Near the Gostiny Dvor in downtown begins the ice pedestrian crossing to the Kegostrov Island - it is equipped with wooden bridges and lanterns.

In the middle of it there is a fairway, and there, of course, there is water and finely crushed ice. Wooden bridges with railings run across the channel, and they are removed to let vessels sail, and are returned afterwards. To be honest, in recent years I have walked along the crossing only for some guests: I had enough of it in my childhood. Now, to write this material and to take pictures, I've come there once again. The view of the city from the river is, of course, breath-taking. And something else - not only people cross the river here. I've seen footprints of hares and even foxes.

As for the view - it is the city center, the historical part: the oldest building in Arkhangelsk is Gostiny Dvor and the Red Pier. They can be seen perfectly well. The view can be compared with the city panorama of the late 19th - early 20th century. A local artist, Sergey Zvyagin, has put the view on a mosaic, which is located very close to the embankment, opposite the main post office. In that location in the Soviet times, a huge stand reported labor success in Arkhangelsk, Vologda and Murmansk. The stand had been idle for many years, until late 2023. By the way, mosaics on facades are very typical for Arkhangelsk. It is rather a tribute to Mikhail Lomonosov, who has recovered the art of mosaic in Russia.

Winged wizards

If we return to the crossing, right there, on the parapet, is the figure of the first Arkhangelsk magician. Its author, Denis Zheleznikov, says the idea of miniature figurines across the city is not new certainly, but the Arkhangelsk mini-sculptures have a clear local coloring.

The first of them holds a pinched bird of happiness. The second is with a diamond, since the Arkhangelsk Region is known for Europe's only diamond deposits, and they are very close to the region's capital. A magician girl holds a traditional Kargopol whistling bird. This figure is the biggest attraction for the locals and tourists - she always wears a scarf and a hat, and even jewelry sometimes.

The name "magicians" caught on immediately, and now nobody would call the bronze figures anything else.

- We wanted to name them somehow, to make sure the name was memorable, Northern, typical for the Pomors. It is based on the word, which means "magic". I found the word in Boris Shergin's dictionary. It turned out that magicians ('koudesnik' in Russian) are the guardians of the North, they reflect the essence and even the magic of the Arkhangelsk Region. And, can you see, it has wings like an angel, which, in a sense, is another symbol of Arkhangelsk.

Denis had inspected the central part of Arkhangelsk to see what monuments and sculptures there were, and at the same time he was picking possible locations for the figures.

- My conclusion was disappointing - out of about 35 sites, only five were unrelated to wars. On the other hand, Arkhangelsk has everything to develop a fabulous and fantasy aspect.

Mysterious Arkhangelsk

Our city is truly associated with a fairy tale, isn't it? Just think about Stepan Pisakhov, a well-known Arkhangelsk storyteller and artist. By name, however, he is known rather at home, in Arkhangelsk, although many people have seen cartoons based on his tales: "Eternal Ice Floes", "Orange", "Quail". "In the old days, girls were given an eternal ice floe as a dowry, the second thing was a fox fur coat, so that they could go across the river..." Or: "Although we do not have penguins, they do come to work, walk with a hurdy-gurdy, with a tambourine; and as for brown bears - there's no access for them as there is no way for brown bears into the North!" The phrase structure is very specific, typical for the Pomors (which, along with other old languages was a progenitor of the modern Russian language), where endings are shortened, and the speech, when not read, but pronounced, sounds very original.

- Visiting tourists from other cities, unfortunately, are not familiar with his name, most have not heard of him, unlike, say, Pavel Bazhov, whose tales are popular, - guide Elena Dorofeeva said. - But on the other hand, whenever we talk about cartoons based on fairy tales by Pisakhov and Shergin, they begin to remember: yes, we've really seen, yes, it was something interesting. And if I quote a few phrases from Pisakhov's fairy tales, and, moreover, using our dialect, <…> then, of course, people get simply captivated by those phrases, by the fairy tales.

A monument to Pisakhov is in the pedestrian street of Arkhangelsk - Chumbarovka, or officially Chumbarov-Luchinsky Avenue. The figure does not have a pedestal, it is just a little above the sidewalk. The writer was hot tall, about 150 cm. The sculpture is made so that you can "communicate" with him. It's a typical scene if you see a student or a respectable man with a briefcase, running or walking by, who then stops, shakes Pisakhov's hand and runs on…

From Pisakhov along one of the oldest streets - Pomorskaya - you return to the embankment to see the next magician. He is a merchant with salt, in the outfit of the 16-18 centuries. Salt was a strategic commodity back then. Several well-known salt making centers used to be in the region. One of them is Nenoksa, which is near the White Sea coast and which nowadays is associated rather with the Navy test site, and Solvychegodsk - a city to the south, from where the Stroganovs dynasty began.

Notable piles

The embankment near Pomorskaya is new. Only a few years ago, there was no through passage along the river there, and the shore was abandoned and cluttered. Strange as it may seem, part of what was considered litter has become one of the main attractions. When the "floating promenade" was built here, the plan was to dismantle the old wooden piles sticking out of the water.

- I got involved at the final stage, communicating with the administration head Dmitry Morev, - said the Northern Maritime Museum's Director Evgeny Tenetov. - I was insisting - let's keep these piles. They, of course, really didn't want to. The decision to remove those pile had been in place. What about them, just waste. I wish I could watch them workers dismantling those piles.… They are not just piles, rather a stockade, cages. That is, four piles and four crossbars. They form a cell, filled with crushed granite. The next cell is docked to it, also littered with crushed granite. It's a chain of such cells.

Even in winter, they stick out near the shore, and on the modern Northern European background they demonstrate that in the past there used to be one of the busiest marinas in the city - Buyanovaya. The Pomors' schooners and karbases used to sail here, bringing sea animals, various fish, such as cod - fresh, salted, dried, - and from there the goods were taken to the market. (Karbases are sailing and rowing fishing and transport wooden vessels, common at least since the 15th century till now on the White and Barents Seas.)

- Hay was brought here from the islands, because hay was the gasoline of that time. There was no grass here, only swamps, and there grew water meadows. Thus those peasants were doing business, selling hay. That was a very active, both passenger and cargo, marina.

Nowadays, river trams run from here to the islands in the Dvina delta in summer, and tugboats sail when the ice drifts or in autumn. One of the old hardworking steamers, the Kommunar, not so long ago took people to the islands, and then it was put next to the Red Pier. The Kommunar was built in 1940, and it is the first steamship built in Arkhangelsk by welding. Before that, all the ships were riveted. The vessel, which did not seem big, could carry 260 people.

- What is the Kommunar special for? - I asked Evgeny Tenetov.

- It worked almost continuously from 1940 to 2019. And through the war. There are photos, Germany's aerial photography of Arkhangelsk during the bombing in 1942, the Kommunar was right on that picture. It was in the middle of the river. Imagine, the Germans bomb the city, planes are flying, bombing and photographing, and at the same time people on that small steamer are sailing across the Dvina…

The Red Pier is, so to say, the city's main pier. In the past, it was called the Cathedral Pier. Nowadays, it is more of a place for walking, though some ships leave or come here. For example, the Arctic Floating University has returned here on the Professor Molchanov research vessel. The oldest wheel steamer in the country, the Gogol, docks at the Red Pier. This is true for summer, but in winter here you can watch ships sailing along the fairway, the fairway over which run the bridges for pedestrians.

The home of "Scarlet Sails"

For the feeling of history, for the best view, visitors go to the so-called Green's gazebo, a large wooden pavilion. Unlike the stable piles, the gazebo is a replica of the one that stood there in the late 19th - early 20th century. The name of Alexander Green is more for romantic reasons. Its correct name is the Golitsyn gazebo, because the initiator of its construction was the Arkhangelsk Governor Nikolay Golitsyn. When the prince from St. Petersburg visited Arkhangelsk, he suggested to style up the territory adjacent to the embankment.

He was told the city did not have money for such a thing, and Golitsyn gave money to create a park, in which the house of Peter the Great, transported from Arkhangelsk in 1934, was placed under a wooden case. Presently, it is in Moscow's Kolomenskoye - Izmailovo Museum. The surrounding area was decorated in the Art Nouveau style, including a gazebo. The place was busy, all sorts of Arctic expeditions were leaving from the pier, the city saw them off, and the gazebo was always on all pictures.

In 1910-1912, Alexander Green was in exile in the North. At first, he lived on the Kegostrov, and later on in Arkhangelsk. Various memoirs read he often walked there, including near the gazebo. Back then, Arkhangelsk could not offer many places for walking, so the fact is probably true. It is believed it was in Arkhangelsk that Green invented the Scarlet Sails (novel). Realistically, it was not about inventing, it was rather just about looking at the river.

- When Green looked out of this gazebo at the Northern Dvina, it was full of sailing Pomor schooners, and their sails were of a dark terracotta color, - Tenetov said. - The Pomors soaked the canvas with seal oil, and when dried, it gave that color. With proper imagination and lighting, it could well be seen as scarlet. And back then sails were all over the Dvina. Absolutely. Everyone in every Pomor family company owned a two-mast schooner.

The Northern Maritime Museum calls the gazebo the Green - Samoilovich gazebo. Rudolf Samoilovich is a famous polar explorer, who was in exile in Arkhangelsk at that time, and could also be walking there. While in Arkhangelsk, he became secretary of the Society for the Study of the North, met Vladimir Rusanov and in 1912 went with him on an expedition to Spitsbergen.

Wooden sculptures

In 1912, Georgy Sedov's expedition set off from Arkhangelsk to the North Pole. Sedov's bust was erected in Arkhangelsk, and a few years ago a composition appeared on the Red Pier with Sedov and his two companions - Grigory Linnik and Alexander Pustoshny, as well as dogs with which he had left for the last trip to the pole. The composition is made of wood, and, unlike traditional monuments, you can touch it and even climb on it, which children usually enjoy greatly.

Similar genre wooden sculptures have been installed on the embankment. Longshoremen, a lamplighter and a photographer, who is Mayor Yakov Leitzinger - an iconic figure for Arkhangelsk. First of all, he is a famous photographer who captured the city and the local people in the early 20th century. He was not just a salon photographer. He, so to say, was Arkhangelsk's first photo historian.

He was elected the city mayor four times running. He built up the city revenues, built several schools, laid a water supply system, and began building a power plant and tram tracks. The wooden composition shows the scene of a photo shoot in an old salon, and visitors are invited to join it.

- People from elsewhere may think - what's there about it, just a photographer. But this is an advantage of genre sculptures that, starting from the name, a viewer can spin out a story, catch a thread to learn what kind of person he was and why his figure was placed here," said Elena Dorofeeva, adding her tourists really like this composition.

Though when the wooden sculptures first appeared, the reactions were mixed. Despite the fact that wood is a traditional material for Arkhangelsk, at first the locals did not really like the wooden statues.

- I've asked the author - artist Alexander Menukhov- why such rough features? Alexander explained that he referred to naive wooden sculptures, to how St. Nicholas, or Paraskeva Friday, or George the Victorious were shown in wooden churches. In fact, that was only typical. So, that's how he expressed them," the guide explained.

The cod-eater magician supports the Pomor story. He is wearing classic Pomor clothes, which they used when hunting fish and animals, plus the important elements like a karbas, nets and barrels. This magician is near the railway bridge. Denis says the magicians quest is not over, three more figures are about to appear. One of them positively will be with a kozulya - a traditional Arkhangelsk gingerbread. As for the others - it's a secret for now.