Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk – the industrial, transport, and administrative and cultural center – was founded in 1858 as a military outpost for defense of the Russian-Chinese border and named in honor of Yerofei Khabarov the Russian explorer of Siberia and the Far East. It stretches for 45 km along the bank of the Amur River – the main waterway of the Far East and one of the biggest Russian rivers. Khabarovsk is a large port famous for its «river-sea» operations.
HIGHLIGHTS & SIGHTSEEING IN KHABAROVSK
- The City Tour along wooden and brick houses preserved from the time of the city’s founding will enable you to feel an unmistakable charm of Khabarovsk. The oldest Komsomolskaya Square houses the remarkable redbrick building dating 1901(now the Public Library). Splendid view of the St.Innokenty church – the first church built in the city. During the Stalin’s period, a well known GULAG Camp existed near the Ulakhan village which was located close the city.
- The Archaeological Museum contains over 40,000 artifacts; among them, there are the world famous petrogliphs of Sikachi Alyan and cultural heritage of the Golden Empire of the Jurchen People.
- The Art Museum possesses a unique collection of the Far Eastern aboriginal crafts and arts that includes fish skin outfits, beautiful carpets and bone engraved items. Some wonderful ancient Russian icons and paintings by famous Russian artists Ilya Repin, Ivan Shishkin and Isaac Levitan, as well as works by Western masters, such as Rembrandt, Rubens and Monet are exhibited in the Art Museum.
- The Cruise along the Amur River is might be a beautiful journey within a live archeological museum. The riverside rocks make an unusual display of man-made carvings – petrogliphs that are the images of ancient cultural heritage of local ethnic groups. The Bolshekhetsirsky State Nature Preserve has conifer-broadleaved forests rich in typically virgin nature and genetic stock of organic life. In 30 miles to the southwest of the city, there is the Khekhtsir State Nature Reserve, a unique place where southern lianas, Manchurian walnuts grow side by side with evergreen conifers. Bears, foxes, wolves, elks and tigers could be watched occasionally there. The Badjal Range – one of the most picturesque parts of the Russian Far East with unique flora and fauna is abundant in sable, musk deer and bears.