What to do

In Krasnoyarsk, which stretches along two banks of the never-freezing Yenisei, the mountains are part of the urban landscape and the skyline, and the taiga begins already at the very city limits. This makes you feel like you are in nature, for contact with which you do not need to buy mountain boots, fleece sweatshirts and a protective net against mosquitoes and midges. The only thing you should not forget about is sunscreen and dark glasses, because the sun in Siberia is not shy about shining.

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Light, in sneakers and comfortable pants, to meet the Eastern Sayan mountain system in Krasnoyarsk, it makes sense to go to the Bobrovy Log fan park, located 15 minutes drive from the center on the border with the Krasnoyarsk Stolby National Park . Opened in 2006, the fan park offers visitors a wide variety of outdoor activities: in winter, these are ski slopes of all colors, an ice rink and a rodelbahn (an attraction, a cross between a roller coaster and a bobsleigh), and in the summer, that is, right now, the same rodelbahn , zip-rider, skiing over the pines on a chairlift and a beach by the pool.

After riding a chairlift – and this entertainment is to be at the exit to the path, along which it is enough to walk eight kilometers to the famous Krasnoyarsk pillars. The path is not close, but not difficult either – in order to see the syenite rocks in the middle of the Sayan spurs, the outlines of which resemble giants (by the way, you can go there with a guided tour so as not to get lost), you do not have to stubbornly climb the mountains.

In general, the Krasnoyarsk Pillars National Park stretches for 34 kilometers from the northwest to the southeast, and the area of ​​this section of the mid-mountain taiga landscape exceeds 48 thousand hectares. But it is absolutely not necessary to bypass them all. Krasnoyarsk HPP in the late 60s. Warm weather, mild wind, pine trees and rocks rising along the banks of one of the largest artificial reservoirs in the world will help you clear your head and forget about business and worries for a while. Because there is nothing better than cozy squinting at the sun and watching kites in the sky in the middle of the taiga. Yes, and swim in the parking lot near the Royal Gates.

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Once in Krasnoyarsk, you should not miss your portion tenderness: in the center of the city there is Tatyshev Island with the park of the same name, where gophers rush from mink to mink quite freely, not embarrassed to take pieces of carrot from those who want to offer it to them. Animals the size of a squirrel sometimes run after each other, not paying attention to the tourists who are trying to treat them. And sometimes – they themselves come up in anticipation of carrots. However, feeding gophers is not so much entertainment for tourists, but a familiar way of spending leisure time for citizens who simply adore their gophers.

What to see

The city of Krasnoyarsk was founded in 1628 – as usual in Siberia, in the form of a prison. It was named Krasny Yar due to the red color of marl, a rock that makes up the thickness of the left bank of the Kacha River. The wooden prison has not been preserved – it burned down in a fire in 1773. But you can get an idea of ​​how the city looked like in the 19th and early 20th centuries by walking through the historical part of the city with its wooden houses in the classicist style and tenement houses in the Art Nouveau style.

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A man on Gorky Street in Krasnoyarsk

Anton Novoderezhkin / TASS

Despite the fires that are inevitable in any city built up with wooden houses, Krasnoyarsk survived devastating fires in 1735, 1773 and 1881 – quite a lot of examples of wooden architecture, including Art Nouveau, have been preserved here. These are, for example, the Musical School No. 5 on Dekabristov Street, built in 1909–1911, the Children and Youth Center for Tourism and Local History (it is also the former Sevastyanov’s house) on Karl Marx Street, the Bazilevich House and the house of the bourgeois Volgang on Lenin Street. The Surikov Art Museum is also located in a wooden house (also on Karl Marx Street). along which they walk, run and ride on wheeled vehicles of various types. It is he who is depicted on the 10-ruble bill, which was never replaced by coins in the city – you can easily get crispy tens here as change.

What to eat

The gastronomic picture of Krasnoyarsk is distinguished by a rare variety – from classic Siberian restaurants to wine bars, from speakeasies with signature cocktails to gourmet restaurants. The choice is so great and varied that you can go to Krasnoyarsk solely for the purpose of eating, laying down a few days for this and quite a Moscow budget. And you don’t need to spare money for city establishments – rather, you will regret that you didn’t have time to go to the Central Market for smoked grayling.

Beaver Log”. The dumplings expected here, northern fish stroganina, venison, roe deer meat, salted mushrooms and dumplings with a variety of fillings, from hare to venison with juniper, will give a complete picture of the food set that Siberian rivers and taiga provide local chefs.

But the most striking gastronomic impression from Krasnoyarsk will not be dumplings. Local gourmet cuisine restaurants compete with establishments in Moscow and St. Petersburg in terms of design, concept, and level of cooking.

Today there are five gourmet restaurants in Krasnoyarsk, including « Tunguska, where chef Nikolai Bobrov creates his own modern version of Siberian cuisine. The version is elegant – especially in the format of sets, for which the institution comes up with a harmonious concept related to the history, culture, geography of the Yenisei Siberia. So in the set dedicated to the pagan rituals of the indigenous peoples of the region, and the eye a sandwich with fly agaric or a crispy stone with roe deer tartare are called (you can eat all this quite calmly). But if such sets seem like entertainment for special connoisseurs to you, then you can also order dishes from the menu, having dined on Yenisei whitefish or homemade dumplings with stewed cheeks.

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In the Fresco restaurant, with its slogan “When food is art”, brand chef and co-owner Khayyam Aminov proves by his own example that nothing is impossible for a person – even to install stone shells on a piece of stone brought from Irkutsk rocks weighing four tons. Here, in general, the identity of the brand chef is almost central: for example, many items from the menu are served on stones, since the owner loves to collect them. This passion is confirmed by one of the dishes: thin slices of marinated beef, served with a red-hot cobblestone, on which the meat can be fried on its own right on the table.

chef, with which he immerses the guest in his inner world. The restaurateur frankly says that until the age of seven he grew up in the Pamir Mountains – and the set is a reflection of his worldview, a story of growing up, a declaration of love for his family, in which oriental gastronomic traditions are combined with a harsh Siberian spirit.

And indeed: almonds and strawberries will be served as amyuz-bouche, and soon, on a colorful imitation of an oriental carpet, as part of the set, they will bring an intricate burgundy figure, which will turn out to be a beetroot crust stuffed with mousse from the Yenisei fish called lenok. But the most delicious and memorable dish will be rice porridge with burnt sour cream – according to a family recipe.

This year, the gastronomic diversity of Krasnoyarsk was replenished with an event, the ideological inspirer of which was also Aminov. From June 3 to July 29, the Festival of Wild Dinners takes place here.

In the middle of the taiga, two hours drive from Krasnoyarsk, without communication or running water, practically on their knees, the best Russian chefs prepare sets here from local products, many of which were found (plucked, dug up) three hours before the alleged action.

Last Saturday, July 8, the fifth such dinner was held in a marble quarry. The chefs of the Moscow restaurant Artest Artem Estafyev and the metropolitan Olluco Nikanor Veira, and with them the chef of Fresco Denis Kurkov, have put together in a set what not only the taiga, but the whole Yenisei Siberia, including Khakassia and Tyva, gives. The brain bone of a deer, the rib of a Khakas bull, a chocolate dessert with spruce and birch jelly, catfish with a garnish of plants collected right there in the taiga, including unripe currants and the root of a plant that we call cane, although in fact it is cattail.

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no one ever gets sick of burnt sour cream.

The restaurant variety and the high flight of gastronomic fantasy in Krasnoyarsk are explained by the high competition between restaurant concepts and support from the regional authorities, who also took part in organizing the Festival of Wild Dinners . This, however, is not all. In Krasnoyarsk, for several years now, the Institute of Gastronomy of the Siberian Federal University, equipped with the latest restaurant technology, has been operating, founded jointly with the culinary school of Paul Bocuse. If in other regions the food variety is limited to pine and juniper, cloudberries, deer, game and river fish, here products from Tuva (for example, yak) and Khakassia (in particular, bull) are added to this wonderful set.