Here it is, Chelyabinsk!

Writes Dmitry Chistoprudov: It was past twelve in the morning. The odometer showed a flat figure of 1790 km. Tired and sleepy, I wrote it down in my notes: we traveled 1,790 kilometers from the Moscow Ring Road to the Chkada. Travel time is 30 hours. The navigator led us to the city center to the Malachite Hotel and confidently reported that there were 10 minutes to go. I collapsed on the back sofa and thought - well, we've arrived! But where is the city? I opened the window to see at least something - two thousand kilometers of federal highways turned our Orlando into a gray lump of dirt. A pleasant, invigorating blast of air hit my face. Bare trees glimmered in the darkness. It seems that we have passed the interchange with the ring road for a long time, but the city has not yet begun. After a couple of minutes, we somehow abruptly broke in, literally tumbled into the center of Chelyabinsk.

The first impression is a city like a city, an ordinary regional center, only the snow is too white. It was not cold outside, about 5 degrees below zero. On the doorstep of the hotel, our Siberian friend and colleague Slava Stepanov met us in a sweater. Slava wanted to greet us and immediately go to bed - the next day he was going to shoot the dawn from some high-rise. As a result, we drank tea, chatted for a couple of hours and in the morning went to meet the dawn together.

(Total 47 photos)

Source: JJournal/chistoprudov

1. View of Theater Square and Revolution Square from the Orlov Drama Theatre. Everything is symmetrical, just the way I like it. We spent four nights in Chelyabinsk. In each "mode" we climbed onto different rooftops and filmed the city.

2. Three bridges across Miass.

3. A cozy skating rink in the city garden named after Pushkin.

4. Interchange at the intersection of Lenin Avenue and the Meridian highway.

5. Shopping center called "Shopping Center". The name sounds much nicer than any "Yamskaya Center" or "Grand Setun Plaza". The reinforced concrete dome measuring one hundred by one hundred meters of the "Shopping Center" is one of the recognizable symbols of the city. A hopper blackens nearby at the construction site of the metro station of the same name. The metro in Chelyabinsk, alas, was never dug up.

6. There are no columns supporting the shell inside the shopping center building, and the corners on which the dome rests are placed on special rollers and can move. The design is prefabricated and can "breathe", lowering or rising depending on temperature changes. In Chelyabinsk, the temperature difference can reach 80º (from -40º to +40º). At the time of construction, such a technical solution had no precedent in world practice. The weight of the dome, assembled from 1,500 reinforced concrete slabs, tied with ropes, is over 5,000 tons. How much snow weighs on the dome - no one knows.

7. Residential complex "Svyatogor" against the backdrop of the Chelyabinsk Electro-Metallurgical Plant.

8. View from Svyatogor to the junction of Sverdlovsky Prospekt and Brothers Kashirin Street.

9.

10. The highest skyscraper in Chelyabinsk is the Chelyabinsk-City office center. An observation deck is equipped on the roof, from where a good view of the city center opens. And if you climb higher on the spire itself, then it is very cold there. For half an hour of sunset shooting, I froze my fingers and toes. And when I climbed onto the roof, I realized that they accidentally closed me)

11. View from our hotel on Truda Street and the Chelyabinsk State Museum of Local Lore, eerie in architecture.

12. Temple of Alexander Nevsky against the backdrop of urban development.

13. Northern bus station and sports palace "Youth".

14. Intersection of Zwilling and Labor streets. In the center of the frame is Yaroslavskaya Square and the Glinka State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.

15.

16.

17. Kirov Street or Chelyabinsk Arbat. Nice walking street. You should definitely go to the Wall Street coffee shop, there are wonderful cakes and cappuccino (sorry, Dukan!)

18. Kirov and Walk of Fame.

19. Kirov Street, view towards the Revolution Square and the Drama Theatre.

20.

21. Somehow it didn’t work out with daytime shooting. Almost every day there was a haze in the city.

22.

23. Lenin and his street.

24.

25. Chelyabinsk is not only a large city in Russia and the administrative center of the Chelyabinsk region…

26. Not only a large industrial center with enterprises of metallurgy, mechanical engineering and metalworking, instrument making, light and food industries ...

27. Chelyabinsk is the absolute world champion in terms of the number of pipes in the city. Pipes are everywhere, from the smallest garage stoves to the huge colossus of metallurgical shops.

28.

29. Panorama of Lenin Avenue.

30. Chelyabinsk is also famous for being located both in the Urals and in Siberia.

31. Revolution Square again. View from the office center "Business-Ural".

32.

33.

34. Chelyabinsk parking is harsh.

35. South Ural State University.

36. It's good in Chelyabinsk. As long as the wind is not blowing from the side of the plant.

37.

38.

39. Sleeping areas.

40. View from the Chelyabinsk City spire.

41.

42. Glory Boulevard.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47. Large final panorama