Ulan-Ude
— — a square where Lenin's head watches the steppe.
Not only on a wall.
“The capital of Buryatia, set where the Uda joins the Selenga on the way to Lake Baikal. The central square holds the largest Lenin head in the world, seven and a half metres of dark bronze that has watched the same horizon since 1971. South of the city the Ivolginsky Datsan is the spiritual centre of Russian Buddhism. Two faiths share one valley. — from the studio
Ulan-Ude, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Ulan-Ude is the capital of the Republic of Buryatia in eastern Siberia, about a hundred kilometres east of Lake Baikal and a hundred kilometres north of the Mongolian border. The city sits at the confluence of the Uda and Selenga rivers, on the Trans-Siberian Railway, with a population of roughly 440,000. It was founded as the Cossack winter camp of Udinskoye in 1666 and renamed Ulan-Ude, Buryat for Red Uda, in 1934. The Trans-Mongolian line splits south from here toward Ulaanbaatar and Beijing.
Soviet Square is anchored by the largest Lenin head in the world, a 7.7-metre dark bronze bust unveiled in 1971 for the leader's centenary and cast at a foundry in Leningrad. The square frames it with the colonnades of the regional government building and the Buryat Drama Theatre. The older quarter to the south keeps painted wooden merchant houses with carved window frames in the regional Siberian style, several of them under federal heritage protection. The Odigitrievsky Cathedral, finished in 1785 in Siberian baroque, marks the river end of the historic centre.
Most travellers reach Ulan-Ude on the Trans-Siberian or by air from Moscow, a five-and-a-half-hour flight. The city is the usual jumping-off point for the south-east shore of Lake Baikal, an hour and a half by road or rail to the village of Tankhoy. About thirty kilometres southwest of the city, in the village of Verkhnyaya Ivolga, the Ivolginsky Datsan has served as the residence of the Pandito Khambo Lama and the spiritual centre of Russian Buddhism since 1945. Visitors walk the kora clockwise around its temples.