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Ufa is one of the shortest place names in Russia. Locals say, "If you get only three letters, come visit us!" The city is also three letters in Bashkir, ӨФӨ, whose look has earned it the nickname City of Three Screws. Ufa, capital of Bashkortostan, had a population of over 1.1 million in 2018 and sits at the junction of Europe and Asia, with influences from several cultures and religions. This overview follows the Wikivoyage guide and leaves out its listings of prices, phone numbers and hours.
Salavat Yulayev Monument. Photo: User:Oyme, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Understand
Ufa lies west of the Ural Mountains on the Belaya River (Agidel in Bashkir), where it meets the Ufa River. Excavations show a permanent presence from the 4th century AD, and written sources from the Golden Horde mention a city on the Belaya named Bashkort, which may correspond to Ufa's site. Modern Ufa dates to 1574, when Ivan the Terrible ordered a prison and later a small kremlin built there. It resembled a fortress, sometimes attacked by rebellious Bashkirs. After the Pugachev Uprising in 1774 it entered a long peace. The kremlin burned down and stone building began, but Ufa remained a "county town" under the Orenburg Governate until the Ufa Governate was formed in 1865 with Ufa as capital. About then the Samara-Zlatoust railway was finished, helping the city grow, and Catherine II named it the capital of Russian Islam: it has fewer old mosques than Kazan but has old madrassas, which are very rare in Russia.
Until World War II it was a modest Ural city of light industry. After the war its population boomed with the region's oil and chemical industries. The guide says unattractive Soviet buildings mar the modern face of the city, and a visitor could miss the large historic center, since the center has shifted north along the river. The city is more than 50 km long north to south and less than 5 km wide.
| Area | What it is |
|---|---|
| Old City | Bounded by ul. Aksakov, ul. Chernyshevsky, ul. Tsyurupa and the cliff over the Belaya; where most visitors go |
| Modern centers | Verkhnetorgovaya square near Gostiny Dvor in the south; Prospekt Oktyabrya near the Gafuri park, the Russian Dramatic Theater and the circus |
| Chernikovka | Once a separate city; the main mosque and Soviet architecture |
| North | Prospekt Salavat Yulayev leads north; then the oil refineries |
Getting there and around
Ufa International Airport is southeast of the center and one of the main flight hubs in the Urals. Trains run on the Samara-Chelyabinsk trunk line, 7-8 a day each way (about 8 hours to Samara, 9 to Chelyabinsk), continuing west to Moscow and east to Siberia. The train station is on the northern edge, 2 km from the main streets. By road, Ufa is on the M5 highway, 460 km from Samara and 380 km from Chelyabinsk, and is the terminus of the M7 from Moscow (1,350 km) via Kazan. Buses link Orenburg most often, with others to Yekaterinburg, Perm, Naberezhnye Chelny and Kazan. There is no regular passenger service on the Belaya.
In the city, marshrutkas (minibuses), buses, trams and trolleybuses run frequently, but are hard to use without Russian, so check the route on Yandex first. Taxis are easy to order and app services work. Traffic is congested and parking is scarce.
What to see
The guide says no single famous attraction makes Ufa; its pull is in details, such as an elaborate fence revealing an ordinary brick house as a historic madrassa, and in the ornate wooden houses found even near the center, especially on the steep slopes above the river.
Demidov House. Photo: YumaevIR, CC BY-SA 3.0.
| Area | Highlights |
|---|---|
| Center | Lenin Monument (first erected in 1924); Gostiny Dvor, a 19th-century market building; the Gentry Assembly Building, where the opera singer Fyodor Shalyapin began his career; the House of Cooperation (1935-36), a leading Soviet building with the city's first elevator; the Temple of the Savior (1824), a small copy of St. Petersburg's Kazan Cathedral; Demidov House, believed the oldest building in the city, possibly built in the early 1770s; Ufa Cathedral (1903-09) |
| Trunilovskaya Sloboda and ul. Tukayev | The oldest extant mosque, the Tukayev Mosque, once the main mosque in Russia because Catherine II's Central Muslim Board sat in Ufa; Salavat Yulayev Garden (1900); the House of the Republic (1979), known as the "White House"; Lenin Gardens, where Soviets blew up the Cathedral of the Resurrection in 1932; the Aksakov and Tyulkin house museums |
| Trinity Hill and Old Ufa | The Friendship Monument on the site of the old kremlin; St. Sergius Cathedral (1868, wooden); Church of the Intercession (1817-1823); Ikhlas Mosque, a converted Soviet cinema |
| Ufa Slope | The Salavat Yulayev Monument (1967), honoring a Bashkir national hero who took part in the Pugachev Rebellion; the Telecenter (1959) with a 192-m tower; the old water tower (1899-1900); the Muslim cemetery and Gufran Mosque |
| Nizhny Novgorod Sloboda | The most picturesque part, with wooden houses on the slope and river views; Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (1892-93); Galia Madrasa |
| North of center | Yakutov Park, founded in 1904, with the "House of the Martens" sculpture (the marten is a symbol of Ufa because 17th-century taxes were paid in its skins); a Lutheran church opened in 1910 for German immigrants; the October Revolution monument "6:55" |
| Chernikovka | Built in the 1930s; Lyalya-Tyulpan Mosque (1989-1998), whose two 53-meter minarets resemble tulip buds; Victory Park with monuments, guns and a tank |
Tukayev Mosque. Photo: Ilshat Saitgalin, CC BY 3.0.
Friendship Monument. Photo: Acodered, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Gufran Mosque in the Muslim cemetery. Photo: Qweasdqwe, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Galia Madrasa. Photo: Glubina108, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Lutheran church near Yakutov Cultural Park. Photo: YumaevIR, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Museums
The guide lists the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, the Tyulkin House Museum, the Ufa National Museum and the Nesterov Art Museum. It also covers shopping, eating, sleeping, safety and onward trips, which this overview does not repeat.
Sources
- Wikivoyage, "Ufa" (https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Ufa), CC BY-SA 4.0. Photos: Oyme (CC BY-SA 4.0); YumaevIR (CC BY-SA 3.0); Ilshat Saitgalin (CC BY 3.0); Acodered, Qweasdqwe and Glubina108 (CC BY-SA 3.0). Changed here: condensed and rewritten in hubnx's own words; listings with prices, phone numbers and hours, and the Eat, Sleep, Buy and Stay safe sections, are left out. This version stays under CC BY-SA 4.0; rewritten in hubnx's own words.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Adapted from en.wikivoyage.org
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