Smolensk is a small Russian city located just south of Reading. It was relocated to Berkshire during the early 90’s after the fall of the Soviet Union. It is famous for having the first McDonalds in Russia in England and the local specialty – deep fried armadillo’s ear (that’s an armadillo’s ear deep fried, not the ear of a deep fried armadillo, which is pretty much the same thing when we think about it.)
Taking a trip to Smolensk is definitely worthwhile and couldn’t be easier with direct buses from the centre of Reading every 20 minutes and trains from London, Moscow and Kiev all stopping there, though the food on the trains from London is a bit questionable. Once you’re there, there is a wide variety of sights to see, and seats to sigh. The Bongo Museum is an obvious highlight, especially on a Tuesday. We’d also recommend a stroll along the banks of the river (be careful to stay on the right side of the safety fence though as radiation can kill) and try Pavel’s Palace of Porcine Pstuff for day of pig filled pfun.
Yuri Gagarin was from Smolensk. He is famous for being the first person to get the bus to Slough and return safely. His house and grave are both tourist attractions and are worth a visit but be prepared for a lot of locals trying to sell you cheap Slough tourist tat.
As mentioned earlier Smolensk is proud of its many and varied eateries both of which are reasonably priced. They accept any and all forms of payment including barter arrangements involving penguins. When we say that, we mean that they accept penguins in return for for food, not that they engage in arrangements with penguins. Although they might, we’ve never seen a penguin eating there. What they do with all the penguins we couldn’t possibly say but let’s just say its hard to get a hold of enough armadillo ear during the cold, hard Berkshire winters.
Once a year, in June, Smolensk is host to the Berkshire County Russian Show where there are displays of shepherding, livestock competitions and a military parade through the centre of the city by the red army displaying the latest Russian military technology. The livestock has been kept apart from the military hardware ever since the unfortunate and well documented events of 2007 when a badly controlled litany of llamas (yes that is the collective noun for llamas, or it is now at least) got in to the same compound as the tactical nuclear missiles and nearly caused an international incident.
So all in all we’d say Smolensk is a fun day out for all of our middle England comrades.
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