Pavlodar is a city where it is pleasant to walk, relax day and night. It’s great if you know places comfortable for spending time. One of them is the Embankment of the Irtysh River. Here, by the river, when the daytime heat recedes, hundreds of beautiful lights are lit, families relax after a working day, couples meet, and saxophone and guitars sound ... Oh, beautiful Romance!
Those who like to enjoy with favorite book come here to read right on the beach. Others like to just chat on wooden sunbeds, relax to the sound of waves.
On the so-called old Embankment, near the beach, there is a rescue station, and at its very porch, there is a real sea mine. In the book “History of the Rescue Station”, edited in Pavlodar in 2019, its author Galina Sharapova published the memoirs of her father Vyacheslav Sharapov, who devoted his life to saving people on the water. He wrote that in 1950 the former front-line soldier, senior lieutenant N. Akulov wanted to organize a maritime club museum in Pavlodar and began to write out items of naval paraphernalia from all the fleets of the USSR. There was no room for the museum, and then he sent all of his property, including a torpedo and a horned mine of the Makarov system, to the Guryev Marine Club (Atyrau).
“I begged this sea mine of the 1905 model (the warhead was removed from its hull) and installed it on a pedestal at the rescue station, as a memory of the Russian naval commander, Vice-Admiral Makarov S.O., miner divers neutralizing this lethal weapons, - wrote V. Sharapov.
There are the following institutions of higher education in Pavlodar: Pavlodat State University named after S.Toraigyrov, Pavlodar State Teacher’s Training College, Innovational Euro-Asian University. There are also many colleges and professional lyceums, therefore it is often called a student city. The talented guys of several music schools in the city, often perform on the streets, in the passages, or by the river to entertain the townspeople and tourists, as well as to earn a little money, creating a good mood for people.
Scientists say that the name of this river means "excavation", because the Irtysh is constantly washing its right bank. So much so, that once washed away several streets of Pavlodar at once. According to historians, the shortest street in the city is Nikitin Street. There is only one building located on it - that same rescue station. This street appeared in the 19th century, and over time the Irtysh, as well as others washed it away. Now the right bank is strengthened, and the Embankment continues to grow, lengthened by the so-called «waves».
The most recent «waves» was built in 2019 around the Goose Flight natural monument (the only paleontological facility in the city). It almost reached the railway bridge over the river. This is how the Pavlodar “embankment» lives - constantly changing, updating, but always staying ready to accept tourists.
Anton Sergueev
Photo by author