I;ve been to Volgograd and Kazan on the Volga, and liked both a lot. Volgograd in particular is very bright and cheery. Kazan unfortunately still hadn't finished renovating downtown for the jubiliee of the city's foundation and looked like Ivan the Terrible had just gone through it. I was into it more for the gorgeous old churches and mosques though.
However I was in the downtown of both cities, not in the suburbs. And they are both pretty important cities, provincial hubs.
--- Wendy Lyon <wendy.lyon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Most of the places I visited in the Volga region
> (admittedly not near
> Nizhny) were pretty grim. Let me tell you about
> Togliatti. Its sister
> city is Flint, Michigan ... 'nuff said.
>
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