Estonian City vs Russian City
Which city’s government has actually distributed money to growth of the city, not it’s own pockets? Interestingly, Russian Ivangorod and Estonian Narva are both inhabited by Russians. The cities are just on the other side of the same river, unlike their standards of living, which are really far apart…
Sightseeing
Narva is a lovely place to visit as a tourist. You can go for a walk or ride your bike on a 1km long promenade decorated with sculptures. Along the way you will certainly notice a clock which uses your shadow as an arrow.
Then you can take a break with a cup of coffee and eat something tasty in one of the well-rated, modern cafes. If it’s dark already, you can enjoy the precious view of an illuminated castle, or make a visit inside.
These are only some of the activities you can do in Narva. You can always visit their website to see what they’ve got to offer. This is what is written on the top of this website:
In Ivangorod you can also visit a castle, which has decent reviews among Russian tourists. Apart from that, there is nothing much left to do. There are a few restaurants , which are rather off putting.
They have a promenade, but it’s nowhere near as appealing — it’s really short, old looking and without any thought put into it. It’s worth noting that Ivangorod has received the exact same amount of money from the EU to build this promenade as Narva. One of the online commenters said:
„It is a symbol of Russian theft!”
Unless you are „Bald and Bankrupt”, the falling apart soviet architecture also won’t be anyhow interesting to you. If you would feel anything after visiting Ivangorod it would be compassion for it’s citizens.
Public transport
In Narva you can use many different means of transport. Apart from standard buses, you can rent a bike, call the Estonian BOLT taxi or maybe use an electric scooter. It works quite well!
Guess what? None of this is available in Ivangorod. Only the good old, dirty buses.
Sports
Narva has a swimming pool, a gym, here is a lovely biking path along the promenade. In addition they have sports centre where you can practice tennis, volleyball, basketball, squash, aerobics and judo!
Let’s see how long the Ivangorod’s sport list is:
A pull up bar
Verdict
Russians living in Narva have much more benefits than I’ve described above. They include a good health care, more freedom of speech, richer society, the most startups per capita in the world, technology in daily life — you can even pay taxes online!
Meanwhile, on the other side, majority of the people is poor, don’t have access to basic healthcare, and lives in some falling apart building, not to say anything about technology or tourist attractions.
Only one river apart…
