Chita

Special offer

Arkadia Hotel

In August 2007 after reconstruction of its building the “Arkadia” Hotel was opened.

The “Arkadia” Hotel is conveniently located in the centre of Chita City. In 5-minute walk all administration area buildings are located: the Region Administration, City Administration, Railroad administration, Siberian Military District Headquarter. The hotel is situated near the central street of the city – Lenin Street. The railway station, the central market and the Chinese market are located nearby.

Hotel room capacity is 38 rooms. On the first floor there is a cafй for up to 50 people (24 hours) and another one cafй also for 50 people (open hours: 12:00 a.m. to 02:00 a.m.) where you may have your breakfast, lunch or dinner; room delivery is accessible. There is a sauna. In the hotel’s hall there are plane and train ticket offices, three cash machines with currency exchange function. Parking lot is in the hotel yard. Laundry, ironing and dry cleaning. Beauty salon.

The settlement of Chita is known since 1653 founded by Pyotr Beketov's Cossacks, but it had been overshadowed by Nerchinsk until the twentieth century. Chita was incorporated as a town in 1851. After 1825 several of the Decembrists suffered exile to Chita, and thus, Chita is on occasion called the “City of Exiles”. Many of the Decembrists were intellectuals

and members of the middle class, and consequently their arrival had a positive effect. The well-educated exiles made an effort to educate the citizens of Chita and pursue trade. Through these efforts, the City became a major trading portal in Siberia, particularly since the natural resources of the area included timber, gold and uranium.

The centrepiece of Chita is Lenin Square, at the centre of which stands a tall statue of the Soviet Union’s founding father. The square consists of pastel-coloured tiled walks lined by benches which are packed solid during summer but deserted for most of the year. The tiles feature Chinese characters and were apparently laid by Chinese workers during the square’s renovation during the 1990s. It is actually a pleasantly colourful place, flags fluttering and brightly painted large civic buildings lining its edges.

Central Chita is built on a slope down towards the confluence of the Ingoda and Chitinka rivers. This is the point at which the first Russian settlers founded the city in 1653. Just above the Chitinka river stands the impressive classical white railway station, dating from the pre-revolutionary coming of the Trans-Siberian railway. In front of the station is a large concourse of car and bus parking places, and beyond this a huge and impressive Orthodox cathedral. Built during the early years of this millennium on the site of an old Soviet stadium, the cathedral gleams with gold onion domes and garish sky blue walls.

Venture along the streets around Lenin Square and you will find reasonably busy commercial areas, modern shopfronts shining beneath Stalin and Khruschev-era blocks.

Following Lenin Street north from the square, one encounters the huge Filarmonia concert hall, beside which stands the square of the Fighters for Soviet Power in the Transbaikal Region.

Further along Lenin Street is the Pushkin Library, a once-grand institute now fading but topped sometime during the Soviet period with a prominent wedge-shape of modern glass.

The suburbs of Chita are noticeably less pleasant than the centre of the city. Some consist of row upon row of Soviet blocks and are considered reasonable places to live, for example the district of MJK, built by enthusiastic young workers during the 60s and 70s

Venturing toward the eastern edge of the city one finds a ring road- not modern but in reasonable shape- and beyond that some reasonably high hills clad in the region’s ubiquitous birch and pine. In winter, only animal tracks break much of the virgin snow but in summer the woods are lit up by an explosion of beautiful purple rhododendron

Travelling to the northwest of the city one encounters the suburbs of KSK and GRES, two of the larger settlements surrounding Chita. On the other side of the lake sits KSK, built as extensive tower block housing to accommodate workers at the huge textile factory after which the district is named