Kolobok's Quest

8 points1 km1 hour

Hi! I'm Kolobok, a little round bun made of wheat flour. According to Vladimir Dahl's dictionary, I come from Simbirsk, because this is where they baked a round bread called kolebyatka. I know the most interesting places in town, and I'm opening a tourist quest in which I'll tell you about the famous people and sights of Simbirsk-Ulyanovsk. “Kolobok's Tourist Quest in Simbirsk-Ulyanovsk” was created by the Ulyanovsk city administration team under the municipal program “Tourism Development in the Municipality of the City of Ulyanovsk.”

Route author

Ulyanovsk – UNESCO City of Literature

Things to do

📜 Learn the city's history
🏞️ Enjoy the view
🏰🕵️‍♂️ Discover a legend

Route points (8)

Kolobok by the Fountain on the Esplanade in Ulyanovsk

Point on route “Kolobok's Quest”

Point 8

Kolobok by the Fountain on the Esplanade

⛲ Square

Literary Ulyanovsk

Before you is one of the heroes of the quest. This is the youngest Kolobok, who tells about Ulyanovsk, the UNESCO City of Literature. Our country is also represented by other creative cities: Kazan for music, St. Petersburg for gastronomy, Kargopol for crafts and folk art, and Veliky Novgorod, also for music. In 2015 Ulyanovsk became the first city in Russia to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, and we chose the field of Literature. Our Kolobok is not just a fairy-tale hero and traveler but a true connoisseur of our region's rich literary heritage.

Ulyanovsk Is Not Only Literary

On this figure's website, reached via the QR code, you can learn about the lives and works of the writers of Simbirsk-Ulyanovsk, about the museums and interesting places of the modern city, and about the famous people who brought glory to our city and to Russia not only in literature. Among them are the political figures Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov-Lenin and Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky. Surprised? Yes, indeed, the leaders of two revolutions were both born in our city. The physicist Kurchatov, the doctor Filatov, the academician Sakharov, the painter Plastov, and famous actors and athletes also lived, studied, and worked here. The whole Kolobok route is steeped in the city's history from its founding to the present day, immersing you in the age of great heroes and great events, as you'll discover if you follow the QR code.

The Youngest Kolobok

Ulyanovsk is a literary city, so of course there are books stacked beside Kolobok, and on them a miniature bronze ship with a sail in the shape of a quill. This embodies our city's connection with its literary heritage and with the Volga. This Kolobok can be considered a symbol of voyages along the mighty river of literature. Behind Kolobok is an upside-down bronze Cyrillic letter: read one way it is U, and turned over it looks like L. This is our city's logo, signifying that we are a literary city: U is the first letter of Ulyanovsk, and L the first letter of “Literature.” Such is its clever meaning. There is a legend that our Kolobok is the patron of students. Rub his pompom, and luck will smile on you in your exam, and it will also inspire a love of books. [Additional Materials](https://ulyanovsk.travel/kol08.php)