Adygea

In some ways, Krasnodar is a bit like my home city of Ottawa in Canada. One of those ways is that across the river is another region of Russia: the Republic of Adygea. This tiny republic is enclosed inside of Krasnodar Krai and one of the borders happens to be the Kuban River.

Taken from the wikipedia page

Across the river from the city of Krasnodar is the village of Новая Адыгея (New Adygea) which from what I've seen during my first visit is just basically a bunch of stores, car dealerships, and where the IKEA is for the region (not including the places of people who actually live there). If there's anything of cultural interest I'd want to see I'd have to go to the capital of Maykop, which is pretty far away.

IKEA is one of the anchors in a chain of megamalls spread across the country called MEGA (specifically the one for the area is called Adygea-Kuban, Kuban being a regional area that includes Krasnodar). I mostly go to idea for the food though. One of the things the IKEA had on their menu at the restaurant was Chicken Kiev so there are some things that are found in regional IKEAs (ones back home don't sell alcoholic beverages, 0.1% is considered non-alcoholic). Besides IKEA there is AuChan (Ашан) the French supermarket (which is also in Krasnodar) and a bunch of high end clothing stores. That's pretty much all I got to say about the place.

The not-so-Swedish meal at IKEA. While the Julmust is a Swedish beverage it was made at one of their food plants in Germany.

As for how to get there, there are marshrutki that go there. You're lucky if you live on one of those routes because it costs 18 rubles per trip (for the ones issued by the mall. Not sure about the ones that are from Krasnodar that go there) compared to some marshrutki which go to malls that cost 19 rubles.

I tried to get some pictures proving that I was in there since there wasn't much to take pictures of. Apparently the marshrutka minibus needed a wash. Adygea's flag is green with some stars and arrows technically.

I tried to capture the flag but all I got was a dirty window

Подкова apparently means 'horseshoe' which you can see in between the flags

Crossing the Kuban River. Again dirty window

Public Transportation

There are 5 forms of public transportation in Krasnodar: the trolley (троллейбус), the tram (трамвай), the bus (автобус), the shared taxi (маршрутка) and the regular taxi (такси). While I've been in all of them at least once I mainly use the first 4 depending on where I have to go.

A shot of 3/5 forms of public transportation found in Krasnodar: The tram with two cars, the trolleybus in blue, and a minibus (which could be a marshrutka (shared taxi, though technically means routed taxi) or a bus) in front of the trolleybus.

So for those not familiar with public transportation a trolleybus is a bus that is connected to some overhead wires and a tram (or a streetcar) goes on tracks. Trolleybuses uses the roads like the shared taxis and the buses.

So you may be thinking what is a shared taxi? I still have no idea even though I've used them many times. The thing is the shared taxi (маршрутка which is short for маршрутное такси which means routed taxi) either comes in the form of some van looking thing or a minibus. One way you can tell is the fare as shared taxis cost a couple rubles more than the bus, the trolley, or the tram (as of this posting, 17 rubles for the tram/trolley/bus, shared taxi is 19 rubles though there is the rare route that has 17 rubles). Another thing about the shared taxi is you have to let the diver know when and where you want to get off. Trams, trolleys and buses stop at every stop. If you want to get off at some point you either yell "на остановке!" or if you're going to get off at the next stop "на следующее". The first one is a bit easier to say if у-ю-щ is hard to say. You can also add a пожалуйсте to be polite. (Edit January 2016: The prices for public transport went up some time mid-December 2015. Prices as of this update are 20 rubles for the tram, trolleybus and bus, 20 rubles for marshrutki that were19 rubles, and 18 for marshrutki that were 17 rubles)

One thing I like about public transportation here is how to pay for your ride. There is a person called кондуктор (it translates to conductor but the person who drives the trolley/tram/bus is called водитель) who collects your money and gives you a ticket in exchange. The best part is you don't need exact change. Got 20 rubles? No problem, you'll get 3 rubles in change to save up for your next trip. Got 50 rubles? No problem, you can cover a friend (even if your friend happens to be luggage) or you can pay for yourself so you can get change for your next trip. If you think that's old school there is a tap card system but that doesn't work with the shared taxis (you pay the driver in this case). Also another drawback to this system is you have to pay for each leg of your trip. Need to change from one tram/trolley/bus/taxi route to another? You gotta pay. Going from tram to marshrutka? You gotta pay. Still it's cheaper than regular bus fare back home for me (at this posting $3.55 which lasts for 1h30 minutes along the bus and O-Train routes).

Not sure what else I can say about public transportation in Krasnodar but if you got a question then feel free to ask. Enjoy this video of a guy who got on to play his guitar: