Current Time in Yoshkar-Ola, Russia

Yoshkar-Ola stands on the Malaya Kokshaga River in the forested lowlands of the middle Volga, about seven hundred kilometres east of Moscow. It is the capital of the Republic of Mari El, one of the national republics of the Russian Federation, and its name means Red City in the Mari language. Pine and birch forests, lakes and peat bogs surround the town, and the climate is sharply continental, with long snowy winters and short warm summers.

The city has roughly a quarter of a million inhabitants and serves as the administrative, cultural and industrial centre of the republic. Its factories produce machinery, refrigeration equipment, electronics, instruments and building materials, and it functions as the marketplace and service centre for a largely rural region of farms and timber.

The town was founded in 1584 as a fortress called Tsaryovokokshaysk, built to secure the newly conquered lands of the Mari people after the fall of the Kazan khanate. For centuries it remained a small provincial town of wooden houses and merchants' shops. It was renamed after the revolution, becoming the capital of the Mari autonomous region, and grew rapidly during the Second World War when factories were evacuated here from western Russia. The most extraordinary chapter came in the early twenty-first century, when the regional leadership rebuilt the riverfront in an entirely new architectural style.

That reconstruction gives Yoshkar-Ola its unusual appearance and its fame among travellers. Along the embankment stands a row of buildings imitating the brick Gothic of Bruges and the Netherlands, complete with stepped gables, while opposite them rises a copy of the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin and a replica of the Venetian Doge's Palace that houses an art gallery. Clock towers perform mechanical shows on the hour, with figures of the apostles and of a donkey carrying the icon of the Mother of God appearing from behind doors. Monuments to Italian, Russian and Mari figures line the squares, and the effect is theatrical, unexpected and much photographed.

Beyond the spectacle, the city preserves genuine Mari heritage. The National Museum and the museum of fine arts display traditional embroidery, silver jewellery, wooden tools and paintings, and the Mari language, related to Finnish and Estonian, is still spoken and taught. Theatres, including a national drama theatre and an opera and ballet house, present work in both Mari and Russian, and folk festivals celebrate ancient customs, some connected with sacred groves that survive in the countryside.

Buses and trolleybuses cover the compact centre, railways and highways link the city to Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod, and a small airport handles limited traffic. Mari State University and the Volga State University of Technology bring thousands of students to the city each year.

Yoshkar-Ola is worth knowing as the cultural home of the Mari people and as one of the most visually surprising cities in provincial Russia.