Fall Drive to Kholmsk

As I've said before, fall on Sakhalin Island is just beautiful.  Being from Houston, we don't get the lovely colors of the changing leaves.  Last year, the first weekend after I arrived in October, Max took me on a drive to Kholmsk to see the fall colors.  I had such a great time, I wanted to make it an annual tradition.  A couple of weeks ago, even though it was an overcast and rainy day, we decided we'd better go on our drive as it might be our last chance before either the leaves were gone, or it snowed.  Last year, it snowed about this time.

We started by driving south west across the island to a little coastal town called Nevelsk. I thought it was beautiful even if it was cloudy.

Part of the drive across the middle of the island was on a dirt road, with very little traffic and very little signs of life.

 

The scenery was beautiful along the way.

As we got closer to town, we saw a lot of little Russian dachas.

Nevelsk is a small fishing town with not much going on.   A pretty strong earthquake happened there a few years ago and a lot of the apartment buildings were destroyed.  It's a stark contrast to see the old apartments next to some of the newer, modern ones.  

We did see this random tribute to Yuri Gagarin.  A few four legged friends ran out to greet us...I think they thought we might feed them.

 Once we got to Nevelsk, we turned north and drove along the coast towards Kholmsk.

We saw this map in Kholmsk.  I can't really read it, but it does say something about May, 1870.  If you look on the left of the map right above the stone with the writing, you can see Kholmsk.  Nevelsk is hidden behind the stone. You can see Yuzhno (our city) to the right and down and a little off center of the island.

 

Once in Kholmsk we wanted to find a place to eat a little lunch.  Even though this is one of the bigger towns on Sakhalin, there are not many restaurants here, that we know.  There probably are, but they are tucked away in little basements and on side roads and we don't know where to look.  We just wanted something small and found the perfect place - a little shashlik stand.  Shashlik is yummy grilled pork or beef, like our shish kabobs.  By this time it was pouring down rain, so we stood under a table umbrella while the lady fixed our plates.  We ate on the drive back to Yuzhno.  We took the more direct route home.  It was a fun day and I look forward to doing it again next year.

Love to you all!

Karen