There is not much a tourist can do in Rivne: one can visit the children's railway, after which there will be only walking around left on the menu. That's what I did. Just randomly walked around, having stumbled upon very tasty ice-cream in a random cafe that seems to not exist anymore. One can board a bus and go to Klevan to see the popular tunnel, but that would be outside Rivne already.
The children's railway was active and well maintained. Located between a market and the Ustya river, it was not the longest one I saw, but it was still a good one.
I took some obligatory photos of the locomotive.
Everything owned by the children's railway had an inventory number on it, even buildings.
I also took some obligatory photos of the railway cars.
It was a narrow-gauge.
Because of the nearby market, the way to the children's railway was obstructed by the crowd during the day. People were trying to earn their living selling stuff on the pedestrian bridge that led to the station. It was very different in the evenings, with the market already closed, but the railway itself was closed at such hours, too.
The hydropark seemed old and soviet. It was very close to the children's railway and had many footbridges over canals.
This small bridge carried the children's railway track over a small channel. One more bridge is visible on the photo.
The park also had many sculptures of that crazy soviet cartoon style which disliked as a kid. Now that I'm older, I still think this style is a bit mad, but it does not annoy me anymore and I feel these art objects are better than nothing — at least for a city park.
There also was a rotund.
A bigger pond called Basiv Kut was made on the river.
The city center was very polluted visually — aggressive and mostly cringe business sıgnboards were all over the place. It was also noise-polluted, because many businesses used trashy music as their criers. And, as if that was not already bad enough, the city used audio advertisement in some places like public transportation stops. My advice is to take your headphones with you to Rivne!
A network of pharmacy counters was creatively implementing a decision of anti-monopoly commission. They were ordered to remove the comparative and misleading words «low» or «wholesale» from signboards, which they obliged to, but made a smooth transition by literally removing letters one by one, day by day, until rebranding into the abbreviation of the previous title. Nice moves from both the network and the anti-monopolists: prices were neither low nor wholesale, and the good humor is a good thing. It was not only in Rivne, but in all Ukraine — it was just me who noticed that only here.
A bored tourist can entertain themselves by letting the nostalgia kick in — upon seeing the old «Tatra» trolleybuses. I love these old uncomfortable historic means of transportation, too. Rivne had some of these among the newer trolleybuses. My precious:
There were newer trolleybuses in Rivne, too, with the following photo proving that:
My pseudo-random route passed through this arch.
Soon, I found myself staring at a wall, which was pretty entertaining, actually. Look at that brick wall, curving as a slice of pie being picked up with a kitchen spatula.
Well, our life demonstrates that Taras Shevchenko had this sad face for a reason...
Passed near a pyramid. Its inscription was on a separate rock nearby, stating that this all was installed to honor the knowledge of 17 generations of Lymych family tree, and a viche (meeting) that had been held on this topic back in 2000. Well, okay, I'll have to read some Wikipedia articles on this.
The organ hall.
There weren't as many Holy Mary statues here as in Ivano-Frankivsk. I saw only this elevated one:
A building in the style of modern (it housed the Les Kurbas museum). I am not architecture-savvy, someone told me that.
Fire station.
An old house.
And some more old stuff.
These two signs with ideal typography were hanging in some window. Someone studied a lot to make these, and they look as if they were made without computers.
One thing that was the second best after that ice cream was the golden dust from linden trees. It was resting in small crevices, holes, marking potholes for the drivers, and drawing rectangles around parked cars. Nature made all that beautiful using that golden dust. Here it is around a tree stump in the road curb:
in sidewalk pavement:
around parked cars:
or in potholes.
