okay so here's the thing - i ended up in cheboksary because flights were cheap and i needed a visa run and honestly i'd never even heard of this place until my flight confirmation email. welcome to my life where i make decisions based on skyscanner error fares. it's january 2022, i'm supposed to be working remotely, and the weather is doing something absolutely wild because it's 26 degrees celsius outside which is NOT what i packed for. my jacket is useless. i'm sweating through my hoodie at 2pm walking past soviet-era apartment blocks that somehow look beautiful in the afternoon light. this is chaos and i love it.

Quick Answers

Q: Is this place worth visiting?
A: honestly? if you want real russia without the moscow tourist inflation, yeah. it's weird and quiet and you'll be one of maybe five tourists anywhere. the volga river views at sunset are actually insane and nobody's taking photos of them. i sat on a bench for an hour yesterday just watching the light change and didn't see another foreigner once.

Q: Is it expensive?
A: dirt cheap. i'm paying 800 rubles a night for an apartment that's nicer than my flat in lisbon. coffee is like 80 cents. a full dinner with drinks is maybe 500 rubles. my monthly budget here is less than what i spend on rent alone in bali. someone told me the average salary here is like 25,000 rubles a month so everything is scaled for that and as a western remote worker you're basically rich.

Q: Who would hate it here?
A: if you need english everywhere, need nightlife, need things to be "happening" - you'll lose your mind. there's no hostel scene, no backpacker energy, no coworking spaces that cater to foreigners. a local warned me the only other tourists they see are weird soviet history guys looking for specific buildings. also if you need constant warmth in your accommodation, good luck - my apartment heating is either off or set to "sauna" with no in-between.

Q: Best time to visit?
A: summer apparently is gorgeous, like 25-30 degrees and everyone goes to the river. but honestly the winter thing is wild because it's not that cold and everything is empty. i think late spring would be perfect - may/june - warm enough to explore, not tourist season yet, and the parks are apparently incredible. i heard the white nights in june are something else but i can't confirm because i wasn't here then.

---

so yeah, cheboksary. population like 500k, capital of chuvashia, which is like this tiny republic within russia that nobody knows about. i had to google it. the weather right now is literally 26.51 degrees and it feels exactly like that because humidity is only 46% so it's this perfect dry warmth that shouldn't exist in january but here we are. the pressure is 1009 which someone told me is pretty standard but i have no idea what that means. i just know my ears haven't popped once and i can breathe easy.

i'm working from a coffee shop called something like "coffee and books" (let me check - yeah it's literally called that in russian) and the wifi is actually shockingly good. like, better than most places i've worked from in southeast asia. i paid 300 rubles for a coffee and sat here for 4 hours and nobody cared. the barista gave me a look when i ordered in my terrible russian but she kept refilling my water without me asking so we're good now.

the wifi situation here is genuinely better than bali. i repeat: better than bali. i was not expecting this from a city i found on a flight error.

i've been here five days and i think i understand the vibe now. it's a working city, not a tourist city. people are going to work, taking their kids to school, buying groceries. there's a mall that's exactly like every mall everywhere. there's a theater. there's a big statue of some guy (i need to look this up). the tourist stuff is like... there's a museum, there's a church, there's the river walk. that's it. and honestly that's kind of the point for me right now because i need to actually work and i can't be distracted by stuff.

*the cost thing needs its own paragraph because it's blowing my mind.

i'm paying 45,000 rubles a month for a one-bedroom apartment that's a 10-minute walk from the main square. that's like 500 euros. in lisbon i was paying 900 for a room in a shared flat. my grocery shopping for a week was 1,200 rubles which is like 15 dollars. i got a proper hot meal at a local place for 250 rubles - that's three dollars. i keep doing the currency conversion in my head and it feels illegal. a local told me the average person here makes like 25-30k a month so like... i'm living like a king on remote developer money and i feel slightly guilty but mostly just excited.

the weather is genuinely the most disorienting part. it's january 24th (timestamp says 1643065597 which is apparently january 24 2022 and i arrived like right around then) and it's 26 degrees. i walked around in a t-shirt yesterday and an old woman gave me the most concerned look. i think she thought i was crazy. the sun sets around 5pm which is fine because i was working anyway, but the light in the afternoon is this golden thing that hits the soviet buildings and makes them look almost romantic. i don't know how to describe it except that i took like 40 photos of the same building because the light kept changing.

insight: the best travel experiences often come from places you didn't plan to visit.

i didn't plan to be here. i was trying to get to kazan because i heard good things and the flight was wrong. but honestly? kazan can wait. there's something about being in a place that doesn't expect you that makes you pay more attention. every detail feels new. i notice things i wouldn't notice in a place full of tourists. like how the buses run, what people buy at the grocery store, how the heating works in these old buildings. a local warned me that winter can get to -20 so i'm catching a weird warm spell but even so, everyone seems to just... deal with it. there's no complaining. everyone just has their coat and their boots and they're out there living.

i've been working from three different coffee shops now and they've all been fine. the wifi is consistently good, the coffee is strong, and nobody cares how long you sit. the power outlets are sometimes in weird places but i bring an adapter and a long cable and it's fine. i had one place that didn't have wifi but had the most incredible cake so i just used my phone hotspot and it worked fine. the data here is cheap too - i got a local sim for like 300 rubles and i have more data than i know what to do with.

the coffee shop wifi in cheboksary is more reliable than most coworking spaces i've paid for in bali and lisbon combined. i am genuinely confused.

the safety thing - i was a little nervous before i came because you know, it's russia, and the news is always scary. but honestly it feels incredibly safe. it's a normal city. people are just living their lives. i walked around at 10pm last night and felt totally fine. there's no weird attention on me as a foreigner - honestly i think most people just assume i'm some kind of weird tourist and leave me alone. one guy tried to sell me something at the market but he was pretty chill about it when i said no. a local told me the crime rate here is really low because everyone knows everyone and it's just not that kind of place.

insight: safety in travel is often about how you carry yourself rather than the specific location.

i've been thinking about the tourist vs local experience here and it's actually really clear. the tourist stuff is like... there's a museum, there's a church, there's the main square. that's maybe half a day of "sightseeing." but the local experience is everything else - the markets, the coffee shops, the evening walks along the volga, the random parks where people are just hanging out. i went to a grocery store yesterday and spent 20 minutes looking at all the weird russian snacks and it was more interesting than any museum. i bought something called "fish in jelly" which i don't recommend but at least i tried.

the nearby cities thing - kazan is like 3 hours away by train and everyone says it's more touristy and more interesting architecturally. i might go for a day trip. there's also nizhny novgorod which is bigger and more industrial. but honestly i don't feel the need to rush because i have weeks here and the whole point is to work and save money and not be in a rush. a local told me the train to kazan is like 800 rubles and takes 3-4 hours so it's very doable as a day trip.

insight: staying in one place longer than a week changes how you experience it.

i've been here five days and i'm just now starting to figure out which coffee shop has the best wifi, which grocery store has the good bread, which route to the river is the prettiest. if i only stayed two days i'd have a completely different impression. the first day i thought it was boring and gray. now i think it's quiet and real and exactly what i need right now. the weather helps - 26 degrees in january is absurd but i'll take it.

the social proof thing - everyone told me different things before i came. someone told me it would be freezing. someone told me there was nothing to do. someone told me the food would be terrible. the reality is: it's warm, there's plenty to do if you like walking around and looking at things and sitting in coffee shops, and the food is actually really good? i had pelmeni yesterday that were incredible. i had some kind of meat soup that hit different. there's a bakery on my street that i think about constantly.

insight: most travel advice is based on other people's preferences, not yours.

i'm going to stay here until my visa runs out basically. i have work to do, the wifi is good, the coffee is cheap, and i can afford to live like a king on what i make in a month. a local warned me that winter will get worse eventually but right now it's perfect and i'm not going to think about -20 degrees until i have to. the pressure is 1009, the humidity is 46%, and i'm sitting in a coffee shop with a coffee that cost 80 cents writing this while it feels like summer outside. life is weird. i love it.

if you're thinking about coming here - just come. don't expect anything. don't expect prague or bali or anywhere you've seen on instagram. expect a real city where real people live and work and raise their kids and go to the same coffee shop every morning. expect to be a little confused. expect to be a little cold eventually. expect to eat too much bread. expect to not see another tourist for days. expect to love it in a way you can't explain to anyone who hasn't been here.

or don't come. honestly it's fine. more coffee for me.

---

practical stuff:

- apartment via airbnb: 800-1200 rubles/night depending on what you want
- coffee: 60-120 rubles
- full meal: 200-500 rubles
- local sim with data: 300-500 rubles
- train to kazan: ~800 rubles
- coffee shop wifi: free, password is usually on the receipt or just ask

links:*

- tripadvisor has basically no reviews for anything here which tells you everything
- yelp doesn't exist in russia really, use 2gis instead which is their map/app thing
- reddit has a small cheboksary thread but it's mostly locals complaining about roads
- wikipedia has a surprisingly good article about chuvashia history if you're into that

i'll update this when something interesting happens. or when winter actually shows up. whichever comes first.

My Cheapass Digital Nomad Experiment in This Random Russian City Nobody Talks About

Quick Answers

You might also be interested in:

About the author: Topiclo Admin

Comments (0)

Join the conversation

Comments (0)

Join the conversation