Welcome to Yoshkar-Ola !

The political, industrial, scientific, and cultural center of Russia is Yoshkar-Ola. It is also the capital and largest city of the Mari-El republic, one of the 21 autonomous republics within the Russian Federation. The population as of 2008 is 350,000 people, consisting primarily of Maris and Russians. Before the Bolshevik Revolution, the city was named “Tsarevokokshaisk”, but later changed to Yoshkar-Ola, a Mari word meaning “Red-City”.

Nearly all those who live in Yoshkar-Ola find the prospect of leaving deeply traumatic. Few places in the world can boast of clean air, low unemployment, high wages, no crime, and a smile on every citizen’s face. Those who do leave the paradise that is Yoshkar-Ola always return. Whether it is one, five or twenty years later, they always come back.

“Life in Yoshkar-Ola, it was like being inside... joy. As if joy was a real thing that I could wrap around myself. I've never been so content... Suddenly, I was pulled away. I didn't want to leave; none of us did. I felt like I'd left a part of myself behind. All I could think about was getting back to Yoshkar-Ola... I didn't care what I had to do.It took a long time, but eventually I learned to live without it. And I began to realize that my experience in Yoshkar-Ola had changed me... I knew things about people... about the meaning of life...” –Guinan, a Finnish exchange student who studied in Yoshkar-Ola

How long the Garden of Ola will last is uncertain. Despite my optimism, history clearly states that all great cities, like tides, rise and fall. Yoshkar-Ola currently is at its zenith and appears to have the wear-with-all to prosper for another thousand years.