Places of Interest

Places to visit in Yanam

Yanam has very beautiful views. It is covered with coconut trees. One can enjoy fresh iodinised air since it is located over the banks of the Gauthami Godavari River. Humidity is high in this region. The river Gauthami Godavari is one of the main branches of the river Godavari. It enters the Bay of Bengal after flowing about 12 km through Yanam.

The Ferry Road

The Yanam Ferry Road was inaugurated by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Pondicherry Shri R.V.JanakiRaman on 11.1.2000. Now, there is a proposal for making the Ferry Road very beautiful by putting important person’s idols on the footpath of this Road.

Daily above Ten Thousand passengers are traveling to and fro on this Pant. The people from Konaseema area under the Amalapuram Constituency of East Godavari District are mainly using this river way for reaching Kakinada, the District Head Quarters.

This river called Gauthami Godavari is one of the branches of the main river Godavari. It enters the Bay of Bengal after crossing around 12 Kms.

The minimum capacity of the Panti can hold is 15 Tonnes. It supports the two wheeler, three wheeler as well as four wheeler excluding heavy vehicles.

Per trip, it carries roughly 200 passengers along with vehicles. The time of journey depends on the river flow. Generally, it takes 15 minutes to cross from one end to another.

Now, the Govt. of AndhraPradesh with the assistance of ONGC, WorldBank Funds, Pondicherry Govt., Central Govt. and the donations from the farmers & marketing committees, is constructing a Bridge across this river.

The estimated cost of the construction is roughly 120 crores.

The Navayuga Engineering Constructions(NEC) of Visakhapatnam has taken the contract to build the bridge in the stipulated time of 36 months. The foundation stone was laid by Shri G.M.C.BalaYogi, Hon’ble LokSabha Speaker.

The New Bridge – Balayogi Varadhi was inaugurated by Shri N. Chandrababu Naidu, CM, AP in 2002.

Alamelumanga Sahita Shri Venkateswara Swamy Temple

This temple is well known as “Venkanna Babu Temple”, “Chaldikudu Venkanna Temple” and “Meesala Venkanna Temple”.

It has been very famous for performing Child Marriages in pre independence tenure. Due to the dedicated efforts by the Social Reformer, Shri Raja Rama Mohan Roy, the “Sarada Act” (prevention of Child Marriages”) was implemented by the then British Govt. in India.

As the Yanam Region is under the control of French Rule, the people from the nearby State, used to come this Temple for performing the Child Marriages.Even the People from the Madras,Hyderabad and other long distant places, also came to Yanam for their Child Marriages. Daily, some thousands of Marriages were performed in this temple.Hence, Yanam was also called as “KALYANA PURAM”.

The speciality of the Temple is the Swamy Idol is having big mustaches like the Lord Sathyanarayana Swamy of Annavaram.This temple was built by the kings of Rajamahendravaram, now called as “Rajahmundry” in 15th Century. Now, We can see the sculptures of those period in this temple.

The Venkanna Radham

The Venkanna Festival will be celebrated in the month of March every year by the people of Yanam in very grand manner. The festival will be continued for one month.Lord Venkateswara Kalyanam is the main day of the festival. Ponnavahanam, Radha yatra and Chakrateertham are the important events of the festival. In these days nearly 1.5 lakhs of devotees will come to Yanam to take the grace of the Lord Venkanna Babu.

The Ratham weight is around 15 Tonnes. It was built in 1950 by the then Committee. It was partially damaged to the heavy Cyclone in Nov’1996 . It was rennovated in 1998.This Ratham was carried through out entire Yanam Town in earlier days. After the Electrification Works, this route is limited from Kunameddy Junction to the New Bus Stand. It will be carried out by only the devotees with full of slogans, bhajans.

The Govt. declares Holiday for all Govt. Offices on this special event.

The Mosque

The site for the Mosque was donated by the French Government in 1848. That time small Mosque was constructed. Then in 1956, the same was remodelled. The same was demolished in 1978 and a new Mosque was constructed. Now, in 1999-2000 the Mosque was extended as the Grand Mosque in the presidentship of M.A.Sirajuddin.

The Grants for this Mosque was received from the Walf Board, Pondicherry with the cooperation of Shri M.Krishna Rao, MLA, Yanam.

At present around 200 persons can pray in the Mosque. Every Year, Ramzan, Bakrid, Milad Nabi functions will be clebrated grandly.

The Mosque covers the people of nearby villages like Thallarevu, Kolanka, Sunkarapalem which are in the adjacent State Andhra Pradesh..

The St. Ann’s Catholic Historic Church

There is a special importance to Pondicherry in which many religions, castes and languages are in existance, and there is another special importance to yanam which is physically in Andhra Pradesh state and politicially in the part of Pondicherry. Yanam is having 300 years of festivals which is being well known as a ‘French yanam’ This region was ruled by French People for 300 years. The monument of the Catholic Church’ French rulers is the ‘The rememberance of the French Rulers is linked with this church. This church was built under Europian style.There is no other church available like this church. The furniture,decoration articles were imported from France. This church was built in the year 1846 by the French missionarie.The foundation stone was laid down by Father Michel Lecnam and he was died in the year 30th April 1836 without completion of the church work. For his rememberance a culvert was fixed in this church.The church work was completed in the year 1846. There is another special attraction in this church is that a hill temple was built in this premises of the church by the french rulers,and there is another hill temple behind the church which was built by the English engineers.

There was an interesting story behind this chruch that in the year 1943 a Ship named Villiam B. Augustus, was thrown to a sand island due to heavy cyclone. Though they tried hard to rescue the ship consisting of 1000 tonnes by using all manpower, it was invain. The ship stayed for one year in the same place without an inch of moment. At that time, one engineer by name E.H.Swini was deputed from America for this purpose. He also tried and came to a conclusion that this task would not be possible with manpower. And he worshipped the Lord ‘ Mary Maa’ and all of sudden the ship moved from the sand island. In tribute of the Lord Mary Maa, the engineer and his wife constructed this church in yanam. This festivals can also be seen now in the hill temple behind this church.

From then, every year in March, a major festival is being celebrated. Devotees from various neighbouring places used to come here and worship the Lord Mary Maa. The very remarkable thing is that the devotees are not only from the Christians but also Muslims, Hindus and other religions.

Important Temples nearer to Yanam

Annavaram

The Lord Satyanarayana Swamy’s Temple is located in the Annavaram. It is around 80 Kms from Yanam towards East. It is very famous for performing Vrathams especially for newly married couples for getting blessings from the Lord Satyanarayana Swamy.

It is the second important Temple in AndhraPradesh after Tirupathi.

Draksharamam

It is one of the Jyothirlingas in India. The Shiva here is called Bheemeswara Swamy. The height of the Linga is around 14 Ft. and it is one of the oldest temples in India. People say that it was constructed by the Devathas. There is one more temple called Manikyamabika Devi Temple in the campus of this Temple. It is one of the Ashtadasa Pithas in India. It is very famous as it has the Sakthi Chakra and the Parvathi Goddess is sitting on this Chakra. It is around 16 Kms from Yanam. There are frequent buses running from Yanam to Draksharamam.