A taste of Siberia
Siberia was surprisingly pleasant and surprisingly hot. We arrived at Novisibirsk station (after 3 straight days on the train), which is smack dab in the middle of Siberia at smack dab in the middle of the night (about 1:00am). We decided to take a taxi to Tomsk, a small town about 3 hours away from Novisibirsk, because the hotel prices we were being quoted were outrageous (apparently they’re not too excited about foreigners in Novisibirsk). So, off we went with an intense little cab driver who tore through the night on a tiny two lane highway in the middle of the Siberian woods in the early morning hours. There was a full moon to our right and the first rays of daylight to our left. Thanks to the lead foot of our driver, we arrived in about 2.5 hours, to the quiet little University town of Tomsk. The University was actually established about a hundred years ago to educate engineers who would design and maintain the Trans-Siberian railway.
Since he wasn’t familiar with the city of Tomsk, our driver asked the only people walking around the streets at 4am where we could stay. Comically, the only people roaming the streets were hookers and they directed us to a no-tell-motel that rented rooms by the hour. With our Russian phrasebooks we communicated that we really weren’t interested in this fine establishment and basically forced him to take us to the Sputnik hotel in the center of town. Fun times.
Rush hour in rural Siberia.
Siberia is famous for this wooden architecture with lace carved shutters.
A detail from that house.
A little church in deep Siberia, about 30 minutes outside of Tomsk
Skipping in Siberia.
An old farmhouse
Siberia makes my hair frizzy.
More pretty architecture, The Russian-German house in Tomsk
In the midst of all of this lovely Siberian architecture lay our Soviet style monstrosity, the Sputnik Hotel.
Tags: Amanda Formoso, Russia, Siberia, Trans-Siberian, Travel
Amanda
Hi Manda!nrnrI LOVE the architecture!!! Your “ziggy” trip through the forest w/the cab driver made your old mother a little nervous ~ but that’s part of the excitment, aye? Take care…….Be Safe!!
I am thinking of opening a Cnymhukbuns franchise. Mmmm… creamy Cyrillicness.
I heard about your purchase-snatcher adventures from Ben via text message. Then I read his blog about being robbed in the night by the Train’s Little People.
Tell him to remove the block on anonymous posts on his blog site!
I loved this blog entry…brought back so many memories. Siberia has a “way” all its own, doesn’t it? LOL Are you heading South to Kyzyl? I adore that city, in the middle of the Tuvan region. Happy trails/travels/borcht eating.
Thanks for reading Angie! We are now in Mongolia and will not be heading to Kyzyl, but the Tuvan region does sound brilliant. Next Time!! Borcht actually is prettty tasty, isn’t it? 🙂
My complaint about this blog service is it does not allow us to edit our postings… and fix “purchase-snatching” to “purse-snatching.”