Blogs from Tomsk, Siberia, Russia, Europe
The Bumper Harvest Honey Bear is Coming!!!
Published: February 14th 2012Europe » Russia » Siberia » Tomsk
February 13th 2012
It is almost Valentine’s day. I’ve been single over 6 months and I am currently sharing a miniscule flat with a 50 something year old Russian lady, a dog/mop, a cat and a hamster. Tatiana’s 11 year old grandson is also often wandering about this 3 room apartment. The breakdancing little scallywag. Tatiana herself wears long fur coats, has bright red frizzy hair and often coasts around the house in only some hideous green leggings. And a bra obviously. The cat is quite possibly deranged – she keeps telling me it has something – an illness I believe – the word she says sounds a lot like catarrh but that could mean anything in Russian really. Eve has suggested it may suffer from Tourettes which generated much laughter from Jay and I, a cat’s lack of ... read more
July 14th 2011
For Tomsk I had plenty of contacts who were ready to meet me for a drink, but no one who could actually host me, so I booked myself into the hostel for Saturday and Sunday night. Friday night, Max was ready to host me, so once again, got picked up at the station . Max lives with his wife Masha and his 2-year old daughter Katya – they are such a cute family. He works as a doctor in a close-by town called Seversk. Seversk is one of Russia’s famous closed cities – Only residents and people with a special permit can enter those cities. Closed/ secret cities in Russia usually host nuclear reactors and chemical plants. In the case of Seversk these work with the processing of uranium and plutonium. Up until 1992 closed cities ... read more
May 17th 2011
Hello Again! This time from Tomsk, "Siberia's most likeable city". Since our last blog we have travelled 3,644 kilometres on three different trains - stopping off at several places en route. The first stop was Suzdal, a three hour train journey and one hour bus ride east from Moscow. "The gently winding waterways, flower drenched meadows and dome-spotted skyline make this medieval capital a fairytale setting". So says the Lonely Planet, Trans-Siberian Railway book. Gently winding waterways, tick! Flower drenched meadows, cross! Dome-spotted skyline, tick! Fairytale setting.... hmm!?! Suzdal in itself was a nice place to relax after 8 days in two of Europe's largest cities, but unfortunately it couldn't live up to the mental picture the Lonely Planet guide had painted in our heads. Wondering around and just relaxing, the highlight had to be the ... read more
July 17th 2010
Caught the evening train to Taiga. I had to stay overnight in Taiga because for some reason I could not get a direct train from Irkutsk to Tomsk. Even though I had reserved a seat, when the tickets came on sale the agency I had been going through advised me it was not possible. What the???! I take back what I said before - trans-siberia train vodka parties do exist. As soon as I got on the train I realised that there were a bunch of guys in my compartment. I found out they were fireman / sportsmen and were off to some fireman sporting event. This is where they compete with fireman kind of tasks like climbing ladders up houses, running with hoses etc. Sounds weird. Anyway they were a very friendly bunch and made ... read more
July 17th 2010
The receptionist at the Sputnik Hotel in Tomsk had promised a 'free pickup' from the train station and I had confirmed via email the previous day, but there was no-one there to meet me (surprise?) so I walked quite a way into town to find the hotel. The girl informed me that they'd sent a taxi to meet me and it would have cost 100 rubles anyway, so not really a free pickup in my book. My room was a big disappointment. I 'd paid for the lowest grade room but stilll thought it would be ok since it was a hotel but really the hostels have been better. The room is quite small and you have to share a toilet and bathroom with about 5 other rooms. The room doesn't have A/C and it is ... read more
July 9th 2010
Bonjour! Bon, j'en profite ce matin pour combler mon leger retard. Alors, ou en sommes-nous? Je devrais plutot dire "ou j'en suis?" parce que je viens de perdre ce matin mes deux comparses de voyage qui decollent en ce moment meme de Pekin pour le long retour a la maison. Je suis donc seul. Mais considerant les millions de Chinois a moins de quelques kilometres dans toutes les directions, ce n'est peut-etre pas la meilleure facon de le dire. Mais la je m'eloigne un peu de mon sujet principal: mon retard. On s'est laisse la derniere fois a Iekaterinbourg lorsqu'on etait encore du cote europeen de la Russie. Cette entree-ci concerne les villes de Tomsk et d'Irkoutsk, toutes deux en Siberie. Tomsk Tomsk (475 000 ames) est situee a peu pres au centre (est-ouest) de la ... read more
June 27th 2010
On est rendu loin maintenant... tres loin. Comme nous le rappelle M. statistique (oui, oui, Hugo), nous sommes a plus de 3900 km de Moscou, mais de "l'autre bord". On est maintenant officiellement en Siberie. On est passe a travers trois villes depuis la derniere entree. Je vous presente ici les deux premieres... je vais probablement devoir rajouter les photos un peu plus tard. KAZAN Ville Tatare qui est tombe sous l'emprise des troupes de Ivan le Terrible au 16e siecle, Kazan comporte encore une importante communaute mulsulmane. Kazan est egalement la capitale de la Republique Autonome du Tatarstan, une des regions les plus independantes de Moscou en Russie. La ville se prepare a recevoir les Universiades en 2013 et est en train de se refaire une beaute. Certains edifices sont bien renoves et d'autres... disons ... read more
October 4th 2009
So got the bus from Suzdal back to Vladmir to wait for our train that we had booked to Novosibirsk. It was a bit confusing because you have a train number on your tickets and a departure board except the departure board had a different time to our tickets...we waited around till that time and it suddenly changed to the right time we had, so all was good. We headed to our platform to find there was ni access! There were people waiting on all different platforms as this one was closed off having some work done and there were all these makeshift platforms made out of wood in the middle of the tracks and we had no idea where we were supposed to wait, we tried to ask a few people but no one understood ... read more
July 11th 2008
Hei igjen! Jeg proever igjen, innlegget mitt ble nettopp slettet. Greit aa vaere en taalmodig sjel i blant. Vi er naa i Tomsk, en hyggelig liten universitetsby i Sibir, 270 km unna Novosibirsk, hvor vi sov i natt. Dagene etter forrige innlegg har stort sett vaert preget av vodka og tog. Utelivet i Irkutsk ble grundig sjekket, og etter noen flasker vodka havnet vi et sted som like godt kunne vaert i et lite norsk tettsted. Klientellet var noe eldre enn oss, og de danset ivrig og komplett rytmeloest til fengende slagere som Life is Life og Who the fuck is Alice. Vi er ikke tunge aa be, og vi inntok raskt dansegulvet sammen med minst 6 jenter som hadde bursdag (DJen gratulerte i hvert fall veldig mange) og med tre voksne damer som var ute ... read more
Lots of charm and dealing with bureaucracy (Tomsk, Russia)
Published: May 23rd 2008Europe » Russia » Siberia » Tomsk
May 23rd 2008
(Day 49 on the road) Dead-tired after a few rough nights on trains and only two hours of sleep the night before I arrived in Tomsk, a charming university town in the middle of Siberia. I desperately needed a break from my exhausting overnight-hopping, so I decided to stay a while. This was by no means easy: The first four hotels I went to all across town were booked out, so I had to settle for a place well out of my price range. The alternative would have been to press on to Krasnoyarsk, but I really had no energy left for another day of exploring and another night on the train. As it turns out, it was the right decision. I shared a room with a very nice Russian guy working for a local oil ... read more
