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Published: July 14th 2011
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wooden architectureFor 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 did not appear on any official maps
. According to Max they do actually have 24h surveillance and check every person who enters and exits [I assumed that theoretically no one can enter, Photo 14
wooden architecture but practically nobody checks – wrong assumption].
Max, Masha and Katya were supposed to leave the city Saturday and Sunday, so Max was very motivated to show me every important spot in Tomsk on Friday night – we left his place for a walk around 9.30pm to return at 2am – a slight overkill. Max knows so much about Tomsk and has plenty of interesting things to tell, but it was kinda like in a museum, after 2 or 3 hours you just cannot see any paintings anymore… so, about Tomsk – it celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2004, which means that Tomsk is one of the oldest cities in Siberia. At first, like Siberia in general, Tomsk served a place for people who are sent into exile. The turnaround for Tomsk happened with the opening of its first university in 1888. Nowadays Tomsk hosts the 3rd best university in Russia – every 5th inhabitant in the city is a student . Consequently, once you graduate it’s pretty hard to find a job in Tomsk, so many do leave the city again after completing their studies.
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view on Tomsk Having experienced a minor travel burnout Friday evening, I was actually happy to have booked two nights in a hostel . So, Saturday afternoon I left to find the hostel. In Russia hostel means an ordinary two-room apartment is equipped with six bunk beds. I arrived and pretty much everyone in my 6-bed room has left – I decided to take it easy, make use of the Wi-Fi and just chill for a bit. At 6.30pm I met Yulya . Another friend of hers joined and we went to a bar where they serve locally brewed beer. We had a couple beers with garlic bread, talked, laughed and just had an absolutely great evening – exactly what I needed – chitchatting with them was like meeting up with friends at home for a beer, totally effortless 😊 When I came back to the hostel, my only roomie left tells me
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wooden architecture by night to leave the door unlocked as he wants to go out for a cigi – ‘’hmm… I know this accent – you aren’t Swiss by any chance?’’ – A good old Bernese 😊 He came to Tomsk to meet some guy as he wants to import birch bark into Switzerland
. I have to admit it was kinda nice to speak Swiss German 😊
On Sunday I was motivated again to actually explore the city by day light. Tomsk is famous for its beautiful wooden architecture – the city is full of old or restored beautifully decorated small houses. I headed out of the hotel and started walking through the smaller streets in the city center – one house prettier than the other – at some point I just stopped taking pictures 😉 After a Siberian Blini lunch break I gave Max and me another chance – he really wanted to meet for another walk. Turned out to be a good decision – I was more alive and we actually had really interesting conversations about the Soviet Union, religion, Swiss/Russian mentality … We Photo 16
wooden architecture were walking around one area which he really likes – the architecture is a bit different, more industrial, more Soviet style. I’m not sure he actually likes the buildings as such, but somehow he seems to like the concept of the Soviet Union. He thinks that the Soviet Union was more successful than the Russian Federation. He might be right in the sense that during Soviet times more things have been achieved, whereas Russia cannot boast with a lot of great accomplishments nowadays. That may be true, but my question to him was at what price did they achieve that? Under what circumstances did the people have to live? Max: in the Soviet Union people had all they needed: everyone had an apartment, everyone was able to go on holidays, everyone had food, everyone could do sports, everyone had a job, … Me: what about freedom? Max didn’t have a clear answer to that one. So I asked him where he would prefer to live, in the Soviet Union or in Russia now. His answer was Russia.
The second interesting discussion we had concerned religion – I’m still on the quest to find out what drives people to believe,
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wooden architecture by night to be religious nowadays after in the Soviet Union people were pretty much forced to be atheists. For Max religion represents point zero – it helps him to define what is good and what is bad. He is trying to live his life in a way that his soul is happy and by behaving in a good way he believes his soul is happy. So religion is kind of the guidance for his way of living. Both Irina in Tobolsk and Nadezhda in Novosibirsk told me that they aren’t very religious, but they regret that during the Soviet Union religion wasn’t accessible for them. I guess people in general do need something to believe in to cope with everyday life.
A few hours later we met Olga and her boyfriend. All together we spoke a mix of Russian, English and French – at least Olga and I managed all the three 😉 Olga’s boyfriend is thinking of applying for a PhD at EPFL in Lausanne – funny 😊 I obviously told them how great Lausanne is and how they definitely
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just loved the sky:) should come 😊 Walking through the streets we passed by the fire brigade trying to extinguish a fire in one of the wooden houses – their comment: ‘’and another one goes down’’. Apparently that is a frequent phenomenon to observe – either it’s because of the old electrical installations or the house is actually set on fire. Wooden houses in the center of a city are in the way of big companies who want to use the good location for modern buildings. The companies usually offer new apartments and other benefits in order to get the people out of their houses. Most of the time they, however, reject the offer. Once the house is burned down, the people usually don’t have enough money to rebuild them, so they are forced to move into the apartments offered by the companies .
In the evening we went to listen to Tomsk’s philharmonic orchestra – they gave a free concert in the entrance hall of the auditorium . I assumed it would be a way to hold a main rehearsal in front an audience, but
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Probably :) turns out not. They played some famous works – even I knew them 😉 Back in the hostel I had two new roommates: Aliona and her mom. Aliona did her studies in Tomsk and they came back for the graduation ceremony taking place the next day. They were super interested in me – once again I’m the first foreigner they talk to! Aliona has a pretty western mindset: she already did some student jobs during her studies, now she wants to move to Krasnoyarsk as she believes there are more opportunities for development there than in her hometown , and then at some point find the right man to have a family.
On Monday I took the bus back to Novosibirsk – slept over a night at Nadezhda’s before taking the train early next morning to Abakan.
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Quando arrivi a lago Baikal? Stammi bene !