Blogs from Siberia, Russia, Europe - page 11

Today we were given the opportunity to try our hand at traditional Siberian painting. In style it reminds me of English canal boat painting. In the Russian tradition the background is always black and the designs painted on top are usually primarily in red and gold, with small amounts of other colours. Usually the designs are flowers and leaves, or just swirling designs. It is popular as a souvenir, but unlike a lot of traditional crafts, it genuinely remains popular with local Russians - in my homestay there is a large table in the design, and many homes and public buildings have something - bowls, tables, spoons, decorative eggs - in the tradition. Today was my chance to have a go, though I am no artist! We were given boards that had been pre-painted black, given ... read more

Today was Easter Day in Russia, a national holiday and day of celebration. Like Christmas in the UK, it is celebrated very religiously by some, but more out of tradition by most of the population. In Russia there is no chocolate egg tradition, but instead it is traditional to decorate boiled eggs, either by dipping them in coloured dye, or by sticking onto them specially-produced decorated wraps. These eggs were everywhere: even the Russia Starbucks equivalent, Travellers Coffee, had them as table displays. Also very popular is Easter cake, which in Russia is a plain cake the colour of Victoria sponge, but with a texture more like panettone, decorated with icing. To me it was dry and flavourless, but again it was everywhere (including in huge supermarket displays) for Easter. In Novosibirsk, there was a parade ... read more

Apart from a couple of days in Tomsk, I will be spending the next 2 and a half weeks in Novosibirsk, so we made an effort today to get to know it better. Novosibirsk is a new, unpretty, industrial city which developed from an unremarkable village because of the Trans-Siberian railway, part of which crosses the river Ob, around which Novosibirsk has grown. It is now the 3rd largest city in Russia. There is not a lot to do here in the sense of traditional sights, so most foreigners here are visitng for specific reasons (learning the language, work or, in the case of one English person I ran into, learning Russian martial arts) but Novosibirsk is interesting because it is a very typical Russian city, with everything you could expect to see in any Russian ... read more

We had previous long train journeys, but this was the first time we spent (pretty much) 24 hours on a train. I thought I would be very bored, but the time passed quickly and overall the experience was interesting and relaxing. We were in a 4-person cabin, but the other two people were travelling only overnight, so all the following day (until we got off the train mid-afternoon) was just the two of us, which gave us a bit more space (both physically and mentally) to relax. We were well prepared with food and tea bags (water is free from the samovar, which is such an evocative symbol of the train that in Kungar there is a monument of a samovar). I have found it helps to be strict with structuring the day, deciding on set ... read more

Moscow- the worlds most expensive and unfriendly city. We've proved that wrong. Arriving to Moscow was the easy part- next find hostel. We don't normally pre-book but had to have a Moscow pre-boooked address for some tickets. Express train and metro.. We managed to work them out then followed the map from the metro station to the correct road. By one am and the cold, rain and dark we had had two different local Russians search for the hostel with no luck... Another hostel was found but 'no room at the inn'. The only place open seemed to be a couple of night clubs, outside one we met a Russian but English speaking DJ called Andrew who took us to a hotel... This was above a nightclub, noisy but fairly luxury and out if our normal ... read more