Blogs from Siberia, Russia, Europe - page 7

I hate to say it, but this city sounds like a posterior body part or a bad dream. Ulan Ude is the capital of the Buryat Republic. It is a small city with a multiethnic background. So, let's see what we can find out about this place, and its people. It lies only 62 miles southeast of famous Lake Baikal. The city sits on the confluence of the Uda and Selenga Rivers. It is the third largest city in eastern Siberia with a little over 400,000 people. The city has undergone many name changes through the years. The current name was given in 1934, and means "red Uda" in Buryat. We are 3500 miles (5649 kilometers) east of Moscow. The first occupants were the Evenks, and later the Buryat Mongols. In 1666, the Russian Cossacks came ... read more

When I travel through a state or country, I enjoy unearthing famous residents. I would think Siberia would be home to quite a few interesting characters. The list includes Boris Yeltsin, Catherine the Great, Vitas Bering, Rudolf Nureyev, Dmitri Mendeleev, Grigori Rasputin, Raisa Titorenko Gorbachev, Kim Jun Il, Yul Brynner, Boris Godunov, Genghis Khan, and Ivan the Terrible. As a young teenager in high school, I learned much about Mendeleev. He is credited with formulating the periodic table of elements. He created his own periodic table of elements and used it to correct the properties of some already discovered elements and to predict element yet to be discovered. But perhaps most importantly, he was appointed director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures, where he formulated the new state standards for the production of vodka. In ... read more

Ok, this is going to be a long one. I apologise for neglecting this blog for the past week. In my defence... nah, I just kept putting off. Sorry! 17th October. It wasn't the best weather when we (I picked up two Germans at the hostel) headed to Listvyanka, a small town on the shore of Lake Baikal. It was foggy and rainy. We got the tram to the bus station and then got on a marshroutka (like a minibus that follows a certain route) their were only five of us on the bus when we set off, but we only went as far as the marshroutka station round the back of the market and we moved onto another minibus filled with people. The bus took a little over an hour (and set off about forty ... read more

Before we start, all the pictures are of round Baikal, the last photos of Mongolia are on my iPad and it's too much of an effort to dig it out of my bag. Ulaanbaatar train station at 6:30am is a cold and dark place, especially when you have to wait an hour for the bus. I say bus, it was actually quite a nice coach. And, I shouldn't complain about being there so early, I was given a free ride by the man who fixed the light bulb in my hostel room. Mongolia; the land where every car is a taxi, which is fortunate, especially in the wild where transport is hard to come by. My friend at the Ger had to get a lift with a woman when it turned out there was no bus ... read more

Ich starte meine Reise in Moskau, Abfahrt 13.50 ab Bahnhof Jaroslawl. Nochmals zittere ich kurz, ob das zu Hause ausgedruckte e-ticket wirklich alles ist, was ich brauche, um zu boarden, ohne mich an irgendeinem Schalter blicken zu lassen. Doch die sehr nette Schaffnerin scannt den Barcode kurz ein & heisst mich an Board willkommen. Der Zug faehrt puenktlich ab und haltet den minutengenauen Takt 3.5 Tage lang durch! Ich bin die gefuehlte einzige Nicht-Russin. Alles funktioniert reibungslos, von angeblicher Unfreundlichkeit keine Spur. Die erste Etappe geht nach Ulan Ude (non-stop 5600km). Ich habe mich fuer Zug #2 entschieden, den "Rossja", der auch als der teuerste der Zuege mit Nummern unter 10 gilt. Da die 1. Klasse weit im Voraus ausgebucht war (zumindest online ueber die Russischen Staatsbahnen, bei Kontingenten der Reisebueros weiss ichs nicht), habe ich ... read more