Russia

The world’s biggest country! We took the famous Transsiberian Railway to see all the places we always heard about.

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24.-26.04.2019 – Gorno-Altaisk

We arrived in the capital of the Republic of Altai (not to be mixed up with the Altai region which is situated directly to the North-East of the Republic). Горно-Алтайск is the capital, but only a small town that maybe used to have some appealing character until the Soviet buildings came into city planning. The biggest street, that almost crosses the whole village – Коммунистический проспект (Communist Avenue) – is named as in other Russian cities and we also find a park that is equipped with a Lenin statue.

To make use of the location of Горно-Алтайск we booked a driver to get around the Russian Altai mountains. As we are travelling in the off-season of the off-season, we are the only people sharing the ride enabling us to see most of the landscape. Our first stop leads towards a view point of the river Катунь that is the longest river in the Altai republic and directly goes to the bigger river Об.

At the viewpoint we found a specific rock which is called Гора Чёртов Палец (Devil Fingers) by the locals.

We continue our ride and notice soonish that we will see every kind of weather this day. After we witnessed the sunrise in the morning and got caught up by the rain it is snowing at the highest point of our tour.

The following sunshine is showing us the landscape in a whole other perspective and we enjoy spectacular views above the Altai landscape, valleys that have been formed by glaciers and mountains that are still strongly shaped by wind, weather and water.

The Altai Republic has been inhabitat be people for many centuries – though not many. Despite, many scientists are travelling to the area to study petroglyphes, such as those:

The Altai mountains are situated in a thermally active area. There are even inactive geyser. From above they offer interesting views…

After our return we decided to have some self-made Shashlik with our driver Артём.

23./24.2019 – Novosibirsk and Yarkovo

After a relativley short train ride (just 31 hours and 1.800 km) we arrive in the Siberian capital Новосибирск. We have a Couchsurfing host that we meet early in the morning. His name is Павел (nickname Паша) and he lives in an interesting building: From the outside it looks like a common, slightly run-down, soviet building but while climbing the stairs our hosts explains that it is a dormitory building which was built be German war prisoners in the time of Stalin. In this regard we are probably one of the first German people to stay voluntarily in this building – a disconcerting thought but it is nice that such cultural exchange is possible nowadays.

After breakfast (which was prepared in the shared kitchen) we do not visit the city centre of Новосибирск as it was planned but drive to the countryside to a small village called Ярково – the place where Паша’s mum lives. We get deep insights into the life in small villages, that we only observed from the moving train so far.

On the small farm we can relax a fair bit. The common stress, volume and dust of the city is gone and we can sit in the sun.

In the afternoon we prepared some delicious shashlik with Паша’s mum – sadly only on an electric grill but it tasted great nonetheless. In addition to that we got some seriously delicious treats, such as strawberry compote, birch juice and bacon. Those things are stored in a cellar that looks quite different from the cellars we knew so far.

In the evening we return to Новосибирск by bus.

In the evening we spend our time in a special pub: Schulz – a German bar with German beer. The interior and the music kind of resemble a Bavarian pub, but the only language is Russian. According to the position of the Dirndl’s ribbon all waitresses are already widowed…

In the next morning we leave Новосибирск for the Altai mountains. Паша organised two car-sharing seats for us and we arrive punctually at the meeting point. This is not true for all the other guests of the car and we had to wait for approx. 30 minutes to leave. After six hours of driving we arrive in the capital of the Altai Republic Горно-Алтайск …

21.04.2019 – Listwjanka

We start our trip well-rested and walk to the central market. The busses do not really have a fixed time table but leave as soon as they are full. After 15 minutes of waiting we leave for Листвяанка.

The village could not be any more different to Хушир on Ольхон. Despitethe low season many tourist, especially from Russia, spend the day here. One souvenir shops stands next to another and many huts have advertisments for touristic stuff. On the frozen lake drive many hovercrafts and quads. We decide to go for a little hike – which turned out to be an intense excursion because of missing signs along the way.

Back in Листвяанка we needed to try the culinary specialities from the lake. The Омул (Omul) is the most famous Рыба (fish) from Баикал and is sold on every street corner – smoked or dried.

Back in Иркутск we visit a church as it is the time of Easter celebrations in Germany. The Russian-Orthodox people celebrate Easter one week later than Protestant or Catholic people.

20.04.2019 – Olkhon Island

We start our return to Иркутск by bus and a ferry was supposed to transport us to the shore of Осеро Баикал. There is still a thick ice cover on the lake but we board the ferry anyways. After 20 minutes of going back and forth we leave the ferry again and switch to hovercrafts as it couldn’t make the trip through the ice.

The rest of the way passes – because of our tiredness – quite fast. In the evening we planned a day trip to the famous village Листвяанка, one hour away from Иркутск.

19.04.2019 – Olkhon Island

The wind blows even stronger than the day before – with 100 km/h! We planned to hike to a cliff close to Хушир but because of the wind it became a short walk to the harbour. Our daring to walk outside is obvious as nobody else is leaving their houses.

The harbour has an interesting appearance. Although it is intensly used in the summer months many rusty and broken ships can be found – in the water and on land. Some artistically talented people did their part in upgrading this appearance.

18.04.2019 – Olkhon Island

In the morning a local driver picks us up in a УАЦ Буханка and our tour to the North begins. The wind blows strongly und transports cold air from the lake to the island – but as real Geographers we are prepared for every weather!

Our Russian skills and the English skills of our driver are limited – and our fingers are too cold for using GoogleTranslate. With hand and feet we managed to get some insights to the nature of Ольхон. Some rocks have names, e.g. lion or crocodile rock.

We continue our trip and leave the flat coastal area and visit the steep cliffs in the North. We are granted an amazing panoramic view which we can only try to share with you:

Of course we performed a change of perspective with our little helper from the air:

A further highlight are the roads used by the Буханка. The drivers have to know exactly how much their bus can handle…

With many new impressions we return to Хужир in the evening. We still want to share some impressions with you:

17.04.2019 – Olkhon Island

In the morning we departed to Ольхон island. It is approximately a 5 to 6 hours drive from Иркутск. The ride is quite bumpy (at least that’s what we think) and leads us along different kind of landscapes to the West coast of Lake Baikal (Осеро Баикал). You can find a map of the Baikal region in the We are here menu.

As the ice of Lake Baikal usually melts in the end of April, we have to change our mode of transport from bus to hovercraft that brings us from the shore to the island. The bumpiness of the road further increases on Ольхон and after 40 km we arrive in the main village Хужир, which is located in the middle of the island on the West coast. There are no concret roads on the island.

It feels as if we are not in Russia anymore. There are no big blocs anymore and we feel like we changed countries and are now in the neighbour country Mongolia. We even saw some yurts in the village. Additionally, shamanism is popular in the Баикал area. On the shore there is a holy rock that is – as it is sacred- not allowed to be climbed on.

We found an interesting accommodation for the next couple of days: We are living with an old Бабушка who has some rooms for tourists (Quote: „Not Chinese tourists“) and she speaks German really good, although she has never been to Germany. She is a retired German teacher living on Ольхон formany years and enlightens us about tourists from China and Thailand on the island. In the deepest winter and the warmest summer it is really crowded, she says, everyday there are about 600 new Chinese tourists. She doesn’t know whether it is compatible with the island’s fragile eco-system. „Since a few years more and more tourists are coming each season!“ We are lucky though, as we came during the low season and the island is deserted. Whenever we see people they looked at us in a puzzled way and quickly return to their own business. For the next day we planned a trip to the North cap of the island.

16.04.2019 – Irkutsk

And again we crossed time zones by train – this time three time zones! After the warm weather in Екатеринбург we arrived in Иркутск and it was snowing. But that was okay as we travelled 3.500 km.

In Иркутск we were staying in a hostel and planned the next couple of days at Lake Baikal (Озеро Баикал). Soon, you can check out our travel plans in this region. But first we strolled around the city of Иркутск which turned out to be rather short because of the heavy snowfall and the freezing cold. Here are some impressions of this Siberian city that in fact has statues of Lenin and streets named after Karl Marx or Karl Liebknecht, however doesn’t seem like the Russian cities we have seen before…

13.04.2019 – Yekaterinburg

So we are staying half a day longer than planned in Yekaterinburg and spend our time strolling through the city, discovering artworks and later decided to drive to the geological border between Europe and Asia – such as real geographers do!

In the evening, we went to the train station to get on the train to Иркутск. Unfortunately, this train model is not as new as the last one – here the 2nd class is approximately as comfortable as the 3rd class in new trains. After playing backpack-tetris we stowed all our luggage in the compartment and the first of three nights in the train began…

12.04.2019 – Yekaterinburg

Екатеринбург is the fourth largest city in Russia. We met Арина and Алина who live in the city and offered to show us around. The first president of Russia (after the collapse of the Soviet Union) Boris Yelzin (Борис Елцин) was born there and is therefore omnipresent. The Yelzin Centre (Елцин Центр) is a new building by the river and contains a big exhibition about Russia’s history – from the Tsar to President Putin. The motto of the exhibition is Свобода – freedom – and depicts Yelzin as the first president who stood up against the communist regime of the Soviet Union.

Although, Yekaterinburg has over 1 Million inhabitants it is not comparable to Санкт-Петербург or Москва. The influence of the World Cup can also be recognized here, as many areas have been modernized. However, many parts are still far from „modern“. Historically, the city is very important as the last tsar family was murdered here. A spill blood church serves as a reminder of this event.

The view from the highest tower in the city (in which you can also find a German embassy) reveals that the city is located in an appealing area, as it is situated near big rivers, forests and in close distance the foothills of the Ural mountains (Урал) are visible.

After our two ‚guides‘ left we had to realize that the capacities of Russian trains is limited when we tried to book our tickets to Иркутск one night in advance. So we had to buy 2nd class tickets, but 120 € for 3.300 km in the train is still quite alright.

11.04.2019 – Moscow to Yekaterinburg

After 26.5 hours and two time zones in the train we arrived in Екатеринбург. By the way even after this journey of approximately 1.800 km right on time. Here are some impression of the budget version of the Transsiberian Railway:

10.04.2019 – Moscow

Drone flying is (more or less) allowed in Russia. So we changed our perspective on the area in which we stayed:

In the afternoon we headed to our train station (there are several in Москва) to take the train to Екатеринбург. The prejudice of drunk people in the train was prevailed and we made this experience with Алексей. Luckily, a nice Бабушка and Google Translate helped us master the situation. As the train ride was long and we engaged in a nice conversation with the lady, we learned about her family. After one night that we spend on comfortable beds we arrived at our destination.

09.04.2019 – Moscow

We started our last day in Москва early to get a good view over the city:

We went to the Останкино TV tower to enjoy the view. After three security controls (including passport control), two body scans and the deposit of our luggage the elevator took us 350 m above the ground and we got an impression of city’s dimensions – Москва is huge!

On this day we spend even more time getting around by metro. Some of the stations are artistic masterpieces so sometimes you don’t realize that you are in the public transportation system. There are even tours around the metro stations.

We also took the metro to get to Улица Арбате, a street that is characterised by many souvenir shops and the presence of local artists. Here we found proof for the Russian influence into American politics:

Another famous spot in the city is Gorky Park (Парк Горки). Since the era of Lenin this park is a popular spot for recreation for Moscow’s population. You can even find tourists whistling Wind of Change (that may have been us…).

In the evening we tried local specialities – in this case Водка (Vodka).

A Russian artist (Ложкин) interpreted it differently…

08.04.2019 – Moscow

After a relaxed start of the day we drove to the North of the city. There you can find monuments from the past, such as the monument for the Conquerors of Space. Not far from it there’s a huge area presenting the history of the Soviet Union, especially the achievements of every single Soviet Republic.

Moscow is quite diverse. We experienced Russia’s diversity in a culinary way at the Central Market. Passing Marx and the ballerinas we went to the Red Square – this time at night. There we heard the bell of the Кремль that is known by everybody in Russia.

We took the metro to the former Olympic Park and took the cable car across the Москва river and enjoyed a spectacular view. On the other side of the river we had an even more impressing view over the city! Close to lookout is the main building of Moscow State University. The department of Geography is located in the main tower all the way to the top – that’s how it should be! Therefore, it is the highest Geography institute in the world.

07.04.2019 – Moscow

In the evening we left Санкт-Петербург to make our way to the Russian capital – of course by train and of course over night. At 05.21 we made our way to our host Сергей, taking the metro. It was very convenient that the metro was still empty. However, this changes very fast during peak hours but in order to avoid the traffic jams (Пробка) in the city the full metro is still the best mode to get around.

On our first day in the 12 Million people metropolis we went to a monument for the first Russian cosmonaut – Йури Гагарин, the famous Red Square, the closely situated park (that was designed and planned by Geographers and that represents the different vegetation zones of Russia) and to a bar with a view of the former KGB building.

If somebody from Москва tells you that a way will be short, you can be sure that the destination is at least 30 minutes away and you’ll probably change the metro once or twice in the underground labyrinths of the capital’s transport system. That’s how we felt the first day when we walked 14 km (even though we started at midday). In the following days we even walked 17 and 15 km.

06.04.2019 – Saint Petersburg

Светит солнце – On another sunny day we make our way to the former World Cup stadium. At the metro station the new Gazprom tower in the North of the city catches our eyes. The glass tower is 462 m high and is the highest skyscraper of the European continent.

When turning 180° the Gazprom Arena appears. It was built for the World Cup 2018.

The area is still in use today, however it’s appearance has changed since the World Cup. When looking behind the walls construction waste can be seen which is why walls enclose those parts.

However, the World Cup also had advantages for the city of tsars: A new metro line was built that connects the island on which the stadium is build with the rest of the city. We took this new line to get to the center of the city and to enjoy the beautiful silouette of Санкт-Петербург.

05.04.2019 – Saint-Petersburg

After moving to our 2nd host we went to the center of Санкт-Петербург. A singularity for individuals travelling in Russia is the registration in the visited cities. But it’s not really clear how it works and what rules applies to when and how to do it. Our host and a friend of his helped us to get the registration and after an hour, first at the agency then at the post office, we were officially registered in Санкт-Петербург. Очень хорошо!

We were able to get to know less touristic places that our local host Улюм showed us. For example cafés in backyards were an old Лада is used as a table or an old mechanic workshop that is now a place to get burgers and beer.

To be online we got a Russian SIM-Card (brought from a street merchant). Even though we found that suspect our host assured us that that is how it is done.

04.04.2019 – Saint-Petersburg

Today we explored the center of Санкт-Петербург. The first impression is very positive. The public transport system is more modern than in Germany (especially navigation, offline data and payment). The city is very clean and of course a cultural hotspot.

On the way to the city with our host Алексей we passed many high plattenbau buildings. In the city there are many splendid buildings and our host could always tell us an interesting story about them. Without waiting time we were able to enter the famous Hermitage (Ермитаж), probably the most extensive collection of artwork in Russia! It contains uncountable rooms with paintings and other exhibits from all over the world, among others Leonardo Da Vinci’s Madonna Litta.

After a quick lunch that we managed to order with our little knowledge of the Russian language we went to the spill blood church (Собор Воскресения Христова) and uncountable Матрёшка-stands later (the dolls that you can nest not only exist with the traditional Russian paintings of a woman but also with Lenin, Stalin, Putin and Trump) and the Kasan church (Касанский Собор).

Tomorrow we will change our host and continue visiting the city. On Saturday we will depart to Москва…

03.04.2019 – Saint-Petersburg

Everything went alright in Munich and after a calm flight we arrived in Санкт-Петербург.