Veronika Wild

St. Sophia's Cathedral in Tobolsk -the perfect Russian Village If Tomsk was a charming modern Russian city, then World Heritage listed Tobolsk, with its white washed Kremlin and star spangled onion domes, looked like the Russia I had imagined from picture books and fairytales.    Set high on a hill, with industry and concrete apartment blocks relegated to an adjoining new town, there were beautifully laid out squares with fountains, flowers and trees. Everything looked freshly scrubbed and as if nothing had changed in hundreds of years. Tobolsk's Kremlin After a successful defence led by a band of Cossacks, a fortress was built in Tobolsk in 1587 to keep the unruly Tartars in check. However grateful the Tsar might have been, he soon needed someone to keep the unruly Cossacks in check. According to Lonely Planet, ( Russia and Belarus , 2006: 502) the first major religious centre in Siberia was established here in 1620 “…to stamp out incest, wife-renting and spouse stealin...

Cooling off during a stop at a station There are many Trans Siberian trains - fast ones, slow ones, old ones, new ones and even different routes. Some are so long that the carriages extend well beyond the platform and it can be a long walk before you reach the station. Forget about wheeled suitcases – there are too many stairs, the great leap forward into the trains is steep and the platforms are often very rough. Pity help the slow or disabled. The lines are always busy. Timber goes west. Mining equipment and machinery, including tanks, goes east and south. It’s not uncommon to see a gas or petrol train pulling sixty – nine wagons. Another Day, another train The scenery stays much the same for thousands of miles – mostly taiga (pine forest), or mixed forest with birch - interspersed with huge rolling fields, rustic villages with wooden houses and an onion domed church – very impressive when you first see them, or big cities with ugly industrial sites and concrete flats. ...

    The Kremlin in Tomsk - Read Town Hall - Everything is freshly painted and there are beautiful gardens and trees - -Photo by Albert Valeev    In Tomsk I was met by Albert, another member of the Hospitality Club. Although he was renovating his apartment and expecting a large new window the next day, he took time to show me around this lovely town. The Station   -Photo by Albert Valeev The University has been going since 1875 Tomsk has long been a university town and has had the benefit of good planning. The beautifully landscaped city centre has restricted building heights to showcase historical buildings. Industry and apartment blocks are confined to the suburbs, while traditional timber houses in the inner city add a rustic charm and green heart. Like most Russian cities, Tomsk has a statue of Lenin. Here he looks as if he's directing the traffic  -Photo by Albert Valeev   As we strolled through the old town, Albert explained that before the...

Long before there were trains, the main access to the interior was by water and the great rivers of Russia . While Volga cruises remain the most popular, the Yenisey in Siberia ranks as one of the world’s longest rivers. The lure here had long been fur, timber and gold but in more recent times, it was also the site of a Gulag and an important defence post. Foreigners may still not go beyond Igarka. One of the young soldiers lived at Igarka and I half - promised I would try to get there thinking it would be wonderful to do this trip by boat and see something other than the inside of trains. After gazing wistfully at four day cruises that cost over $180 for the cheap cabins and double that for the better ones, I decided to visit Yenisysk, 350K upriver by Mashrutka, the mini vans that service the countryside which is not easily accessible by train. A lovely lady on board, Varya, a school teacher, hugged me and called me a hero for travelling alone. She also taught me how to ea...