Oh boy. Saint Petersburg is a little different, a very noticeable diversion from the Russian city norm. Whereas the rest of them, in comparison, are full of dull, grey unimaginative structures (run-of-the-mill Soviet architecture), Saint Petersburg is a fairy tale...
I’m on a tare. I arrived in Moscow only 8 days (7 nights) after crossing the Russian/Mongolian border some 5,500 kilometres to the east of here. Of the 7 nights that have passed since entering Russia I have spent all but 3 of them sleeping on trains. That fact...
I disembarked the eastbound train from Irkutsk in Tyumen, about a 2-day, 1,800-kilometre train ride shy of Moscow. I got off there as Tyumen, the administrative capital of the Tyumen Oblast (province), is the nearest rail stop to Tobolsk, a 4 hour bus ride north. Why?...
The initial shock upon boarding a Russian 3rd class (Platskartny) carriage in Irkutsk a few days ago died off quickly enough. However, the stuffiness, lack of privacy & general discomfort compared to the higher, 2nd (Kupé) class of Russian train travel was...
OK so, let’s get a few facts about UNESCO listed Lake Baikal, a 40-50 minute bus ride from Irkutsk, out of the way. For starters it straddles a continental rift (a crack in the earth’s skin) making it, at almost 1,700 metres, the deepest lake in the world....
OK. Russia. For real. It felt weird to be here having just stepped of a train from Mongolia, somewhere obviously Asian. That’s a weird statement I know but Russia feels anything but Asian even if it is only a 20-hour train ride away, a short distance in the...
My love affair with the train continues. I’ve left Mongolia and are now en route to Irkutsk in Siberian Russia, my first stop on this my first visit to Russia, the world’s largest country. Russia: mysterious dark continent, remote, inaccessible to...
Mongolia. That name has always stirred up visions of the untamed – Genghis Khan, camels wandering the Gobi Desert and wild horses galloping across the steppes. It’s a huge, landlocked country (17th largest in the world) about three times the size of...
The 36-hour train journey I’ve just completed from Hohhot in Inner Mongolia, China, to Ulan Bator in Mongolia proper was a bit special. It turned out to be my first time spending 2 consecutive nights on a train and it took me through a part of the world I had...
Hohhot is the capital of the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia and it was once, along with vast stretches of Siberia to the north, part of Mongolia proper, my next stop. I remember reading that it’s a good place to come if you want to experience the Mongolian...
