Although there are faster weekend expresses, the daily Ulaan Baatar-bound train from Irkutsk is excruciatingly slow, taking a mind-numbing 11 hours to clear the borders. It’s just one or two kupe carriages appended to train 364, which has no restaurant car and doesn’t make food stops between Naushki (on the border) and Ulan-Ude (six to eight hours). Southbound you can save money by travelling platskart to Naushki, buying the Naushki-Sükhbaatar ticket separately then purchasing a Sükhbaatar to Ulaan Baatar ticket on arrival in Mongolia (paid in Mongo- lian tögrög).
Category: Siberia
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Tomsk Siberia travel destination
Just 260km from Novosibirsk, but light years ahead in terms of history, ambience and tourist appeal, Tomsk is one of the most enjoyable cities in Siberia. It combines endless examples of fine wooden mansions, some grand century-old commercial buildings and a dynamic, modern outlook. Tomsk’s relatively intact architecture was in part preserved by a ghastly commercial miscalculation. The city fathers refused to have the Trans-Siberian Railway pass through, fearing noise, dirt and disruption. Instead they found economic isolation, and the once important trading centre dwindled. However, it survived as a university city and now has half a dozen major academic establishments – hence the youthful, intellectual atmosphere during term time. In summer the city is relatively quiet.
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Tobolsk Siberia travel destination
Tobolsk was once Siberia’s capital and remains its most memorable city. Highlights are its handsome kremlin and a charmingly decrepit old town. Tobolsk is off the trans-Siberian mainline but direct overnight trains to both Yekaterinburg and Omsk make stopping here a perfectly viable option when crossing Russia.
The Kemerovo region is often considered synonymous with the mines of the Kuzbass district. However, south of the industrial mayhem, the Gornaya Shoriya Mountains are locally considered a ‘little Switzerland’. While this may be overstating things, there’s a popular skiing area at Sheregesh (www.sheregesh.ru), 25km from the railhead at Tashtagol. A very adventurous trek takes mountaineers over a tough trail to Turochak in Altai.
Scenically magnificent, Buryatiya crouches on the Mongolian border like a cartographic crab squeezing Lake Baikal with its right pincer. Much of the Baikal region covered above also falls within the republic, including Severobaikalsk and the Tunka Valley. Though its English version is limited, Buryatiya now has a tourism website at www.baikaltravel.ru.
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South Baikal Siberia travel destination
From trans-Siberian train windows there are attractive lake-glimpses along much of Baikal’s south coast. Lacking any architectural charm, neither Slyudyanka nor smelly Baikalsk tempt many Westerners off the train, yet these drab, functional places have superb mountain-backed lakeside settings and accommodation that’s cheaper than Irkutsk’s. Slyudyanka is also the best place to start Circumbaikal train rides or excursions to the lovely Tunka Valley.
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Siberia travel destination
From the Ural Mountains to the great Lena River, the sheer size of Siberia is hard to comprehend. Fearfully cold in winter, swelteringly hot in summer and with a history of banishment and cruelty – for Westerners Siberia’s image doesn’t readily suggest a tourist destination. But Russians disagree. Southern Siberia’s beautiful peak-tickled underbelly offers world-class rafting, hiking and mountaineering. Amid endless forests are ramshackle wooden-cottage villages, and certain Siberian cities hide evocative historic cores behind their harsh Soviet exteriors. Of these, Tomsk and Tobolsk are the most memorable. Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude also have a certain charm and offer launching points to visit Siberia’s greatest attraction, Lake Baikal. Visiting all four cities, plus Omsk and Krasnoyarsk, makes sense by breaking a continental crossing into painless overnight hops using the Trans-Siberian Railway. Away from the railway tracks in Tuva, Altai, Buryatiya and Khakassia, local Buddhist and shamanistic beliefs remain closer to those of Mongolia or Tibet. Here local cultures retain their own sports, passions and languages while their fascinating ancient histories are faintly visible in mysterious kurgany (burial mounds), standing stones, petroglyphs and kameny baba (moustachioed stone idols).
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Severobaikalsk Siberia travel destination
With friendly, English-speaking help at hand, Severobaikalsk makes a convenient base from which to explore the beautiful yet little-visited North Baikal area. It’s a refreshingly uncommercial sort of place and although the centre is a depressingly typical regiment of prefabricated 1970s apartment blocks, just a short walk across the train tracks are some peaceful Baikal viewpoints.
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Port Baikal Siberia travel destination
Seen from Listvyanka across the unbridged mouth of the Angara River, Port Baikal looks like a rusty semi-industrial eyesore. But the view is misleading. A kilometre southwest of Stanitsa (the port area), Baranchiki is a ramshackle ‘real’ village with lots of unkempt but authentic Siberian cottages and a handy selection of accommodation options. The village rises steeply, making excellent Baikal viewpoints easily accessible. Awkward ferry connections mean that Port Baikal remains largely uncommercialised, lacking Listvyanka’s ‘attractions’ but also its crowds. Thus it’s popular with meditative painters and walkers, but its main draw is the Circumbaikal train ride from Slyudyanka.
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Omsk Siberia travel destination
Spending a day in Omsk, 568km southeast of Tyumen, is the best way of breaking a Tobolsk-Tomsk or Tyumen-Novosibirsk train ride into two overnighters. Vast and sprawling, Omsk’s industrial suburbs look off-putting but the gently attractive central core has some fine century-old architecture and is dotted with parks, museums, great restaurants and quirky public sculptures.