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Month: September 2015

The grey heart of Siberia: Novosibirsk

The grey heart of Siberia: Novosibirsk

  We had been warned before we got of the train. The Russian lady, a lawyer from Tomsk who was going back home from a court case in Tyumen, and accompanied us on the last half of the only 22 hours long ride from Yekaterinburg to Novosibirsk had told us so when we mentioned what our next stopp would be. “Novosibirsk is ugly” she said, and “it”s a typical old soviet city, no nice architecture, just big blocks of grey, ugly buildings”. She…

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European-Asian Bordertown Yekaterinburg

European-Asian Bordertown Yekaterinburg

  We came with no expectations to Yekaterinburg, well, except for a bloody history (murder of the last Tsar, mafia gang fights in the 90ties) and the rise of Boris Yeltsin we didn’t know anything about the city. We have to say, we were pleasantly surprised by it’s charm. Starting with the hotel, which was certainly the best we’ve stayed in for a long while. A four-star establishment, all brand new and plushy, plus they offered a great breakfast accompanied by French…

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27 Hours On The Train: MOC-EK

27 Hours On The Train: MOC-EK

  Not really much to say here. The trainsky, that took us from Moscow to Yekaterinburg was ok, the sleeper wagon 2nd class certainly beats sitting in a tight chair for hours. We had two other guys from Russia in our compartment, who didn’t speak a lot of English, and since our Russian is a bit rusty, communication was limited. But they where ok, one even helped me with my mobil phone, that didn’t connect to the internet as it was…

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