If you are anything like us, then forget everything you know, or have heard about Siberia. The images that previously sprang to our minds when we thought of Siberia, were temperatures of -40 degrees C and colder, snow covered pine trees, frozen lakes and rivers, and stern Russians.
There is basically none of this during the summer months. The people do however appear stern, even when they are being kind, helpful and friendly. Sometimes, they venture a smile. The border officials, although formal and to the point (as are basically all border officials), were kind and helped us with the forms, some which were only in Russian. The exception however, was the immigration official, who took her job extremely seriously. Nobody sinister was going to slip past her. She studied our passport photo intently, and then slowly looked from photo to our face about a dozen or more times. She did manage the faintest of smiles when I could no longer help myself but smile after she had looked up from the passport to my face for the umpteenth time. In Barbara’s case, her sixth sense must have worried her, because she came out to the car where the customs officials were busy with their checks, and asked to re-examine the passport. She again went through the routine of studying the passport and then studying the face another dozen times before sternly saying “welcome to Russia”.
We knew, from our pre-trip planning, that it was going to be warm. We did not however expect the 36 degrees to 42 degrees C. The vegetation also changed quickly from grass lands and small pine trees in Mongolia to large pine trees and birch trees soon after entering Siberia.
The Trans Siberian railway is a feature of Siberia that most people may have heard or read about. The main railway line connects Moscow in the west, to Vladivostok, on the Pacific coast, a distance of more than 9,000km constructed in the early 1900s. It has several major branch lines, which provides connections to neighbouring countries. The railway line handles an amazing amount of freight and a little bit of passenger traffic. We spent about an hour parked up next to the railway line on the shores of Lake Baikal watching a sunset, and got an impression of the railway traffic. There was a freight train every about 15 minutes, each comprising a staggering 60 t0 80 waggons.
The big cities along our way have many modern buildings, and the cities have a fresh look about them. Spring/ summer is time for spring cleaning and maintenance. Crews were at work everywhere. The streets are clean and we saw many street cleaning machines about. The cities also have many fountains and a lot of people were making the most of the short summer enjoying the sun and sitting near/ beside the fountains. Some fountains are of a type that children can play in the water and these attracted crowds of kids having fun. We also enjoyed the high level of order and discipline. Traffic was orderly and everything worked like clockwork.
We travelled about 3,000km in Siberia from the Mongolia border at Altanbulag to the Kazakhstan border at Semey travelling via Ulan Ude, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk. The scenery basically is mile upon mile of pine trees and birch trees, with a few hundred kilometres of large cultivated grain fields thrown in here and there particularly between Krasnoyarsk and the Kazakhstan border. There are numerous truck stops along the way. These were great to have a cheap hearty meal and most had cheap clean rooms for the night. No English is spoken or understood in the rural areas and all communication is by pictures and hand signals, wich can sometimes lead to problems. On one occasion we pointed to the meat component of a meal shown on one picture and the french fries, which was shown as part of a different meal on another picture, and ended up with two plates of food, plus the plate of food Barbara ordered.
Tourist wise, there is not that much to see and so we would not encourage you to drop everything and rush over to Siberia. We met a couple of other overlanders that have the same view. One Russian we spoke with at a restaurant said to us “why would one drive or go by train, if you can fly”. He makes a good point. We are however happy to have travelled in Siberia and would happily do it all over again. We enjoyed seeing how people live, architecture (particularly the amazing onion domed cathedrals, ginger bread wooden houses, and Russian style apartment buildings), food, and we met a few interesting people along the way.
Lake Baikal is the main tourist attraction, and is becoming ever more popular. Having said that, most activities are low key and villages and facilities on the lake shore are very basic. Lake Baikal, as a lot of people know, holds some 20% of the world’s freshwater and that is amazing. This lake also has a very cute looking freshwater seal. The lake is an incredible 1,600m deep and freezes over in winter to a depth of nearly 2m. In about 1900, a railway track was constructed on the ice. Apparently, several vehicles have ended up in the drink due to people being at the wrong place at the wrong time where the ice was too thin. Scenery around the lake is beautiful. Also, many people smoke fish or dry fish, which they catch in the lake. We tried both, and the smoked fish tasted good, and we have since bought several more smoked fish for our lunch. If you have our likes, then give the dried fish a big miss.
Irkutsk did not have much to offer us, however this is the city where we met several expat westerners with whom we could share experiences. A couple of which were a Belgium restaurant owner and his mate, who have businesses in Irkutsk. We have come across westerners in several countries that have for various reasons, moved to far off places with totally different cultures, and set up businesses……how do they do it? The Belgium was telling us that he found the winter (-40 degree C) better than in Europe, mainly because most days are clear blue skies, which lift the spirits. It would have been nice to have experienced winter in Siberia. Actually, we did consider flying up to the Arctic Circle to experience polar snow and ice. We were somewhat taken aback when we were told that at this time of the year, there is not much snow and ice to see way up north.
Krasnoyarsk is a large city of nearly one million people. We spent a couple of days in this city to rest up. One great feature of this city is that it has ski slopes about 15 minutes drive from the city centre. During summer time, the ski lifts are just as busy. We took a ride to the upper station, from where there are lovely views of the city and the great river Yenisei, which flows all the way north to the Arctic sea.
Novosibirsk is the largest city in Siberia and has a population of about 1.5million. There are many modern shops (hidden in the old buildings) and people seem to be fashionably dressed. Local people were especially kind to us in this city, which is probably simply part of their nature. On more than one occasion, people would walk down the street with us to take us to our destination. In one case, we walked into a random office to ask directions. We were hopelessly lost. The boss and his receptionist, locked up the office, and drove about 7km to show us the way to our destination. They only spoke half a dozen words of English. We think they were taken by the idea that we had driven from New Zealand (Singapore). A client that was in the office at the time, seemed overjoyed to have a photo taken with us before we left.
From Novosibirsk, we headed south to the Kazakhstan border, keen for a change of scenery.
