Way to Russia Talk Lounge

ME · Frequent Guest Joined: 22 Jun 2005 Posts: 14

Hi
I would like to plan a trip on the Trans Sib... But dont want to see all the big cities.
Yes I have heard of some stunning old cities, but I'm more interested in the out of the way villages where you can realy connect with the people and the culture.

Do you know of any such places... and maybe some contacts there?

Me

vadim · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:51 pm Post subject:

Hi
maybe i could give you an advice, but I haven't quite got what you are interested in.
Let's split all the things along Trans- Siberian as follows:
1. Big cities - industrial and commercial centers with population from 500 thousand to 1500 thousand citizens
2. Small cities - from 10 to 500 thousand
3. Villages and little towns - all the rest
4. Natural attractions and recreation areas.
Now let's get down to details:
Big cities may have long history and sometimes are well preserved (e.g. Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk), sometimes they are quite young and entirely industrial (Novokuznetsk - a bit off the main railway)
Small cities may be really nice and historical (a visit to Tomsk is highly recommended in this sense), may be quite small and have just some traces of there past that was more glorious than the present (near Novosibirsk there is Kolyvan' city, which is a sort of tourist attraction for its past as an important trade center), these cities may be situated in nice natural places, but most of them don't have these two features and are merely boring.
The same about villages - do you really want to get to a real russian village? That's not easy - getting there, staying there. And if there are no attractions of the sort described above, you won't be happy. But I have some suggestions for you - write me a personal message if you are interested.

init6 · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 10:09 pm Post subject:

If you're going far off the beaten track, you'll also probably need to be functional in Russian language, if not fluent.

wavetossed · WayToRussified Joined: 27 Jun 2004 Posts: 337

Last year I spent time in Mezhevoy and Satka near Suleya on the Ufa-Chelyabinsk track. Nobody else spoke more than a couple of sentences of high-school English.

You absolutely do need to be able to function in the Russian language.

Hotels are no problem. In small towns there is always somebody who rents out apartments. If you are stuck, ask where the SberBank is. This bank is the one that does the banking for the government so there is a branch everywhere except villages with no bank at all. Anyway, go to the SberBank to change a few 20 dollar bills into rubles. (Did I mention not to carry any bills larger than 20 dollars? And to carry all the cash you need before you get to the next big city?) Anyway, while you are converting the money, ask the clerk if they know someone who has an apartment to rent. People who work in SberBank are thoroughly connected in Russian society and the ones who handle foreign exchange know all the upper middle class people who can afford to buy dollars and euros to save money and avoid banking risk. These women will know where you can rent an apartment. Second possibility, is to look for a cafe. There won't be many, maybe one cafe for every 5000 population, but the cafe owner will know who has apartments to rent. You can also find this info in the weekly newspapers, but then you don't know who you are dealing with. Better to make a personal connection (Sberbank or Cafe) and get a personal referral.

http://www.s-travel.ru has a bit of info about the area I mentioned above, but it is directed to Russian clientele so it focuses on the higher priced resorts at lake Zyuratkul and Porogi where the first hydroelectric station in Russia is now a museum.

gonzock · Lounge Lizard Joined: 17 Feb 2005 Posts: 101

If you want to connect with people so that you know better the culture I wouldn´t try to go off the truck. There´s some small cities on the transib that are for me a must if you want to see how different people are from one place to another within Rusia. In my experience I would recommend Ulan Ude, Irkutsk and then the big cities St Petersburg and Moscow. They are all very different. Don´t go to Chita (I still wonder why I stopped there).