This was a big trip and one I spent with Sergei and Alexi, some kind of mountain range army troops. As is usual with Russian train hospitality, I was offered Omul, a dried version of the fish which is only present in Lake Baikal, along with some ‘special vodka’ which came out of a brown, […]

I left Tomsk after exploring the city for a few hours. Getting from the hostel to the train station was significantly less painful than in the other direction and I boarded the train with plenty of time to spare. Already waiting was Yuri, a trainee cardiologist, who was on his way back from Moscow, having […]

Tomsk wasn’t as exciting as I thought it was going to be. The journey there was spent with a lawyer from Abakan, who I was pretty sure was getting bored with answering my questions towards the end of the journey. Tomsk itself was -6C, a 7C difference with Perm, with was 1C. Therefore, after trudging […]

I like Perm. I knew I was going to like Perm before I even got there. The train there was fun. Having travelled from Tomsk to Irkutsk, I now know that the earlier train (from Moscow to Perm) was preparing me for real Trans-Siberian travel. I managed to get the train from Moscow, without any […]