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 around in the snow for several hours and eventually finding the hostel, I spent the rest of the day finding somewhere to eat and buying a hat. Day 2 (really day 0.75) was spent walking around Tomsk in the few hours I had there until I had to get on another train to Irkutsk. As the Russian trains from Perm to Tomsk run on odd days and the trains from Tomsk to Irkutsk run on even days, either I had just over a day to explore Tomsk, or I had 3 days. I made the right choice.

Tomsk itself was un-inspiring, being mainly flat, cold and utilitarian in places, but I did get to see the river Tom and was also shown around the botainical gardens on a day that they were supposedly closed. Other activities included eating Siberian pancakes (one of) and watching someone else feed a red squirrel in the university grounds. These are all things you should do, according to the free Tomsk tourist map, by the way.

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 of the problems of before. As an update to my previous post, the 3 over-land train stations do not have the same name, they just look very similar to someone who is in a hurry and hasn’t seen them before.

In Moscow, some army recruits were boarding the train and I remember hoping that I wasn’t going to be in the same compartment as them. Once I’d found my compartment, it turned out that I was sharing with them and none of them spoke English. Within a few minutes of the train leaving the station however, I had a copy of Russian/Ukrainian Maxim shoved in front of me and was being told to look at “Russian womens”. The owner of the magazine happened to be the most conversational and the one with the best English and we spent the remainder of the journey talking about family, home life, tastes in music, etc. The paratroopers left at Nizhny Novgorod and at that point, another bloke boarded. With the train leaving at 16:20, I was talking to various people until 02:00. Passenger number 2 departed at Vyatka, leaving me with the compartment to myself until Perm.

Day 1 in Perm was spent organising myself and going to the PERMM art gallery. I had specifically held-off going to any more galleries in Moscow, just so that I could go to this one. Day 2 was spent going to Perm-36, a GULAG museum in the countryside surrounding Perm. I think this was my first real adventure.

I spoke to the bloke in the tourist information office in Perm, who gave me all of the details that I needed in order to reach the museum. Many people had done it before, so it shouldn’t have been a problem. Once I’d got my ticket in the bus station, I managed to find the right stop and get on the bus to Kuchino, the village where the camp is located. After handing the driver a piece of paper that asked him to let me know when to get off, we stopped along a large stretch of motorway, the door opened and the bus driver pointed to a country lane. I got off and walked the 3 Km to the museum, which, unlike the advice of the tourist information office, was not signposted at all. When I found the camp, after walking through the village and by-passing several barking dogs on the way, I found that the woman on the reception desk was willing to show me round, but only spoke Russian and French. As my French is better than my Russian, I opted to have the tour in French. What followed was a very interesting video (in English!) and the tour guide/receptionist giving me as good a tour as she could have done, based on my understanding of French (limited) and the fact that all of the displays were in Russian. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour and was left to my own devices when the woman had to leave, so once I’d finished, I headed back to the main office where I was given a cup of tea and a biscuit (as it was so cold outside). About half-way along the journey back to the main road, a coach stopped beside me and the French/Russian woman gestured for me to get on. I got driven practically the entire way back to the motorway and the coach driver found a bus stop on the other side of the road that the French/Russian woman practically walked me to. All-in-all, it was a very rewarding experience.

Links to the two galleries/museums are as follows:

• PERMM [http://www.permm.ru/]
• Perm-36 [http://www.perm36.ru/en.html].

My room mate and I have just come up with a basic, beginner’s guide to Russian, all spelt phonetically. This is it:

Goodbye [informal] / “pakah”
Do you speak English? / “vwe gavoriteh poh angliiski?”
No / “niet”
Yes / “da”
Hello [informal] / “priviet”
Thank you / “spasieba”
Please / “por ja loosta”.

Lesson number 2:

Table for 1 / “stolik na adnovor”
Beer / “pivor”
One / “adin”
Glass / “stakan”
One beer please / “stakan pivah por ja loosta”.

Good luck! (“ooh da chi!”)

I’ve been putting off writing this post for a little while, as I didn’t really enjoy Moscow. The hostel might have had something to do with it, which wasn’t particularly friendly, with people not making eye-contact with you, generally barging past and leaving the TV on constantly. St. Petersburg, however, was the complete opposite!

After catching the Sapsan train to St. Petersburg, I was happy to find that all of the metro stations had English (i.e.: Roman alphabet) translations of the names. Finding the hostel was the usual case of walking around for a bit until I found where I was on the map, but after realising that the road names also had English translations (to co-inside with my Google map), it was a piece of cake. The hostel itself was on the 6th-floor of an old St. Petersburg apartment building and when I got to the top I found that not only was I the only one staying in my room (one of the benefits off travelling outside of the tourist season), but the hostel was centered around a main kitchen and living area. One of the only downsides was that, apart from the hostel administrator, I was the only one who spoke English, but that changed later!

My time in St. Petersburg was spent recovering (from the missed train in Warsaw) and just trying to fit everything in into the short amount of time I had there. Day one was spent getting my Tans-Siberian train tickets printed and visiting Erarta, a contemporary art gallery on one of the islands. Day two was spent visiting the Museum of the Defence and Siege of Leningrad, which was excellent. If there’s only one museum you can visit in St. Peterburg, it should be this. For some reason, I got kicked-out an hour earlier than advertised; something, as far as I could tell, was something to do with it getting cold. That wasn’t a problem, however, as it meant I had more time to try and track down the Museum of Political History, which was number 2 on the list. What I actually wanted to see was the Museum Of The Political Police, but it was only once I’d been round the entire museum and it was closing time, that I realised that it was in a different building in a different part of the city. This museum, on this occasion, would have to wait until next time.

When I got back to the hostel, the hostel administrator kindly offered to take me on to the roof. The missed museum was somewhat counterbalanced by seeing the sun set over St. Petersburg from one of the city’s rooftops. The only slightly scary thing was that behind me, for the entire time, was a roughly 8-storey sheer drop to the bottom, but the best thing was to hold tight and try not to think about it!

After spending a few days in St. Petersburg, I got the return Sapsan train back to Moscow and set up in the hostel described earlier. I noticed early on that it had a significantly different vibe to the other hostels I was staying in, but after looking around for some time, I had decided that it was the best place to stay. As I had such a short time in Moscow, the best thing to do was to use it as a base and spend as much time as possible out-and-about, doing things. I think I managed this, with a trip to the Red Square, a trip to the Cosmonautics Museum and a trip to Vorobyovy Gory Nature Preserve. I put Saturday morning aside for visiting Lenin’s Mausoleum, but unexpectedly, the mausoleum was closed and as may-be customary for this time of year, it is only open over the summer. Museums and attractions being closed is something I am beginning to get used to.

After spending a few days in St. Petersburg and Moscow, I left feeling destinctively under-whelmed. St. Peterburg was definitely the better of the two, but each had its problems and as the hostel receptionist in Perm said, neither is a very good example of a Russian city. Perm, on the other hand, is something else entirely!

A list of the attractions named above is as follows:

• Erarta [http://www.erarta.com/eng/about/]
• Museum of the Defence and Siege of Leningrad
• Museum of Political History [http://en.polithistory.ru/]
• Museum Of The Political Police [http://www.russianmuseums.info/M195]
• Cosmonautics Museum [http://www.space-museum.ru/]
• Vorobyovy Gory Nature Preserve [http://www.vorobyovy-gory.ru/].