Things to do in Eastern Trans Siberian
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Vladivostok Fortress Museum
Attention fort fans: Vladivostok teems with sprawling, rather unique subterranean forts (130 in all) built between the 1880s and early 20th century to ward off potential Japanese (or American) attacks. Neophytes are best sticking with the easily accessible Vladivostok Fortress Museum, overlooking Sportivnaya Harbour. This hilltop museum is built in a fort that operated from 1882 to 1923, and is now home to many cannons and a five-room indoor exhibit of models, photos and artefacts – all refreshingly subtitled in English. You can climb onto (and aim) anti-aircraft guns pointing towards Hokkaido. You reach the fort from ul Zapadnaya.
reviewed
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Antique Automobile Museum
If you’re a bit of a car (or Soviet) nerd, the newish Antique Automobile Museum – stranded under the smoke of a nearby factory in east Vladivostok – is an absolute classic. A room full of Sovietmobiles (motorcycles, too) from the 1930s to 1970s, includes a 1948 M&M-green GAZ-20 ‘Pobeda’ (Victory). If they start selling reproductions of the poster with an acrobat on a motorcycle holding a Stalin flag, send us one, please! Take bus 31 along ul Svetlanskaya and exit after it reaches ul Borisenko’s end.
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Mauro Gianvanni
This slick little brick-oven pizzeria – run by an Italian – pumps VH1 videos in the modern interior, though most sit out on the deck when weather behaves. The dozen-plus pizzas are crispy and tasty (R240 to R310), probably the best pie east of the Urals. There’s also a selection of pastas and ‘Italian burgers’.
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Five O’Clock
Vladivostok, take note of this novel idea – coffee, brownies, cakes and quiche (R50), all made daily and sold for less than an espresso at most ‘cafes’. Lots of midday snackers come in, perhaps to see the Queen plate behind the register.
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Arsenev Regional Museum
Grey-haired ladies keep watch over every Russian museum in existence, but none do it more sweetly than at the interesting Arsenev Regional Museum, which dates from 1890. You’re likely to befriend at least a couple of ‘guards’ while walking through the three floors of exhibits recounting Vladivostok history. Exhibits are in Russian only, but it’s still enjoyable for non-Russian speakers. On the 1st floor note the stuffed tiger and bear interlocked as if dancing; the 2nd floor is filled with great 19th-century photos of Vlad’s early days, including a display of the Brynner family; also note the turn-of-the-last-century telephone booth and a collection of samovars anchored b…
reviewed
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Primorsky Art Gallery
Vladivostok’s bipolar art museum, the Primorsky Art Gallery, has a small collection at its original locale (ul Aleutskaya 12), but the main collection has moved indefinitely to two separate halls east of Park Provotsky (with separate admissions). The one to the west features 19th- and early 20th-century oil masters (including Feshin’s sassy Golden Hairs from 1914), packed onto limited wall space. The east gallery features changing exhibits of local painters (when we dropped by they featured fascinating graphic artwork from ’60s Soviet-ho! books).
reviewed
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Regional History Museum
The Regional History Museum offers a series of well laid-out halls in an evocative 1894 red-brick building. Highlights are many, particularly a far-better-than-average look into native cultures, a few English captions in the stuffed-animal section, and a full-on panorama of the snowy 1922 civil war battle at Volochaevka. No Gulag coverage, though the nearby prison population was bigger than the city’s in the ’30s. At research time, the museum was busy adding on a second wing as the Amur RiverMuseum, which may require an additional ticket.
reviewed
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Syndicate
Taking over Vladivostok in an Al Capone frenzy, this ultra-1930s themed restaurant – ‘Chicago, New York, whatever’, per one waitress – has seats next to faux storefronts and a stage that lights up with live music at the weekend. Big spenders stick with the steaks – an Aussie rib-eye runs to R1750, but there are R300 burgers and R360 pastas. It’s a couple of kilometres north of the centre, near ul Komsomolskaya, and is reachable via any ‘Vtornaya Rechna’ bus.
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Fort No 7
Sixteen protective forts encircle Vladivostok. The best (but pricey) is the hill-top Fort No 7, 14km north of the centre. It has 1.5km of tunnels, pretty much untouched since the last 400 soldiers stationed here left. (The sole inhabitants now include two pet cats to keep rats out.) Views are good too. Visiting on your own is very difficult, as the fort doesn't keep regular hours and it's hard to find. Organise a trip through an agency instead.
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S-56 Submarine
Keeping with the aquatic theme, the S-56 submarine is worth a look. The first half is a ho-hum exhibit of badges and photos of men with badges (all in Russian). Keep going: towards the back you can climb through porthole doors to peek at various rooms, including a lounge of sorts and a bunk room with Christmas-coloured torpedos. Outside note the ‘14’, marking the WWII sub’s ‘kills’.
reviewed
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Museum of the Battle Fame
At the Museum of the Battle Fame, in a fine old pillared building, a guy in a navy outfit will probably help you put shoe covers on for the carpeted floors of the three-floor exhibit. The museum is geared chiefly to border patrol history (despite its more marketable war-oriented name), with imaginative 'boat' and 'plane' doors to such-themed rooms. Up top you can spy on hipsters outside through high-definition binoculars.
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Republic
Inside the glass pyramid across from the train station, this perfectly respectable stolovaya (cafeteria) draws more than a couple of cheap dates with its tasty Russian dishes and own beer (R90). A loungelike, newer branch at ul Svetlanskaya 83, near the funicular, has the same prices and opening hours but is dressed up with prints of old Russian newspapers.
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Gutov
This beer hall with chunky wood tables serves large Russian meals – mostly meats and fish fillets cooked up with a host of vegetable toppings. On one occasion a local got too excited over the home-brewed beer and got arrested as a selfless researcher looked on. ‘Business lunch’ means gentler pricing of the same dishes.
reviewed
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Izbushka
A popular little Russian eatery with two themed rooms: a ‘taiga’ room and a ‘dacha’. Traditionally dressed staff clank their high heels on the wood floors under a soundtrack of lightly played hip-hop. The food is hearty and good (a bread-covered bowl of shchi – cabbage, potato and beef – is R115).
reviewed
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Okno
Vlad’s coolest club’s price keeps the luxury to a high degree – plus there’s a minimum age (25 for guys, 21 for women). This 3rd-floor spot has a full-front window overlooking the water, baroque gold-painted armchairs, visiting DJs, and dance bands that finish sets with ‘I Will Survive.’
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City Park
A pleasant City Park stretches 1.5km downriver (northwards). On the promontory is a cliff-top tower in which a troupe of WWI Austro-Hungarian POW musicians was shot dead for refusing to play the Russian Imperial anthem. It now contains a café, Kafe Utyos. Opposite the tower is a statue of Count Nikolai Muravyov-Amursky.
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Pyongyang
Staffed by newcomers from North Korea, this two-room Korean restaurant seems to like sitting Koreans in one room, Russians and foreigners in the other. You can pick from a photo menu of excellent food (BBQ starts at R480). It’s about four stops south of the train station via bus 60 (just before the railroad bridge).
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Ali Baba Fast Food
Cheap Middle Eastern-style pita-bread sandwiches, soup and a Coke. Ice cream and salads too. Caravan-style décor and hangings block the fast-food line from view. Occasionally bear loops are on the TVs, Pink Floyd on the stereo. Nearby you can get a shawarma (shish kebab) at a stand by Sportivnaya Harbour.
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Regional Museum
The Regional Museum has exhibits on local Jewish history (including an ad for a cheesy 1980s band Freilekhs), plus boars and bears and a mini- diorama of the Volochaevka civil war battle (akin to Khabarovsk’s bigger one, but here blood pours from the 3-D dead guy’s head).
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Kafe Krishna
At press time this excellent cheap-lunch turf - with Indian, blissful all-veggie lunches and lots of local Hare Krishnas supping - was getting muscled out of its prime location. Hopefully it's still here, or at a new location, as its freshly baked items draw streams of nose-following passers-by in.
reviewed
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Military Museum
The Military Museum is a not uninteresting four-room frenzy of battle-axes, guns, knives, and busts and photos of moustached heroes of past conflicts. Lined up in the back courtyard are army trucks, cannons, tanks and a luxury officers-only rail carriage dating from 1926.
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WWII Memorial
Khabarovsk's bombastic WWII memorial is close to the waterfront and a strip of beach that's very popular with sunbathers on hot days. Nearby there's a string of summertime food stalls, the landing stages for suburban river boats and the new multidomed Church of the Transfiguration.
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Pizza M
Classier than its name might suggest, the M (inside Hotel Primorye) is one of Vlad’s coolest hangouts, with two unique rooms setting their style-sights higher than the humble slice. The pizzas (R200 to R500) are quite good (note: a small is not enough for one).
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Russky Restaurant
Nearly all Russian restaurants get a bit kitschy, but this one goes all out – but in a way that never betrays its authenticity. There are paintings of tsars, side-rooms in dacha style, and traditional music kicking off dinners that frequently require reservations.
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Amur Regional Museum
Amur Regional Museum is housed in a former tsarist-era market and Soviet-era HQ for the Communist Youth League (Komsomol). Inside are a whopping 26 halls, with plenty of interesting photos, 1960s record players, and a meteor that fell in 1991 near Tynda.
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