Novosibirsk Getting there & around

Getting there & away

Land

Bus

From the bus station(Krasny pr 4) around 20 daily buses serve both Barnaul (R190, 4¾ hours, last at 7.40pm) and Tomsk (R170, five hours). For roughly double the price, shared taxis shave an hour or more off those times.

Train

The city's huge main train station, Novosibirsk Glavny (ul Shamshurina 43), has numerous daily long-distance trains.

For Moscow (48 to 55 hours via Omsk, Tyumen and Yekaterinburg), comfortable train 25 (even days) is easy to book. However, the cheaper 339 (1.30am, odd days) takes one night longer, saving on hotel accommodation as well as the fare. Of a dozen possible trains to Omsk, the handiest overnighter is train 87 (R420 platskart, nine hours, daily). For Krasnoyarsk (R541 platskart, 12 to 14 hours), train 84 (13¾ hours overnight, even days) is well timed and rarely full.

For Altai, the handy 601 runs overnight to Biysk (R280 platskart, 10¾ hours, daily) via Barnaul (5½ hours). For Khakassia and Tuva you could go to Abakan direct (train 68, 23 hours, daily) or in two overnight hops via Novokuznetsk for which the best option is train 605 (R690, 9½ hours). Trains to Almaty, Kazakhstan (R1500, 32 to 37 hours), run daily at 5pm.

If queues are horrendous at the station's main ticket desks (not normally the case), you can buy them relatively swiftly from the upstairs service centre (commission R100; 4.30am-2am) - no English spoken.

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Air

There are two airports in Novosibirsk. Severny (228 3788), 6km north of the centre, handles shorter hops including three weekly services to Kyzyl (R4800). However, most major airlines use the much bigger Tolmachyovo(216 9230; tolmachevoeng.faktura.ru), 30km west of Novosibirsk off the Omsk road. The website gives approximate timetables. Regular international destinations include Ürümqi (R5250, two hours, Tuesday), Beijing, Bangkok, Dubai and Seoul plus several cities in Central Asia (eg Baku R7200). Most weekends there are flights to Hanover (R12, 040 return) and/or Frankfurt (R14, 600 return). Siberia Airlines (toll-free 8-800 200 0007; www.s7.ru), the biggest regional carrier, is launching online sales and plans links with several international carriers. A comprehensive domestic network includes regular flights to Moscow (R6300, R8600 return), St Petersburg (R7080 booked six days ahead) and Irkutsk (R5490 to R6100, 2¾ hours). The central Aviakassa(ul Gogolya 3; 8.30am-8pm) is one of dozens of places to buy air tickets.

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