Things to do in Siberia
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Stolby Nature Reserve
Arguably Krasnoyarsk's greatest attractions are the spiky volcanic rock pillars called stolby. These litter the woods in the 17,000-hectare Stolby Nature Reserve south of the Yenisey River. To reach the main concentration of pillars, start by walking 7km down a track near Turbaza Yenisey. Alternatively, there is much easier access via a long chair lift from beside Kafe Bobrovyylog (ul Sibirskaya).
This usually runs year-round on request, but was closed throughout 2005 during a massive ski-slope redevelopment. From the top of the chair lift, walk for two minutes to a great viewpoint or around 40 minutes to reach the impressive Takmak Stolby. Infected ticks are dangerous be…
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Regional Museum
The Regional Museum is one of Siberia’s best. Its wonderfully incongruous 1912 building combines art nouveau and Egyptian temple-style features. Arranged around a Cossack explorer’s ship are models, icons, historical room interiors and nature rooms where you can listen to local birdsong and animal cries. The basement hosts a splendid ethnographic section comparing the historical fashion sense of shamans from various tribal groups. The gift shop sells old coins, medals, postcards and excellent maps.
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Historical Museum
The Historical Museum charges per single-room floor. The best is Buddiyskoe Iskustvo (3rd floor), displaying thangka, Buddhas and icons salvaged from Buryatiya's monasteries before their Soviet destruction. Note-sheets in English fail to explain the fascinating, gaudy papier-mâché models of Khvashan's eight unruly sons urinating at one another.
Note the Gungarba shrine table (every Buryat home once had one), the Atsagat medical charts (Tibetan medicine was apparently standard here until the 1940s) and the walnut necklace on grey, clown-faced Sagan Obugen (walnuts were exotic in Buryatiya). The less-interesting 2nd floor traces Buryat history in maps, documents and artef…
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Ethnographic Museum
In a forest clearing 6km from central Ulan-Ude is the worthwhile Ethnographic Museum, an outdoor collection of local architecture plus some reconstructed burial mounds and the odd stone totem. Although lacking the pretty lakeside setting of equivalents in Bratsk and Irkutsk, it features occasional craft demonstrations, has a splendid wooden church and sports a whole strip of Old Believers’ homesteads. Marshrutka 8 from pl Sovetov passes within 1km and upon request will detour to drop you at the door for no extra charge.
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Vostorg
Perched above a supermarket of the same name, Kyzyl’s best cheap eat is a plasticky no-frills self-service cafeteria where cash-strapped students and office workers fill up for a few roubles on generous platefuls of pelmeni, bliny, meatballs, plov, pork roast and Ukrainian holubtsi (cabbage rolls stuffed with rice and meat). Fresh doughnuts and pastries make this a perfect budget breakfast spot.
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Datsans
En route to the Ethnographic Museum, you'll notice Ulan-Ude's attractive new pair of datsans backed by stupas and trees that flutter with prayer flags; there are services from 09:00 to 11:00 most mornings. The nearby hippodrome is the venue for major Buryat festivals, including the Buryatiya Folk Festival, which features horse riding, wrestling and other folky delights.
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Zhili Bili
Prices are relatively reasonable in the very central, Disney-esque 'Siberian village' Zhili Bili, with English menus, a salad bar and great stuffed bliny. It's above fast-food eatery GrillMaster; go upstairs through a central wooden door.
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Kafe Natalya
Cosy, with quiet good taste, this is by far Gorno-Altaisk’s nicest café. Delicious daily specials are displayed in the heated cabinet making point-and-pick an easy option. Omelettes (from R40) make a good breakfast.
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Delovye Melochi Bookshop
Maps are very hard to find but are sometimes stocked in Delovye Melochi Bookshop in the basement next to Kafe Dom Pechati. It also sells decent Russian language guides to Tuva (R200).
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Chasovnya
For great city views climb Karaulnaya Hill to the pointy little Chasovnya which features on the Russian 10-rouble banknote. At midday there’s a deafening one-gun salute here.
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Vechny Zov
Named after a popular Soviet TV serial, this is one of Tomsk’s top dining options and boasts a mock Siberian ranch outside and a cosy antique-filled home feel inside.
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Lenin Head
At one end of ul Lenina the main square, pl Sovetov, is awesomely dominated by the world's largest Lenin head, which looks less domineering than comically cross-eyed.
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Mama Roma
Herb-filled air wafts temptingly from the best Italian eatery in town. Freshly baked pizzas are half price until 6pm. English menu.
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People’s Bar & Grill
The preferred hang-out of Novosibirsk’s would-be rap stars and models. Descend the stairway opposite St Nicholas chapel.
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Philharmonia
Concerts here range from classical symphonies to Dixieland jazz. Ticket prices are between R100 and R450.
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Che Guevara
Has dancing or live music in a fun saloon-club with 1950s pin-ups and a commie-Cuba theme.
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Kolchak's Statue
The reverberations of Russia's 1917 revolution are full of scarcely believable tales. Few top the incredible journey of the tsar's national gold reserve. With Communist forces closing in, royalists somehow managed to use barges and special trains to scurry east with over 1300 tons of gold, plus silver, platinum and millions of roubles in banknotes. When the retreat reached Omsk, the hoard fell into the hands of Admiral Kolchak.
A former national hero for his Arctic explorations, Kolchak was then a minister in Omsk's anti-Lenin coalition. The captured cash allowed him to launch a coup ousting socialist-moderates. Even more money poured in as 'aid' from vehemently anti-Bols…
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Resurrection Hill
When founded in 1604, Tomsk's original fortress sat atop Resurrection Hill. For the city's 400th anniversary, an impressive replica of its 'Golden Gate' was rebuilt in wood complete with domed central tower. Beside it, the well-presented but sparse Tomsk History Museum has resprouted its wooden lookout tower: try to spot the seven historic churches from the top.
Olde-worlde charm continues up cobbled ul Bakunina (named for a 19th-century anarchist) past the Italianate 1833 Catholic Church and on towards the Voznesenskaya Church. This Gothic edifice with five gold-tipped black spires has great potential as a Dracula movie set. A truly massive bell hangs from its new lurid-…
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Throat-Singing
Throat-singing is Tuva's great draw, yet finding performances is rather haphazard. Sometimes they're listed on www.tyvantranslator.com. If not, try asking at the National Theatre.
On the 1st floor of the sizable Cultural Centre, the Khöömei Centre can help arrange throat-singing lessons - to find it, walk between the cloakroom and snack bar and keep going. However, to simply hear a sample try going up to the 3rd floor from here (by the back rather than the main stairs) to a room where Tuvan musicians practise most afternoons around 14:00. Alternatively, contact Aylana Irguit or Aldar Tamdyn, who can usually arrange a short demonstration of the various styles. Around US$20…
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Ploshchad Lenina
Central pl Lenina isn't really a square so much as a jumbled collection of beautifully restored historic buildings interspersed with banal Soviet concrete lumps. The frustrated Lenin statue, now relegated to a traffic circle, points at the ugly concrete of Tomsk Drama Theatre apparently demanding 'build more like that one'. Fortunately, nobody's listening. The theatre is flanked instead by the splendid 1784 Epiphany Cathedral, the former trading arches and the elegant 1802 Magistrat Hotel.
Topped with a golden angel, in a second circle beside Lenin, is the recently rebuilt Iverskaya Chapel whose celebrated icon is dubbed 'Tomsk's Spiritual Gateway'. The 1000 Melochey Shop…
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Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam
The vastly more impressive Sayano- Shushenskaya Dam, Russia’s biggest and the world’s fourth in terms of energy production, is 15km further south. Privatised in 1993, it cunningly survived a recent renationalisation battle with the Khakassian government by nominally ‘relocating’ itself in Krasnoyarsk territory. No physical move was needed as the dam straddles the provincial border. To join by-appointment Russian-language tours of the dam’s turbine rooms you’ll need copies of your passport, visa and registration plus an invitation letter arranged by a local hotel or Sayanogorsk agency. Expect to wait around three days for permission to come through.
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Volkonsky House-Museum
A short walk behind the pretty pink Preobrazheniya Gospodnya Church then through big heavy gates is the Volkonsky House-Museum. It’s the preserved home of Decembrist Count Sergei Volkonsky, whose wife Maria Volkonskaya cuts the main figure in Christine Sutherland’s book The Princess of Siberia. The mansion is set in a courtyard with stables, barn and servant quarters (beware of the dog). Downstairs is an (over-) renovated piano room; upstairs is a photo exhibition including portraits of Maria and other 1820s women who romantically followed their husbands and lovers into exile. Labels are only in Russian but a R70 English-language pamphlet tells the stories.
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Wooden Architecture
Tomsk's greatest attraction is its 'wooden-lace' architecture - the carved windows and tracery on old log and timber houses. The city combines endless examples of these fine wooden mansions, some grand century-old commercial buildings and a dynamic, modern outlook. The most notable concentration of the wooden lace architecture is along ul Tatarskaya, accessed via steps beside the lovely old house at pr Lenina 56.
Several lesser examples line per Kononova, including number 2 where communist mastermind Kirov lodged in 1905. Close by (but hazardous to reach from per Kononova across a slippery pipe) is the splendid, recently restored Shishkov House. There's even a wooden-lace…
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Znamensky Monastery
Set in a leafy garden behind a noisy traffic circle, the 1762 Znamensky Monastery is 1.5km northeast of the Bogoyavlensky Cathedral. Echoing with mellifluous plainsong, the interior has splendidly muralled vaulting, a towering iconostasis and a gold sarcophagus holding the miraculous relics of Siberian missionary St Inokent.
Celebrity graves outside include that of Grigory Shelekhov, the man who claimed Alaska for Russia. White-Russian commander Admiral Kolchak was executed by Bolsheviks near the spot where his statue was controversially erected in November 2004 at the entrance to the monastery grounds, on a plinth that's exaggeratedly high enough to reduce vandalism.
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