Must see attractions in Tomsk

The gloomy basement of this former NKVD (proto-KGB) building is now a museum dedicated to the unspeakable horrors that took place here. Look out for the…

The classically colonnaded main buildings of the university lie in resplendently leafy grounds, giving Tomsk the sobriquet ‘Oxford of Siberia’. Most of…

Central pl Lenina isn’t really a square so much as a jumbled collection of beautifully restored historic buildings interspersed with banal Soviet concrete…

Housed in the splendid Atashev Palace, this modest museum has a 2500-year-old bear amulet and an interesting exhibit on the Great Tea Trail. But it's the…

This dimple-sized hill was the location of Tomsk’s original fortress, and the replica of its central wooden spasskaya bashnya (savior's tower), which…

Up on Resurrection Hill, this museum's moderately interesting collection of old artefacts, clothing and recreations of old homes is well-presented, with…

On the riverbank, this cheeky Chekhov statue was sculpted in bronze for the 400th anniversary of the city’s founding. Rubbing its well-polished nose is…

A Tomsk landmark, this moving mother-and-son monument is at the very southern end of pr Lenina. The beautiful birch-tree park (Лагерный сад) here is a…

Well worth popping into for its wide range of permanent and temporary exhibits. The highlight is the collection of 19th- and early 20th-century Russian…

This Gothic edifice with five gold-tipped black spires has great potential as a Dracula movie set. A truly massive bell hangs in its lurid-pink belfry. In…

Topped with a golden angel and right beside a Lenin statue, is the Iverskaya Chapel whose celebrated icon is dubbed ‘Tomsk’s Spiritual Gateway’.

Grand wooden mansions stand along ul Krasnoarmeyskaya including the late-19th-cenury Dragon House which is home to a clinic and a couple of dragons.

The spired, bright-turquoise Russian-German House (1904) is among several grand wooden mansions along ul Krasnoarmeyskaya.

Up on Resurrection Hill, this pretty Catholic church dates to 1883. There are often a couple of nuns around the compound.

This lovely old house marks the start of a street that's home to a number of attractive wooden buildings.

The former trading arches sit just west of the Soviet-built Tomsk Drama Theatre.

This is where the doomed communist mastermind Sergei Kirov lodged in 1905.

The fan-gabled Peacock House (early 20th century) is a classic landmark.

The splendid Epiphany Cathedral dates to 1784.

This frustrated Lenin statue, now relegated to a traffic circle, points at the ugly concrete of the Tomsk Drama Theatre, apparently demanding ‘build more…