Omsk-Russia, Day 90: Look how far we have come!

Before boarding our train from Omsk to Novosibirsk, we saw this map at the train station. It shows Russia's extensive rail network but also just how far we have come from Moscow (2716 kms) and the 3180kms we have before we get to Mongolia.

Omsk, Russia- Day 89: Olga's Russia

Olga - our hostess in Omsk is an English professor at the Law faculty who has lived in Omsk all her life. As we sat at her small kitchen table late into the night, she explained the challenges of everyday life in Communists Russia and narrated stories of her personal losses and tragedies. As someone who was born in 1940's, she has witnessed the hardship of not only her parents and grandparents but also the lack of choices in present day Russia for her grandchildren. After the fall of Communism, she says the country has merely changed hands to another set of thugs and made little material difference to regular folks.

Her grandfather was branded an enemy of the state and executed shortly after the 1918 revolution. In the years that followed Olga recollects seeing her parents and grandmother live in a cramped apartment with little to eat and few job opportunities to earn a living wage other than at state owned factories with deplorable working conditions. Her mother was a pediatrician but even that didn't ensure a decent life. A few years back she lost her husband to cancer and her daughter to a car accident, yet she shows an amazing appetite for life and is full of questions about America and the countries that we have visited.

Like any grandmother she dotted on Isaac and insisted on making us elaborate meals even though it wasn't included in our lodging arrangement with the Home Stay association through which we found Olga.


Omsk is a pretty enough town and is known for having the most number of Lenin statues that any other city in Russia. The highlight was being invited by the church caretaker of Omsk Cathedral to view the city from the bell tower and to see the golden onion domes up close.


Boris - the caretaker said that I was the first Indian he has ever met. Since Moscow I have been a bit of a novelty; perhaps because Indians are not common in these parts or perhaps because I don't look anything like the Indian movie stars from the 70's and 80's that they are familiar with :)

Yekaterinburg-Omsk, Day 88

We had 2 old women as coupe mates on the overnight train between Yekaterinburg to Omsk. Both of them looked and behaved like they were mentally disturbed and T who normally says only the nicest things admitted that they were "Borderline scary" :)

Of course, Isaac never has a dearth of friends to play with. We have discovered that Trans Siberian trains are filled with boisterous kids. Russian mothers are completely comfortable traveling with a portable kiddie potty which they place outside the car/wagon toilet when their kid wants to 'Go'. While I admire this kind of determination I don't think I could cope with all the cleaning that follows after the 'job' is done. Changing diapers seems so much more easier in comparison.

Yekaterinburg- Russia, Day 86-87 : Hitting a wall

If there has been a low point so far, this has to be it. The apartment in Yekaterinburg was filthy and depressing. The bathroom didn't have a sink, the kitchen stove wasn't working and the fridge had mouldy stuff growing in it. We tried to spend most of the day outside and came back at 10:30pm to find the front door was jammed. By the time we had Isaac fed, showered and in bed, I was mentally and physically exhausted and ready to ask T to buy a ticket to get us out of Russia.

In many ways I feel like I have a "hit a wall" - a marathon terminology used to describe the onset of fatigue and the inability to run any further. In large part it has to do with how strenuous it has been to pack and board a train every second day and the dodgy accommodations that make me squirm. I am hoping that I can get past these'comfort'issues and enjoy Russia with all its eccentricities.



Yekaterinburg's most historic site is the the massive Byzantine-style Church of the Blood which now dominates the Romanov execution site. It baffles me that the entire family has now been elevated to the status of saints with altars and expensive icons erected for each member of the family. Apparently the canonisation has been the subject of much debate - one side arguing that their deaths had nothing to do with their religious beliefs while the other side saying they met their deaths with Christian humility.

Kazan-Yekaterinburg - Day 85: Crossing over to Asia

This leg of the Trans Siberian journey cuts through the Ural mountains and puts us officially in Asia.

Yeketerinburg is situated on the border of Europe and Asia (on the Asian side) and is infamous as the sight for the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1918. Rumours have it that after the cold war, Soviet nuclear arms were moved to Yeketerinbug as the Ural mountains formed a natural buffer in the event of an explosion.

In the cabin next to ours, we met little Amir and his mom who were headed to Yeketerinburg to undergo the first of 3 surgeries to repair his cleft lip. Understandably, Amir's mom was very nervous about the surgery. It's in moments like this that I wish I could speak more Russian and tell her that children are stronger than we give them credit for.


A video of our private'luxe'cabin -

Kazan, Russia - Day 83-84: Republic of Tartarstan

Kazan is the capital of the Republic of Tartarstan, an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation that has it's own President, constitution and national flag. It's unclear to me how much of real 'autonomy' they have, but it seems in some judicial and executive respects they govern themselves while being delimited at a federal level.

I came to Kazan expecting it to be a 'one lane town' and was surprised to see a city with a modern waterfront dotted wit high-rise buildings, and a Kremlin which is a UNESCO World heritage site. Other parts of the old town are crumbling from neglect and entire swatches of the main street is filled with building debris.


Kazan has more in common with Central Asia than Russia due in large part to immigrant influx from former Russian regions such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Sunni Islam is the state religion and many of the mosques destroyed during Communist rule have been restored.


A not so happy Isaac with the Uzbek staff of the restaurant 'Staroe Mesto', where we had Tatar salads and dumplings, then a conversation about how much these guys would love to go to New York and open a restaurant.

And a video of the beautiful Kul-Sharif mosque in Kazan named after the Imam who died defending the city from Ivan the Terrible.

Moscow to Kazan - Day 83 : First Trans-Siberian train

Moscow to Kazan was the first of 7 trains we will be hopping on and off as we cross the length of Russia. The train that we rode from St.Petersburg to Russia does not count because the main Trans-Siberian route starts in Moscow and terminates in Vladivostok.

This was a "firm" train called "firmenny", which means that they are more comfortable (and more expensive). I was pleasantly surprised to find the train was absolutely spotless and thoroughly modern.

A video clip from the train which features Ivan - a little boy who Isaac became fast friends with.