Vladivostok

After a week in central Asia, Vladivostok was a big change of pace. It's like going from Thunder Bay to Halifax. The weather was cool and rainy; the smell of the sea permeated the city; downtown was along the Pacific. There was much more tourist activity and activities, and many merchants spoke broken English.

According to our guidebook, it would cost $50 and two hours to get downtown from the airport, yet we found a $3 shuttle bus waiting (1 hour transit). When we arrived downtown, we tried to find our hotel on foot, and it took us about an hour to do so. Partly it was our lack of sleep, but it was also about 500 m from the street, in a stone plaza hidden behind a sheet metal fence. Here is the front. Pretty flash, eh?
It is the Amurskiy Zalif (Амурский Залив), the name of the bay it overlooks. Here's the plaza before it:
Below the highrise you can see the dozens of uneven stairs to get down from the street. Imagine crossing all that with heavy luggage. It gets worse: the colourful front entrance leads straight to three flights of stairs because it's built into a cliff. Overall, though, this was our best hotel: for $80 a night we got a clean and well-equipped room with a view of the Pacific. It was quiet except when there were Sea-Doos in the bay. Here is the view from our room. With private fridge, TV, balcony, and bath and free buffet breakfast! Amazing!

On the first day, we just walked around the centre of the city. Near our hotel is a long beach and boardwalk. Farther afield is the Aleutskaya street, which has the train station, phone/Internet centre, and several museums; Revolutionary Fighters Square (пл. Борцов Револуции) with a large plaza and a cluster of statues; and Okeanskiy avenue, a ritzy shopping street. Here are the statues, "Monument to the fighters for Soviet Power in the Far East" (Памятник Борцам за Власть Советов на Дальнем Востоке). There is a central statue and two smaller ones flanking it (the picture of the second one didn't turn out). Incidentally, Vladivostok means "To conquer the East."

Here is another memorial. Next to it is a cathedral and a World War 2 sub converted to a museum.
I should explain something about Vladivostok at this point. There are a lot of monuments there, and not only because it is a major city. It was founded in tsarist times as a military outpost, and in the USSR it became a "closed city" (ie foreigners were forbidden to visit it, it was removed from public maps, and citizens needed special permission to enter or leave). Under its tourist façade it is ultra-Russian, the antithesis of Canadian multiculturalism.

You can see from the map above that it is much closer to Korea and China than ancestral Russia. In 1917, the population was 80% East Asian. Japan, Britain, the US, and Canada landed troops there to fight for the tsar against the Bolsheviks, and when the city fell to the Red Army in 1922, that marked the end of the Civil War. During Stalin's reign, all non-Russians were killed or exiled from the city. It became closed in 1930 and remained so until 1992. Despite the collapse of the USSR, the population is still almost 100% ethnic Russian, and they are very pro-Russia. It reminds me a lot of the attitude of those who live in the US states which were seized from Mexico in the 1840's: any remaining Mexicans are "illegal immigrants" who deserve nothing but scorn and forced labour. In other words, there is a siege mentality because geographically, historically, and demographically, the territory should be part of Mexico. In the case of Vladivostok, they are keenly aware that they are a few hundred thousand Russians living next to 1.3 billion Chinese and Koreans.

Sorry for the depressing sidebar. Here, look at this bright and shiny arch!

We tried to find a scenic vista of the city, but this is the best we could find.

In our walks, we found many other poor districts as shown in the Urban Russia entry. Outside of downtown, it was very hard to cross major streets. We had to cross in groups of 4-5 people or cars wouldn't stop. Another frequent hazard is open manholes or pits in the sidewalk. Downtown has pedestrian underpasses, which are excellent, although we found one of them that was in disrepair and pitch black. (It was safer to brave the dark than try to cross the road at street level.) We only went out during daylight, so it was never very dangerous. Vladivostok is still a port city, though, so we were careful.

We also found a wonderfully shaggy park:
Several times, we saw a pack of domesticated dogs roving the streets near our hotel. I tried to take a picture, but they run pretty fast.

As in Irkutsk, we tried in vain to take a hydrofoil out along the shore. In this case, everything was ready but the weather stayed cold and rainy.

We found two art galleries, but after looking at the shoddy art in the lobby, we didn't even bother to go in.

Most shops in Russia have a security guard and a set of lockers for bags to deter shoplifters, but Vladivostok had many more. One grocery store had three armed guards and even a bookstore had one. They were always polite, at least to us.

There was supposed to be a giant Friday market in the central square, but either it starts in the afternoon or our guidebook lied to us again.

Our trip out of the city and out of the country was uneventful. Or perhaps I'm used to the eccentricities of Russian travel now. We left at midday and arrived in South Korea around 4pm local time.

Irkutsk

Irkutsk is a major tourist hub because of nearby Lake Baikal. Baikal is the largest freshwater lake in the world--an ecosystem unto itself--with more water in it than every lake in the US combined, including the Great Lakes. The city itself is kind of grungy though. We could only spend 36 hours in Irkutsk because of the airline timetable. We had decided a while back to skip the Irkutsk-Vladivostok leg of the Trans-Siberian railway because it was several days long and my father had enough of long train rides.

The Irkutsk airport was hilariously tiny. We then had a bone-jarring late-night ride to our homestay from the tourism agent.

We stayed at a private apartment which was close to downtown. Including the tourism agency's commission, it cost as much as a hotel room. The picture above is from the apartment window; I didn't take pictures inside to preserve our hostess's privacy. She was clearly an English teacher, and she had some nice furniture and decorations. I think they are pre-1991, and my father thinks they were bought to appeal to tourists staying there. The building had a meandering, unequal stairwell to the second floor which continued to a small 2.5nd-floor landing. The downstairs neighbours had a bright yellow motorcycle sidecar, a chained dog, and a pile of cordwood in their ad hoc front yard.

We wasted half our time trying to find a telephone centre or Internet café to book a hotel or homestay in Vladivostok. We eventually found both and were advised to book a certain hotel once we got to Vladivostok.

The main art gallery (художественный музей) had a good collection of Russian and Buryat-Mongolian art. We didn't realize the second section was so extensive, so we didn't have time to see it all before the gallery closed. Irkutsk has traditionally been the heart of democratic Russia, and the art reflected much more democratic sensibilities than the aristocratic portraits we saw in European Russia. Most were landscapes or cityscapes, but my two favorites were portraits: "Madman" (Безумный) was a wild-eyed man in a park wearing a trenchcoat stuffed with dolls, while two policemen confer nearby; and "Abandoned female" (Покинутая) was a mother in rags consoling her baby in the shadow of a glittering citadel.

Lake Baikal was an hour away by hydrofoil. If we had had more time, we could have seen some of the smaller cities or islands up and down the coast. We tried to find the hydrofoil station for several sweltering hours by following our guidebook, then gave up in disgust. The second major art gallery was closed for repairs, so we spent the day visiting the central market and walking around. We had a good Georgian meal at 9pm then headed out to the airport for our 2am flight (!).

Tomsk

We spent more time in Tomsk than anywhere else: 5 days. Locals were very surprised to see us, since Tomsk is not considered a tourist destination. I enjoyed it--its meandering streets feel much more cozy and inviting than the gigantic palaces and cathedrals and monuments of European Russia. Plus it was 20 C and sunny the whole time we were there.

Tomsk is a city of half a million, a few hours from the Trans-Siberian main line. It is too far from it to get any economic benefit, so it is mainly a university city. This lack of prosperity meant that old buildings were not demolished, so there was a strange and appealing juxtaposition of tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet architecture. Lenin Square, the centre of town, is a staring match between a Lenin statue, a bland orchestra hall, an ugly concrete theatre, and a crop of gleaming fashion stores.

As a university city, Tomsk has many young people. As well, about 10% of the population had Chinese or Korean features, although they invariably spoke Russian. Another 5% or so were central Asians (Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek).

There is no real tourist attraction in Tomsk. Resurrection Hill, the centre of old Tomsk, had disintegrating cobblestone streets, a large church, and precariously tilting cottages. Like all Russian cities, Tomsk has many galleries and museums. We tried once again to get tickets to a ballet or concert, but the only thing we found was a series of children's concerts. I never figured out how to find upcoming events except by reading the sign at a given venue.

Tomsk is completely un-gentrified. During our walks we saw a huge variety of districts. Most were poor, but at least they all had personality. One day, as we walked through the central park, we found ourselves in an ancient but active amusement park. A few rides were rusted through and overrun by tall grasses, but even so there was a large crowd of families and young people using the independently-operated hot dog stands, bumper cars, balloon castles, etc.

Tomsk had some of the best wooden-lace buildings we've seen. Here are the highlights:

Here's an example of a newer building.

Here is a random church.

On the south side of Tomsk is a hill which overlooks the beautiful Tom river valley. At the crest of the hill is this stirring World War 2 memorial. Many thousands of names were engraved in the stones on either side of the hill. You can't really see them here. There was also patriotic music playing quietly through speakers along the (birch) forest path.

We stayed at Hotel Sputnik. (In Russian, Sputnik means a companion on a long trip.) I expected a non-tourist city to have cheap hotels, but our room was $100/night. The room included hot breakfast but a shared washroom and shared fridge. Twice, a hotel workman was welding something right under our window until past 10pm, with loud noise and blue smoke coming into our room. I had to complain at the reception desk.

My father had a bad cough, so we bought cough suppressant and later antibiotics at one of the many pharmacists (~$8). Reading medical instructions in Russian was kind of a challenge.


"Graft Casino." We thought that was pretty funny until we discovered we needed to buy an airline ticket from "Graft Tourism" (there was also an electronics shop and restaurant). The train to Irkutsk was sold out, so we needed to fly. Actually, Graft Tourism doesn't sell airline tickets (!) . Everything worked out in the end: I found an aviakassa nearby, a bureau that sells airline and train tickets.

We didn't actually leave Tomsk for Irkutsk. We flew out from one of Novosibirsk's two airports. There was a bus from Tomsk straight to our airport, but it was sold out, so we went to downtown Novosibirsk instead (not recommended). The Novosibirsk "bus station" is simply a giant parking lot, and no-one knew any bus going to our airport. We took a taxi to the train station and got a shuttle bus from there.

55 hours on the train

The train is the best way to get a feel for the immensity of Russia. With that in mind, we bought tickets for a 55-hour train from Vladimir to Tomsk, a quiet university city a few hours off the Trans-Siberian main line. We skipped over several large cities such as Nizhniy Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, and Omsk. The transit was faster and cheaper that way, and we felt they would be less interesting than the Golden Ring or central Siberian cities.

We were in 3rd class, which I described in the Travel entry. It was comfortable enough for me--bedding and tables were provided--but the bed was too short for my father. (Different seat numbers have different lengths due to the layout.) There were sufficient bathrooms for everyone, although several times a day they would be locked without warning for half an hour as we passed through a city.

We expected to find food vendors at every major station, but they were almost all deserted. So we ate and drank what we brought with us (boiling water was also available). Once we ate in the dining car, which was expensive, but it was a hot meal and it gave us a change of scenery.

The Siberian taiga (boreal forest) is very pretty, along with its poor but handsome wood hamlets. Unfortunately, there was also a lot of heavy industry (oil and gas, pulp and paper) which scarred the landscape.

We didn't interact much with other passengers. We slept, ate, looked out the window, and read, while some other passengers played cards or listened to headphones. A few of them were truly Herculean sleepers... they seemed to sleep the whole trip! Across from us was an English teacher, so we spoke English from time to time. At one point, three skinheads cornered me in the bathroom and tried to bully me into buying them vodka. They were unarmed and half-drunk, so except for a broken travel mug, nothing came of it. (We needed to be vigilant that night as well as when we got off the train in case they felt vengeful.) Later they browbeat a university student into interpreting in English for them; but they didn't have anything to say, so I ignored them and they wandered off. The student was very strange: he said he was a biology student who was sneaking into a conference on ticks in Tomsk "as a journalist." (Tomsk has a dangerous pandemic of encephalitic ticks.) Then he talked for half an hour about outlandish conspiracy theories (which, he assured us, he obviously didn't believe). Basically, anything that happens anywhere is controlled from Buckingham Palace, and Russia is really a vassal state of England. So this conspiracy group writes letters to the Queen of England complaining about the poor state of Russian infrastructure and services.

There were no announcements whatsoever, so I didn't always know which city we were in. As well, we were on Moscow time the whole trip, which was rather strange. If I recall correctly, we crossed 3 time zones.

We arrived in Tomsk at 9am local time and had an uneventful cab ride to our hotel.

Suzdal

The history of Suzdal is closely connected to that of Vladimir--it was a rival fiefdom in medieval times. Today it is quite a small city; in Soviet times, it was designated as a historical area, so growth and industry were prohibited and the buildings were kept in their original state. People do live there, so I assume they get a government pension to supplement their tourism income. (There is a large market and several small ones selling handicrafts to tourists plus some restaurants and museums.)

It is half an hour from Vladimir by local bus. We took a day trip there and simply walked around and took pictures. I've shown them below in no particular order.

These last two are of another "open-air museum of peasant architecture." Fine wooden buildings were moved here from elsewhere to preserve them properly. I liked it better than the one outside Novgorod because it is organized more like a real village rather than simply a cluster of buildings. For instance, there were small crops planted of traditional foods along with the associated granaries, stables, etc.

As with most Russian museums, it costs $5 more to take pictures, so the only pictures we took were from outside the walls.