Halfway through the rail tickets

Trip Start Apr 08, 2007
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Trip End Oct 01, 2007


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Sunday, September 23, 2007

Following another insufficient rest on an overnight train I arrived today to yet another frigid Siberian morning. Yes, I'm sure this is nothing like the dead of winter, but it's a tad surprising to exit to 2°C. Since I got in at 5am, the only priority I could get my head to focus on was catching a little more shut-eye. So the first thing I did was waddle over to the warm waiting room and fall asleep on my pack. That helped some for sure, but by doing so I managed to eventually attract the attention of a few police officers scouting out the place. Awakened by a tap, I thought I'd get in more hot water than I did - all I had to do was show the head officer my onward ticket for the evening and passport and they walked off. Incidentally, that's the only direct contact I've had with the law since getting into the country, which is pretty good considering the reputation Russia has for harassment by authorities.

As is becoming standard, I dropped my bag off at the rail station's left luggage for R50 then went out to find a bus into town. Omsk's train station is a huge, elegant structure, so at least I had an opportunity to snap a few pics while waiting for a bus to show. Even still, it was a chilly introduction to the city and only the beginning of my shivering. Once I got into town, I couldn't figure out why it was so quiet at 9am. There's one thing about tall Soviet buildings in the wee daylight hours though - they tend to block any sunlight from getting to the street. That had to be what was keeping people indoors . . . it was just too damn cold!

Then I retreated into an Orthodox church a little further down the road and realized the more important point: it was Sunday! It's funny how you often have absolutely no regard for or understanding of the actual day of the week when you travel.

It finally got comfortably warm around 10:30 in the morning, which meant I didn't have to scramble for sunny spots to keep from shivering. By this time though, I'd already gotten a fair idea of the city. For an industrial city of over a million smack in the middle of Siberia, Omsk is a far more pleasant place than I expected. It's certainly easier on the eye than grubby Yekaterinburg, as well as noticeably less traffic-laden (but then again, it's a Sunday, right?). One of the things that helps is its compact, but fairly intact historic core, with numerous streets of prettily restored classical buildings. Of course there are vast boulevards lined with pseudo-Stalinist edifices, as well as quite a number of inappropriately-placed concrete monoliths marring otherwise attractive scenes. And let's not even mention those suburbs. But overall, Omsk is surprisingly likeable.

While Tobolsk yesterday had a visible Tatar minority, I've been noticing today the number of people of Korean or mixed descent. I'd read before about there being a Korean minority across many municipalities in Siberia and far eastern Russia, but hadn't really taken note of it anywhere until today. In other parts of Russia, people of minority groups seem somewhat out of place, but apparently the demographics change significantly the further away you get from the European end of the country.

Well, Omsk in a way represents the midway point of my journey. Certainly from a geographical perspective it isn't - I'm not even close to halfway through distance-wise yet. But from here I've only got three more legs on the train: one overnight hop to Novosibirsk and then two longer ones onwards to Irkutsk and finally Vladivostok. Tonight's should be a cinch (despite it being platskartny) as I'm tired enough to probably crash straightaway. The others will be more trying . . . not necessarily in terms of difficulty or discomfort, but more because I've never spent so long cooped up in a train before! One thing's for sure though - it ought to be interesting.
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