By train across Siberia

Riding the Trans-Siberian railway

The approximately 5000 km from Irkutsk to Moscow can seem quite short if you use them to do something interesting. Like visiting a new city every day. We stopped in the few major cities along the route, which are all quite conveniently distributed at regular intervals along the route of the railway.

Irkutsk-Krasnoyarsk
We shared the compartment with a young mother and her stark raving mad little son. The latter fell completely in love with Mihai.

Krasnoyarsk
This city on the banks of the Enisei used to be the deceased general Lebed's stronghold.
I don't know if it has anything to do with him that the city is still so 'Soviet' - all the extreme street names ('Proletarian Dictatorship Street', etc.) have been left the same, there are big, rusting Soviet slogans on rooftops on the main business street ...

... and, last but not least, the local ice cream factory 'Slavitsa' makes these nice ice cream cones - 'Soviet Chocolate'. I just had to taste it ...

Krasnoyarsk-Novosibirsk
We travelled on the fast train 'Enisei', and had the whole compartment for ourself. I even washed my hair. Maybe I shouldn't have ...

A little stray doggie rolling around in the snow.

Novosibirsk
None of my pictures do any justice to the magnificent Stalinist Classicist Main Railway Station of Novosibirsk.
This is a big industrial city, founded at the foot of the Trans-Siberian railway's bridge over the river Ob.

At the foot of the railway bridge, a horrid memorial park is projected, that will teach the public about the historical background of the city.
It wasn't really colder than in the other places we visited (a mere -7 to -20 overall), but Novosibirsk will for now remain in my memory as a cold bastard city, because the little beginning of a flu that I had been nurturing in the last few days became rather violent here.
Maybe it was because of the chilling wind from the river. My fingers almost froze to death while taking the picture below ...

Trying to catch hold of the passing evening landscapes. The train moved too quickly ...!

Novosibirsk-Sverdlovsk
On this train, we had to split into three different compartments, since there was very little space. We had supper together, all the three of us sitting on Mihai's upper bunk, with a few towels spread over our knees (to avoid 'Brösel', the Romanian-German word for 'Krümel'), while the train conductor was trying to hoover the floor of the compartment, and we were trying to lift all our six legs out of the way for her. After that, I spent most of the journey doing my best to sleep away my flu.
In the morning, while waiting for the toilet to become vacant, I suddenly started to feel dizzy. The last thing I knew was that the toilet door opened and Mihai came out (lucky that it was him, and not some angry babushka), and then I had to sit down on the garbage bin cabinet, just before I lost consciousness. Mihai somehow kept me from falling on the floor, while people came and wanted to throw away their garbage. After a while, I came to again, and Mihai informed me that he had been trying to talk German with me, but I had only answered in English ... Ha ha.

Ekaterinburg
After this escapade, I decided to stay at the railway station in Ekaterinburg. Mihai was valiant enough to stay with me, while Gusti experienced the wondrous feeling of walking around without his almost 20 kg heavy rucksack.
Ekaterinburg is a nice, big industrial city, which still has its 18th century center intact.
In the railway schemes, it still goes under its Soviet name Sverdlovsk - Sverdlov was the man who led the execution of the Czar family in this very city.