ON THE WAY EAST — PART II
Zlatoust,
Златоуст
is the origin town to make trips to the close Taganay National Park, in the Southern part of the Ural mountains. Which was main reason for us to visit this region.
Little ski resorts are close by, but to us not quite small and even more expensive than in comparable resorts in the Alps.
The town itself has not a lot tourist attractions to offer. Another opportunity to see the every day life of a Russian family far away from capitols Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Our hosts, Valentina and Alexej, showed us around. Alexej grew up in this town and works as an artist. One of his projects is the facelift of the local tram with different local fairytale characters. Fairytales are a big part of the town, paintings and creatures can be explored all around. Many myths exsist about this place, propably because of the pictures landscape around.
The Taganay National Park is gorgeous. We missed the nature a lot after all this city hopping we did, so we decided to day hiking up one of the peaks in the Park. The views are amazing and the snow covered landscape just fantastic.
There are even possibilities to stay and hike in the National Park for a couple of days. Many campgrounds, open all year round, offer cheap accommodation in little houses or tents (with oven).
Novosibirsk,
Новосибирск
Only 100 years old, and the fastest growing city of Russia. In those “few” years it became the third largest city in the country.
We had a look around and bought souvenirs and local food (delicious natural honey) from the Central Market.
With our host we did some hiking through the close forest. Hidden in the forest was a place made by and for climbers to show people for free how to rock- and ice climb on their self build climbing park (around a disused power pole) with and without picks. They even have a nice fireplace to warm up and cook.
After the climbing we hiked a bit further to a cosy yurt café. One entry fee and all you can eat snacks and tea. They have a variety of local teas, so many that we could not even try all of them. Some traditional clothes are in the yurt to try on. It is a cosy and good place to warm up in the cold winter.
Irkutsk,
Ирку́тск
In our opinion, so far the nicest city on the way.
There is a huge market in the City Centre where we bought a lot of souvenirs and warm clothes. The market sells everything from local food to handmade socks and utilities.
The city has a welcoming atmosphere for tourists, and even that it is the most touristy stop along the Transsibirian Railway, it is one of the cheapest places to stay and the place to start your Baikal trip.
