Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd

56

PAGE

ON THE ROAD

YOUR COMPLETE DESTINATION GUIDE

In-depth reviews, detailed listings and insider tips

St Petersburg p93 Moscow p58 Moscow to Yekaterinburg p119

R U S S I A

Yekaterinburg to Krasnoyarsk p144 Lake Baikal: Krasnoyarsk to Ulan-Ude p176

The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) p250 Ulan-Ude to Vladivostok p216

MONGOLIA

The Trans-Manchurian Route p290 The Trans-Mongolian Route p265 Bijng p301
CHINA

SURVIVAL 377 GUIDE

PAGE

VITAL PRACTICAL INFORMATION TO HELP YOU HAVE A SMOOTH TRIP

Directory AZ .................. Transport ......................... Health ............................... Language & Glossary ..... Index ................................. Map Legend .....................

378 394 403 407 430 438

Language
Russian belongs to the Slavonic language family and is closely related to Belarusian and Ukrainian. It has more than 150 million speakers within the Russian Federation and is used as a second language in the former republics of the USSR, with a total number of speakers of more than 270 million people. Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet (see the next page), and its well worth the e ort familiarising yourself with it so that you can read maps, timetables, menus and street signs. Otherwise, just read the coloured pronunciation guides given next to each Russian phrase in this chapter as if they were English, and youll be understood. Most sounds are the same as in English, and the few di ences in pronunciation are explained in the phabet table. The stressed syllables are ated with italics.

kak vas zavut minya zavut ... vi gavaritye paangliski ya nye panimayu

ACCOMMODATION
...?

gdye ... pan

hostel

THIS EDITION WRITTEN AND RESEARCHED BY

Marc Bennetts, Greg Bloom, Marc Di Duca, Michael Kohn, Tom Masters, Leonid Ragozin, Mara Vorhees

Anthony Haywood

 All youve got to do is decide to go and the hardest part is over. So go!
TONY WHEELER, COFOUNDER LONELY PLANET

PAGE

PLAN YOUR TRIP

2 6 14 16 17 20 22 28 32 42 46 53

YOUR PLANNING TOOL KIT

Photos, itineraries, lists and suggestions to help you put together your perfect trip
5
CREDIT

Welcome to the Trans-Siberian Railway .. 16 Top Experiences ........ Need to Know ................. Whats New ..................... If You Like ........................ Month by Month ............. Choosing Your Route ..... Itineraries ........................ Booking Tickets .............. Arranging Your Visas ..... Life on the Rails .............. Routes at a Glance .........

Mongolian Landscapes
Mongolia is a beautiful country. Get into a Russian 4WD or van and your Mongolian travel mates will be crooning about the blue waters of Lake Khvsgl, the Singing Sand Dunes of the Gobi Desert and the glaciated peaks of the Altai Mountains. Closer to Ulaanbaatar, its easy to make day or overnight trips to Gorkhi-Terelj National Park (p285) amidst Currency the glorious rock formations Yuan (Y; China), and green valleys. For a wontgrg (T; Mongolia), derful experience that comrouble (R; Russia) bines natural landscapes and wildlife viewing, visit Khustain National Park (p285), where wild takhi horses roam across the pristine grasslands of

Stations & Stopovers

The glue between the interior world of the train and the towns and cities along the track is the myriad stations, some little more than a ramshackle platform with a telltale name such as 73km to signify their existence, others ambitious pieces of architecture be tting one of the worlds greatest railway achievements. And Language all along the route at Russias Mandarin, Cantonese stations, sellers ply a busy (China); Mongolian, trade for travellers smoked Kazakh (Mongolia); sh, (Russia) Russianberries, nuts, sausages, anything that will still a travellers hunger or make a journey more comfortable.

Watching the World Unfurl

The swaying of the train as it crosses a subcontinent, the landscapes that unfurl outside the window: steppe, taiga, farmed clearings, fallow land and swamps, and all those Siberian settlements of just a few wooden peasant houses fenced o and staking a dwindling claim to existence in the burlesque proportions of Siberias landscape. Part of the pleasure of the Trans-Siberian are the rituals of feeding time and sleeping, and simply gazing through the glass as time and motion gradually ll the space.

14

Need to Know
When to Go

Your Daily Budget

Budget less than

Moscow GO MayJun

US$50

BAM

Dorm beds and meals in simple restaurants or cafe and street stalls

Midrange

MOSCOW

_ #

Irkutsk GO Jun
#

US$50 210

PL AN YOUR TRIP I T I N E R A R I E S

Kazan
#

RUSSIA Tobolsk
# #

Ulaanbataar GO AugSep

Yekaterinburg

Tyumen

Novosibirsk KAZAKHSTAN

Tynda Severomuysk # Bratsk # # # Krasnoyarsk # Severobaikalsk # Tayshet

# Irkutsk

Komsomolskna-Amure
#

Vladivostok GO Jun Bijng GO Sep early Nov

Desert, dry climate Warm to hot summers Mild summers, cold winters Mild summers, very cold winters Cold climate

Eating in decent restaurants and staying in hotels with private facilities; in Mongolia expect a maximum midrange of US$120, in China US$160 and in Russia US$210

High End over

US$210
Low Season (OctApr)

MONGOLIA

High Season (MaySep)

CHINA

China: accommodation prices peak first week May holiday period Mongolia: peak JuneAugust; rain late JulyAugust; book everything early around Naadam Russia: peak June early September

Shoulder (May & Oct)

China: shoulder FebruaryApril and SeptemberOctober Mongolia: May and September some ger camps closed, fewer tourists, weather changeable Russia: beautiful but can get chilly

Three Weeks

15 Days

China: bitterly cold in the north; domestic tourism ebbs (except around Chinese New Year) Mongolia: some ger camps and smaller guesthouses closed Russia: plan indoor pursuits or winter sports; take saunas

Russia is the most expensive (US$210); in Mongolia you find highend places (starting at US$120) in only a few areas; in China dining and higher comforts begin at US$160

Volga & Lake Baikal

From Moscow enjoy an overnight trip to Kazan, perhaps taking the premium train with showers and double beds. Spend two to three days exploring the capital of Tatarstan with its splendid kremlin and museums; allow at least a full day for the city and another day for an excursion on the Volga. From Kazan continue to Yekaterinburg in the Urals and spend ve days visiting the Romanov sites and Urals attractions. Siberia begins after that, with a night in Tyumen and side trip north to Tobolsk, which can be completed comfortably in three to four days. The journey continues with two days in Novosibirsk, the uno cial capital f ib i d i hi d l i

BAM
The 3400km Baikal-Amur Mainline (Baikalo-Amurskaya Magistral, or BAM) travels through some of the most rugged and unforgiving Siberian landscapes. The line o cially starts in the drab town of Tayshet, but the closest big city, Krasnoyarsk, has an airport if you wish to skip all points further west. At Bratsk the train crosses a 1km-long dam. The town also has an excellent openair ethnographic museum where you can see many of the traditional Siberian buildings rescued when the dam was built. Severobaikalsk, on the northern tip of Lake Baikal, is the best base for exploring this relatively unvisited end of the lake and it

UNDERSTAND 325 YOUR JOURNEY

PAGE

GET MORE FROM YOUR TRIP

Learn about the big picture, so you can make sense of what you see
wn in the n rth. The line wa later altered to accommodate ntial economic lobbies by including Perm, Yekaterinburg and the railroad across a formidable landscape posed ongoing of engineering, supply and labour. The railroad cut through s crossed countless rivers, scaled rocky mountains and tray uagmires. Work brigades were poorly out tted. The heavy arried out using shovels and picks, while horses and humans ling were recruited, or conscripted, from all over the empire as m abroad. Some of these were imprisoned exiles being held in ers labour recruits from China or Italian stonemasons, who
Railway was built, it was quicker to travel from St Petersburg to Vladivostok by crossing the Atlantic, North America and the Pacific than by going overland.

ONARIES

History of the Railway .... Siberian Travellers ......... Russia Today................... Russia .............................. Mongolia Today .............. Mongolia.......................... China Today .................... China ............................... Landscapes & Wildlife ...

326 342 346 349 356 358 364 366 372

1860

1876
Chinas rst railroad, the Woosung Railway, connects Shngh i with Woosung (now Baoshan District). However, the private project, constructed without government approval, is demolished the following year.

188689
Following Tsar Alexander IIIs approval of the idea of a TransSiberian Railway, topographical surveys are taken along part of the proposed route between Tomsk and Sretensk, and around Vladivostok.
Tsar Alexander III

belief systems
(% of population)

if Russia were 100 people

75 5

of Peking na cede all east of the s far south an border ssia loses the newly nded port.

CREDIT

Orthodox Christianity

Islam 80 would be Russian 4 would be Tatar 2 would be Ukrainian 1 would be Bashkir 1 would be Chuvash 12 would be other

1 Buddhism

1 Catholicism

18 Other

otherwise that the Russian authorities use to intimidate bloggers and those who dare to speak their mind. Suspicious deaths include that of Anna Politkovskaya, the human-rights activist and writer gunned down on her doorstep in 2006.

Russia for Russians!

A major issue in Russia is the rise in extreme nationalism, ungentl illustrated in 2010 when 5000 soccer sup orters ram aged through cen

ISBN 978-1-74179-565-3

52199

9 781741 795653

Every listing is recommended by our authors, and their favourite places are listed first Look out for these icons: sustainable required oOur authors top SA green or option FNo payment recommendation

See the Index for a full list of destinations covered in this book.

On the Road
MOSCOW . . . . . . . . . . .58 ST PETERSBURG . . . .93 MOSCOW TO YEKATERINBURG . . . 119
South Baikal & the Tunka Valley . . . . . . . . . . . 204 Ulan-Ude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Around Ulan-Ude . . . . . . . . 213 Eastern Baikal . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Mnzhul . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 Hrbn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .295 Chngchn . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 Shnhigun . . . . . . . . . . . 300 AROUND BIJNG . . . . . . . 321 Great Wall of China . . . . . . 321

THE TRANSMANCHURIAN ROUTE . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Vladimir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Bogolyubovo . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Suzdal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Nizhny Novgorod . . . . . . . . 131 Perm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Around Perm . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Kungur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Yekaterinburg . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Around Yekaterinburg . . . . 155 Tyumen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Tobolsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160 Omsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Novosibirsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Tomsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

YEKATERINBURG TO KRASNOYARSK . . . .144

Chita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223 Around Chita . . . . . . . . . . . .227 Nerchinsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227 Blagoveshchensk . . . . . . .228 Birobidzhan . . . . . . . . . . . . .229 Khabarovsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Vladivostok . . . . . . . . . . . . .238 Around Vladivostok . . . . . .249

ULAN-UDE TO VLADIVOSTOK . . . . . 216

BIJNG . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Krasnoyarsk . . . . . . . . . . . .180 Around Krasnoyarsk . . . . . 186 Irkutsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Around Irkutsk . . . . . . . . . . 197 Western Lake Baikal . . . . . 197 Listvyanka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Port Baikal . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201 Bolshie Koty . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Olkhon Island . . . . . . . . . 202

LAKE BAIKAL: KRASNOYARSK TO ULAN-UDE . . . . . . . . . 176

Bratsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .254 Severobaikalsk . . . . . . . . . .255 Around Severobaikalsk . . .258 Tynda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .259 Komsomolsk-na-Amure . . 261 Around Komsomolsk-naAmure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

THE BAIKAL-AMUR MAINLINE (BAM) . . 250

Kyakhta, Russia . . . . . . . . .269 Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia . . .270 Around Ulaanbaatar . . . . 284 rlin (Erenhot), China . . 286 Dtng, China . . . . . . . . . . 286

THE TRANSMONGOLIAN ROUTE . . . . . . . . . . . .265

 Trans-Siberian Railway
20E

ARCTIC

70N

NORTH SEA

NORWAY

I Baltic Sea

Rga ESTONIA RUSSIA

Kaliningrad LITHUANIA

Pskov St Petersburg Vilnius Novgorod BELARUS Veliky Ustyug r Vologda Minsk iepe n Severnaya Tver D Dvina Syktyvkar Yaroslavl Moscow Kyiv Suzdal R U S S I A Bryansk Tula Vyatka Vladimir Oryol (Kirov)
Vo lga

al M ou nta i

ns

Vorkuta

Gulf

ora

Ob

Pe ch

Ur

Ob

Kursk Voronezh

Ryazan

Nizhny Novgorod
Cheboksary

Ka

ma

UKRAINE

Tambov

Ulyanovsk Syzran a lg Samara Vo Saratov

Ura l

Izhevsk

Irt ysh

Kazan

Perm

Khanty-Mansiysk Nizhny Tagil Tyumen

Surgut
Ob

Nizhnevartovsk

Yekaterinburg
Ufa Magnitogorsk Orenburg Orsk

Tobolsk

Yeniseysk

Sea of Azov

Chelyabinsk
Kurgan Petropavl (Petropavlovsk)
Ishi m

Volgograd
Volga

Rostovon-Don Sochi
Black Sea Mt Elbrus (5642m) GEORGIA

Tomsk

Mariinsk

Omsk Novosibirsk Kemerovo

Irty
Barnaul Novokuznetsk GornoAltaisk Altai Mountains Belukha (4506m)

Astrakhan Grozny

Tobolsk Magnificent kremlin and atmospheric lower town (p160)

Syr

Astana
Karaganda Lake Baikal Russias sacred Semey (Semipalatinsk) sea (p176) Balkhash Aktogay

Tbilisi
ARMENIA

Yerevan

Caspian Sea Aral Sea

AZERBAIJAN

Baku
40 N
Tashauz

KAZAKHSTAN

Nukus Turanian Plateu

rya Amu Da

Lake Balkhash Tashkent Traditional Mongolian culture

UZBEKISTAN Bukhara

Ulaanbaatar Almaty

Urumqi

Ashkabad
Zagros Mountains

meets the modern (p270) Bishkek

KYRGYZSTAN

Tehran IRAN

TURKMENISTAN

Dushanbe TAJIKISTAN AFGHANISTAN

Tarim Basin

Kabul

PAKISTAN

CHINA

Yen

isey

60N
u Ca ca s su
Mo ain unt s

AR CT

0 0

1000 km 600 miles

40E 60E
Svalbard Franz Josef Land

IC

Moscow Norwegian Culture and the ancient Sea Kremlin (p58)

80E

Oslo

SWEDEN

St Petersburg Grand masters on the Neva (p93)

Murmansk Novaya Zemlya SEA KARA SEA Dikson Arkhangelsk Amderma Yamal Peninsula Gydansky Peninsula Dudinka Norilsk
TIC

Stockholm

FINLAND

Kola Peninsula

BARENTS

O C

E A N

LATVIA

Tallinn Helsinki
Vyborg Lake Petrozavodsk Ladoga

Salekhard

ARC

Igarka

Siberian Lowland

sh

Da rya

Top Experiences
80N

OCEAN

160E 140E

EAST

SIBERIAN SEA

Wrangel Island

70N

RAIL ROUTES
Trans-Siberian Trans-Mongolian Trans-Manchurian Baikal-Amur Mainline Ural Other

100E

120E

Severnaya Zemlya

Novosibirskie Islands LAPTEV SEA

ly Ko

i Ind girk a

Kolymsky

ma

Taymyr Peninsula

Tiksi Nordvik Khatanga

Mountains

R U S S I A

Shelekhov Gulf Klyuchevskaya (4668m) Magadan Kamchatka Peninsula

Len a

CENTRAL SIBERIAN PLATEAU

CIR
Putorana Plateau

E CL

S
Nizhn yaya

b
Tunguska

e
Lensk

rk i h oy ansky

Yakutsk

un Mo

i ta

s
n

Barguzin Valley Remote and romantically timeless valley (p214)

Okhotsk

Sea of Okhotsk

Olekminsk

Gorkhi-Terelj National Park Glorious rock formations and green valleys (p285)
Amur

50
Sakhalin Island
Ta tar

Olkhon Island Spellbinding landscapes and epic myth (p202)

Severomuysk

Neryungri

Vanino

Stanovoy

Severobaikalsk Nerchinsk s Hih Olkhon ain nt Island Lake Chita ou M Irkutsk Baikal Manchurian ovy Zabaikalsk Abakan Ulan-Ude blon Plain Slyudyanka Ya Kyzyl ayan Mnzhul S s Kyakhta rn ntain Naushki e Hrbn est u Skhbaatar W Mo (Harbin) Darkhan
Argun

Tayshet

Krasnoyarsk

Fuyuan

Suifenhe Ussuriysk

Nakhodka Vladivostok Chngchn

Sikhote A

lin Mount

ains

Bratsk

UDOKAN MOUNTAINS

Tynda Novy Ugal Komsomolsk- Sovetskaya Mountains Gavan na-Amure Am Yuzhnour Sakhalinsk Khabarovsk Birobidzhan Blagoveshchensk

ait Str

Lena

Hu

Jiayuguan Yumen Explore Chinas

He

capital by bike (p301)

an g

Yeni

ri Ussu

sey

Ulaanbaatar MONGOLIA Gobi Desert

Sainshand Zamyn-d rlin Shnhigun Zhangjiakou

40

CHINA
Shnyng NORTH KOREA

Sea of Japan

Shnhigun The Great Wall meets the sea (p300) Bijng

Hohhot Baotou Dtng

Pyongyang Seoul
Yellow Sea
SOUTH KOREA

Bijng
Great Basin

Tinjn

JAPAN

Qingdao Vladivostok

Russias principal city East China of the east (p238)

A beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure. In 1972 thats all Tony and Maureen Wheeler needed for the trip of a lifetime across Europe and Asia overland to Australia. It took several months, and at the end broke but inspired they sat at their kitchen table writing and stapling together their rst travel guide, Across Asia on the Cheap. Within a week theyd sold 1500 copies. Lonely Planet was born. Today, Lonely Planet has oces in Melbourne, London and Oakland, with more than 600 sta and writers. We share Tonys belief that a great guidebook should do three things: inform, educate and amuse.

OUR STORY

OUR WRITERS
Anthony Haywood Coordinating author; Moscow to Yekaterinburg, Yekaterinburg to Krasnoyarsk Anthony was born in the port city of Fremantle, Western Australia, and pulled anchor early on to mostly hitchhike through Europe and the USA. Aberystwyth in Wales and Ealing in London were his wintering grounds at the time. He later studied comparative literature in Perth and Russian language in Melbourne. In the 1990s, fresh from a spell in post-Soviet, pre-anything Moscow, he moved to Germany. Today he works as a German-based freelance writer and journalist and divides his time between Gttingen (Lower Saxony) and Berlin. His book, Siberia, A Cultural History, was published in 2010. Marc Bennetts Yekaterinburg to Krasnoyarsk Marc moved to Russia in 1997 and immediately fell in love with the countrys pirate-CD markets. Since then, he has written about Russian spies, Chechen football and Soviet psychics for a variety of national newspapers, including the Guardian and the Times. In 2008 his book Football Dynamo: Modern Russia and the Peoples Game was released. He is currently working on a book about Russias fascination with the occult. Greg Bloom Ulan-Ude to Vladivostok, The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) Greg cut his teeth in the former Soviet Union as a journalist and later editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Post. He left Ukraine in 2003, but returns frequently to the region. In the service of Lonely Planet he has been detained in Uzbekistan, taken a shlagbaum to the head in Kyiv, swum in the dying Aral Sea, snowboarded down volcanoes in Kamchatka, and hit 100km/h in a Latvian bobsled. These days Greg lives in Cambodia. Marc Di Duca Lake Baikal: Krasnoyarsk to Ulan-Ude, Ulan-Ude to Vladivostok, The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) Marc has spent nigh on two decades crisscrossing the former communist world, the last seven years of them as a travel-guide author. Stints on previous editions of LPs Russia and Trans-Siberian Railway were preceded by other guides to Moscow, St Petersburg and Lake Baikal. During research on his stretch of the Trans-Sib this time around, Marc somehow found himself freezing extremities in Lake Baikal, attending Ulan-Ude opera in hiking gear and facing a starter of frozen horse liver.
lonelyplanet.com/members/madidu OVER MORE PAGE WRITERS
Published by Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd
ABN 36 005 607 983 Although the authors and Lonely Planet have taken all reasonable care in preparing this book, we make no warranty about 4th edition Apr 2012 the accuracy or completeness of its content and, to the maxiISBN 978 1 74179 565 3 mum extent permitted, disclaim all liability arising from its use. Lonely Planet 2012 Photographs as indicated 2012 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in Singapore All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, and no part of this publication may be sold or hired, without the written permission of the publisher. Lonely Planet and the Lonely Planet logo are trademarks of Lonely Planet and are registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Lonely Planet does not allow its name or logo to be appropriated by commercial establishments, such as retailers, restaurants or hotels. Please let us know of any misuses: lonelyplanet.com/ip.

lonelyplanet.com/members/gbloom4

Read more about Greg at:

Read more about Marc at:

Michael Kohn The Trans-Mongolian Route, The Trans-Manchurian Route, Bijng Michael rst rode the Trans-Mongolian Railway in 1997, stepping o the train in Ulaanbaatar on a chilly -30C December day. That was the start of an extended stay in Mongolia, where he worked for an English-language newspaper and various international media. He has since chugged along most of northeast Asias rail routes, including the remote train journey from Choibalsan to the Russian border. Michael has updated three editions of Lonely Planets Mongolia guide, and two editions of Lonely Planets China. He is currently based in Ulaanbaatar. Tom Masters St Petersburg Tom rst came to St Petersburg in 1996 while studying Russian at the School of Slavonic & East European Studies in London. He loved the city so much that he came back after graduating and worked as a writer and editor at the St Petersburg Times. Since then hes been based in London and Berlin but returns regularly to Piter to take on documentary work and write freelance articles and Lonely Planet guides. Leonid Ragozin Moscow, Moscow to Yekaterinburg Leonid devoted himself to beach dynamics when he studied geology in Moscow. But, for want of really nice beaches in Russia, he helped gold miners in Siberia and sold InterRail tickets before embarking on a journalist career. After eight years with the BBC he became a foreign correspondent for Russian Newsweek a job that took him to such unlikely destinations as Bhutan and Ecuador. Back at the BBC he plunged into the turbulent sea of TV news. Mara Vorhees Moscow Mara has been travelling to Moscow since it was the capital of a dierent country. The pen-wielding traveller has worked on dozens of Lonely Planet titles, including Moscow and St Petersburg. When not roaming around Russia, Mara lives in a pink house in Somerville, Massachusetts, with her husband, two kiddies and two kitties.

28

Itineraries

Whether youve got six days or 60, these itineraries provide a starting point for the trip of a lifetime. Want more inspiration? Head online to lonelyplanet .com/thorntree to chat with other travellers.

FINLAND

MOSCOW

_ #

RUSSIA

KAZAKHSTAN

_ ULAANBAATAR #
MONGOLIA

CHINA

_ #
BIJNG

Two Weeks

The Trans-Mongolian Route

This highly popular journey between Moscow and Bijng goes via the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, allowing you to compare and contrast the landscapes of three countries. A nonstop itinerary is best suited to travellers who want to see Moscow and Bijng, enjoy the changes of landscape, and experience life on the train as it rolls across Asia. It can be covered in either direction, but if you wish to spend time in Moscow at the start of the journey, a transit visa will not suce. The train journey in itself takes almost six days, which allows several days in Moscow and several in Bijng to explore two of the worlds most dynamic capitals. In Moscow, spend three days visiting Red Square and the Kremlin, and taking in at least one large gallery. At the other end of the line, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Summer Palace and Tiananmen Square will each take a day. Between these two very dierent geographic points, taiga, steppe and desert unfold in a mesmerising landscape panorama, with views of iconic Lake Baikal, the Gobi Desert and the Great Wall of China.

29

FINLAND

St Petersburg #

PL AN YOUR TRIP I T I N E R A R I E S

MOSCOW

# Vladimir

# Suzdal _#
Nizhny Novgorod # Yekaterinburg #

RUSSIA

# Irkutsk

KAZAKHSTAN

Ulan-Ude Ivolginsky Datsan

#

# Vladivostok

CHINA

MONGOLIA

One to Four Weeks

The Trans-Siberian Route

Although this route can be done in either direction, we suggest going against the general ow by starting in Vladivostok, at the far eastern end of Russia, so you can nish up with a grand party in either Moscow or, better still, St Petersburg. The route takes six days without stopovers on the Rossiya, the premium train 1/2, which means the absolute minimum required for this itinerary is one week. It is best done, however, with stopovers over three to four weeks, and can easily be tailored to your own schedule. Vladivostok, situated on a stunning natural harbour, merits several days to enjoy Russias Pacic seaboard and rest from jetlag if you have own in from other time zones. Its also worth taking a break of a couple of days or more at Khabarovsk, a lively city on the banks of the Amur River thats an overnight hop from Vladivostok. Save another couple of days for Ulan-Ude, a fascinating city where Russian and Buryat cultures mingle, and from where you can venture into the steppes to visit Russias principal Buddhist monastery, Ivolginsky Datsan. Just west of Ulan-Ude the railway hugs the southern shores of magnicent Lake Baikal. Allow at least ve days to see the lake, visit the equally lovely Olkhon Island and spend time in Irkutsk, one of the Trans-Siberians most important rail junctions. Krasnoyarsk, on the Yenisey River, aords the opportunity for scenic cruises along one of Siberias most pleasant waterways and can easily be visited on a two-day stopover to see the city itself. If you want to visit the Stolby Nature Reserve or take an excursion on the Yenisey River, however, plan on four days to do this comfortably. Crossing the Ural Mountains into European Russia, schedule a stop in Yekaterinburg, a bustling historic city stocked with interesting museums and sites connected to the murder of the last tsar and his family. Finally, you have the choice of pausing in cities such as Nizhny Novgorod, which has some good museums and restaurants, or stopovers in the tranquil Golden Ring towns of Vladimir and/or Suzdal, both packed with onion-domed churches, and a million miles away from the pace of the megacities to come.

Krasnoyarsk

Olkhon Lake Island # Baikal

# #

Khabarovsk

30
RUSSIA Port Baikal
Olkhon Island # Ulan-Ude # Listvyanka Lake Baikal # Chita #

# Irkutsk

_ # ULAANBAATAR
CHINA MONGOLIA

_ #
BIJNG

Four Weeks

The Bijng Loop

You will want to schedule plenty of time in historic, dynamic Bijng either at the start or end of the trip. A day each is needed to see the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, the Great Wall and the Summer Palace. An excellent overnight service connects the capital with Hrbn, famous for the ice sculptures of its midwinter Ice & Snow Festival. Russians came here at the end of the 19th century to build the railway, and handsome architectural evidence of their stay lies at the citys heart close to the Songhua River. Take a couple of days to enjoy Hrbns cosmopolitan atmosphere and visit the nearby Siberian Tiger Park. The ChineseRussian border lies an overnight train ride away at Mnzhul. If youre not on one of the weekly Trans-Manchurian services that continue across the border and through to Moscow, its a process of hopping on a bus across to Zabaikalsk on the Russian side, where you can reconnect with trains through to Chita. This pleasant city is a great base for exploring a relatively unvisited area of Siberia where youll discover a couple of beautiful Buddhist monasteries at Aginskoe. From Ulan-Ude you can immediately branch down towards Mongolia, but since youve come this far it would be a great shame not to rst venture further west to see Lake Baikal. Apart from Ulan-Ude, possible bases for exploring the lake include Slyudyanka, Irkutsk, Listvyanka and Olkhon Island. This part of the journey is where where travellers spend the most time, and its well worth crossing from Listvyanka to Port Baikal to briey walk along the lakeshore on the Circumbaikal Railway line. While in Listvyanka, also try to t in a short walk on a section of the Great Baikal Trail, or from Irkutsk spend a couple of days in the Tunka Valley. After that, board one of the trains to Ulaanbaatar, which is certainly worth at least a couple of days. Its highlight is the lively and colourful Gandan Khiid monastery. From Ulaanbaatar, its a two-night journey back to Bijng through the Gobi Desert.

Slyudyanka

Tunka # Valley

##

Aginskoe

Zabaikalsk # Mnzhul #

PL AN YOUR TRIP I T I N E R A R I E S

# Hrbn

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Volga & Lake Baikal BAM

PL AN YOUR TRIP I T I N E R A R I E S

MOSCOW

_ #

Kazan
#

RUSSIA

Tobolsk
# #

Yekaterinburg

Tyumen

Bratsk
# #

Tynda Severomuysk #
# #

Komsomolskna-Amure
#

Krasnoyarsk # # Tayshet

Severobaikalsk

Novosibirsk
KAZAKHSTAN

# Irkutsk

MONGOLIA

CHINA

Three Weeks

15 Days

Volga & Lake Baikal

From Moscow enjoy an overnight trip to Kazan, perhaps taking the premium train with showers and double beds. Spend two to three days exploring the capital of Tatarstan with its splendid kremlin and museums; allow at least a full day for the city and another day for an excursion on the Volga. From Kazan continue to Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains and spend ve days visiting the Romanov sites and Urals attractions. Siberia begins after that, with a night in Tyumen and side trip north to Tobolsk, which can be completed comfortably in three to four days. The journey continues with two days in Novosibirsk, the unocial capital of Siberia and Russias third-largest city, situated on the Ob River. Krasnoyarsk is closing the gap on Novosibirsk for the title of capital, and is well worth a couple of days in order to explore the city and perhaps visit the Stolby Nature Reserve or take a boat trip on the Yenisey River. From Krasnoyarsk the route continues to Irkutsk, where at least ve days can be scheduled in for the sights of Lake Baikal.

BAM
The 3400km Baikal-Amur Mainline (Baikalo-Amurskaya Magistral, or BAM) travels through some of the most rugged and unforgiving Siberian landscapes. The line ocially starts in the drab town of Tayshet, but the closest big city, Krasnoyarsk, has an airport if you wish to skip all points further west. At Bratsk the train crosses a 1km-long dam. The town also has an excellent openair ethnographic museum where you can see many of the traditional Siberian buildings that were rescued when the dam was built. Severobaikalsk, on the northern tip of Lake Baikal, is the best base for exploring this relatively unvisited end of the lake and it also has a small BAM museum. En route to Tynda the line climbs over and burrows through mountains, the longest tunnel being 15.3km at Severomuysk. Home of the BAM construction companys headquarters, Tynda is a must-stop for its comprehensive BAM museum and good banya (bathhouse). Continue working your way east to the St Petersburgstyled Komsomolsk-na-Amure, the largest city on the line and a great place to ponder the sacrices and achievements made by hardy Soviet pioneers.

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