Tobolsk. A step down from the Ural Mountains to real Siberia
Every Russian knows about the Siberian town of Tobolsk from the history books but very few visited the town. These days tourists choose other routes to the South and it’s rather far for foreigners: Tobolsk is not on Trans-Siberian route. However, this Siberian pearl does its best to attract different travelers and it’s worth coming in summer and in winter.
Tobolsk is 536km to the north-east of Yekaterinburg in Western Siberia. It is in Tyumenskaya Oblast, the neighboring region to Sverdlovskaya Oblast. So, in terms of Russian distances people in the Urals may say that it’s just around the corner. Tobolsk is very old compared to most of the Ural and Siberian cities. It was founded in 1587 on the place where the Tobol River flows into the Irtysh. Very soon Tobolsk became the center of political, economical and cultural life of Siberia.
The main place of attraction is a breathtaking white Kremlin in the upper town. I couldn’t stop taking photos of it:
The downtown is located down the hill on the river bank.
They say that Siberia gave Russia many prominent people and most of them were born in Tobolsk. The most known name in the world is chemist Dmitry Mendeleev, the inventor of the periodic table . Tobolsk also became the land of prisons and exile. Russian Tsars were deporting political prisoners to Tobolsk for centuries. A short excursion to the old cemetery will tell you more about it.
Of course, Russian exiled aristocracy changed the habits and lifestyle of Tobolsk. I was very much surprised to meet many teenagers in the local museum dressed as ladies and gentlemen of 19th century. They came to an annual ball arranged here on the eve of Christmas.
Ironically, the Bolsheviks decided to exile the last Russian tsar to Tobolsk as well. Nicolas II and his family had lived in Tobolsk from August 1917 till April 1918 before they were sent and murdered in Yekaterinburg
The house requisitioned as the Romanovs' detention place in Tobolsk
Study room of Nicolas II in Tobolsk
Tobolsk has always been a spiritual center of Russia. There are 16 churches in the town including a Catholic Church in downtown. You can also arrange a tour to Abalak monastery (30km from Tobolsk)
Outside the monastery there’s a lovely Abalak tourist center with a wooden hotel, bars, skating rinks and the home of Father Frost.
Find more about Abalak here: http://askural.com/2011/12/father-frost-in-abalak-siberia/
Tips for travelers: Most of the museums, cafes and souvenir shops are located in the Kremlin area. Tobolsk is famous for muksun – a type of fish that you can try in local eateries. Smoked fish is available at vendors’ right on the train platform.
The train station of Tobolsk is outside the town. There are several buses to take from the station, but if you are arriving early in the morning or late at night, it’s wise to order a transfer beforehand. The local travel agencies arrange transfers and tours but they don’t have English-speaking guides, so bring your own interpreter.
A woman is selling local fish at the train station
One day is pretty much enough for Tobolsk. There are several decent hotels in the city but I chose to arrive by train at 7.30 am and took a train back at 9pm. Thus you can sleep two nights in a train and spend a whole day in Tobolsk.
Getting to Abalak: by car: from Yekaterinburg take the road via Tymen to Tobolsk
by train: There are many trains bound for Tobolsk. I suggest taking train #310 from Yekaterinburg. This night train is convenient as it leaves Yekaterinburg at 22.16 and arrives at 8.28. A 10 hour sleep in a train will cost you 800-1500 roubles.
New Year 2012 in Yekaterinburg. Ice Town
A magnificent ice town appears in the Square of 1905 in Yekaterinburg every winter. This year the theme of the ice town is 200th Anniversary since the victory over Napoleon in Moscow.
Visitors will find themselves in the middle of Red Square with an icy Kremlin surrounded by the ice sculptures of Russian heroes and popular characters of Russian folk stories.
Click to the gallery to see the photos and welcome to the ice town! It’s in the centre of Yekaterinburg until mid. February to a great dismay of drivers who lost a parking place…C’mon guys, it’s time for a fairy tale!
Meet Russian Father Frost in Abalak, Western Siberia
Every Russian child knows that Father Frost (Ded Moroz) brings New Year presents. Most of us were very much disappointed in our childhood, when we found out that Father Frost was in fact your dad or a family friend. In 1990s when the borders were opened, Russian kids could go to Finland to meet Santa Clause in his residence in Lapland, but they got no clue where a tall red-nosed Father Frost with his beautiful granddaughter Snegurochka (their family relations are still arguable) come from.
The government of Moscow initiated building the official residence for Father Frost in 1998. The residence is in Veliky Ustyugin of Vologodosky Region (1568km from Yekaterinburg) has since become a popular destination for children from all over Russia during winter holidays. A four day trip for two persons by train will set you back from 15000 roubles to 25000 roubles. The official website http://www.dom-dm.ru is a big surprise as it has only an English version.
But let’s be realistic, a real Father Frost should be living somewhere amidst the snow of Siberia. It’s too warm in Veliky Ustyug and together with the Moscow government’s involvement the whole story sounds fishy even to a 7 year old.
Siberian Ded Moroz in Abalak
Another residence of Father Frost is set in Abalak near Tobolsk, western Siberia. Fortunately, it’s much closer to Yekaterinburg. The distance between Yekaterinburg and Tobolsk is 536 km. The Abalak tourist village is built in the Siberian style of wooden architecture in the area of Abalaksky Monastery. The wooden village tells the story of the first fortresses built by the Cossacks in the 16th century when they were conquering the Urals and Siberia.
Besides, Abalak is inhabited by the characters of Russian fairy tales. Baba Yaga, a witch, lives in Abalak in her chicken-legged cabin and treats guests to hot piroggi and bliny. Father Frost is greeting children there from 24 December to 8 January. Meanwhile Russian beauties in the White Owl tavern offer tasty Siberian dishes and drinks made of Siberian berries. Guests can also go sleighing, skiing or riding. Father Frost’s residence has a farm with horses, deer, cows, sheep and raccoons.
The website of Father Frost’s Siberian residence: http://www.abalak.su (in Russian)
The price list is modest (payment per person upon arrival)
Entrance - 50 roubles
Meeting Father Frost - 100 roubles
Lunch - 300 roubles
Sweet gift from Father Frost - 250 roubles
You can stay overnight in the hotel of Abalak with finely carved wooden furniture. A room for two persons costs 5000 roubles from Mon. to Thu. and 6000 roubles at weekends. Alternatively, there is Slavyanskaya Hotel in Tobolsk that will hit your wallet for 3000 roubles per person.
Getting to Abalak: From Yekaterinburg take the road via Tymen in the direction of Tobolsk. Before entering Tobolsk go down the bridge across the river Irtysh and turn to the right following the sign to the village of Probrazhenka and the village of Abalak.
There are many trains bound for Tobolsk. I suggest taking train #310. This night train is convenient as it leaves Yekaterinburg at 22.16 and arrives at 8.28. A 10 hour sleep in a train will cost you 800-1500 roubles. Note, that Tobolsk and Abalak are not on the Trans-Siberian route!
All photos by Alexey Kolmakov, courtesy of www.nashural.ru
Why drivers of Volga cars feel superior?
I noticed that unlike Russians foreigners like Russian cars, Volga in particular. So this post may be interesting for you!
This year Volga celebrates its 65th Anniversary. The owners of old Volgas in Yekaterinburg organized a rally and an exhibition of antique automobiles behind the Cosmos cinema last weekend.
The first Volga manufactured by GAZ was a symbol of higher status in the USSR. Very few people could afford it and those who could have chauffeurs. Usually they were people from the government or the KGBs.
The Soviet comedy film of 1966 ‘Beware of the Car’ (US title: Watch out for the Automobile) tells a story of a Soviet Robin Hood – a humble insurance agent who stole Volgas from crooks, sold them and transferred money to orphanages.
Later upgraded Volgas were used as taxi cabs and ambulances.
Today the drivers of Volga have a negative reputation on Russian roads. They are stereotyped as arrogant drivers who never yield to others. Probably, it is so as many Volga drivers are people over 50 and the feeling of superiority from the Soviet past stuck in their minds.
However, on the day of the rally all cars gave way to antique Volgas, honking in respect. GAZ-21 Volgas look really amazing on Russian roads. Happy Birthday, Volga!
Founders of Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg was born on 18, November 1723, the date when the iron factory on the river Iset started working. However, we celebrate the city’s birthday at 3d weekend of August because it’s warmer. There are two men who were responsible for where we live now – the city founders Vasily Tatishchev and Georg Wilhelm de Gennin, aka Beavis and Butthead as they were nicknamed by youngsters in 1998 when the monument to the founders was erected.
Tatishchev was a prominent Russian statesman and ethnographer. Tatischev was the one who drew the line between Europe and Asia and gave the world two international words derived from Mansi’s languages: mammoth and Ural. Before Tatishchev Russians hadn’t used a particular name for the mountains. The western part of the country was Moscovia and everything ‘behind the Rock’ was Siberia. Finally, Tatishchev found a place on the Iset River to build a dam for state ironworks. The dam is now called plotinka and the foundries are now museums in the historical centre of Yekaterinburg.
Plotinka
Successful people have never been much awarded in Russia. Tatishchev was unfairly accused of bribery and General de Gennin replaced him. De Gennin was a mining engineer from Germany (some resources state he was a Dutchman). Thanks to him we have a very organized town layout with streets running straight west-east or north-south making it impossible to get lost. 
De Gennin was somewhat idealistic – he was going to found an ideal city with clean streets, zero unemployment rates and, what seemed absolutely impossible, sober citizens. Surprisingly enough, his planned worked for a while at least for the only vodka shop in Yekaterinburg was opened once a week for a few morning hours.
Looking up at the monument to the city founders it’s always a question of ‘who is who?’ As the sculptor P.Chusovitin put it, the one who took off his hat in public is certainly Russian, as it is a Russian tradition to bare one’s head when greeting people.
Europe-Asia border. Is it worth it?
This post is for Don, Michael and many others who asked me if it’s worth going to the border between Europe and Asia and what you can see there, apart from the obelisk.
Honestly speaking, I’ve been there so many times that I take it for granted. But I haven’t seen yet a single tourist who regretted about going there. So, look at the pictures and decide yourself whether you want to go there or not...
Obelisk near the town of Pervouralsk (40km from Yekaterinburg)
The most interesting obelisk is near Pervouralsk (40 km from Yekaterinburg) on Beryozavaya gorka (birch hill). The obelisk was made in honour of Tsar Alaxander II who was traveling to Siberia in 1837. He stopped there and opened a bottle of wine. Since that we have a tradition to drink on the border – one glass in Europe and one in Asia.
The place attracts newly-weds as there is also a tree of wishes where couples hang their padlocks and make a wish sitting on a bench.
German couple under the tree made by local blacksmith Pastukhov. Similar tree grows in London
What to do: drink, make a wish under the tree, take photos of village people
Getting there from Yekaterinburg: by taxi (about 1.000R) or by bus or marshrutka (minivan) to Pervouralsk from bus stop Institut Svyazi on Repina street. Bus fare may vary from 20- to 40R Note: buses stop in different parts of Pervouralsk, so it’s wise to ask the driver how to get to the obelisk.
The simplest obelisk but closest to the city (17km from Yekaterinburg)
The most popular place on the border is 17 km from Yekaterinburg one NovoMoskovski trakt.
What to do: continue drinking, buy souvenirs, tie a ribbon on a tree to make a statement that you’ve been there, take a photo of yourself clad as Tsar or Tsaritsa.
Getting there: by car or taxi for about 500R from the city centre
Of course there are many more marks all along the Ural Mountains:
Happy Cosmonauts Day!
Yekaterinburg is celebrating 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight into outer space. On April, 12th at 12 there were 12 salvos of paper rockets in the historical center by the dam.
Among 108 Russian cosmonauts there was only one from the Urals – Vitaly Sevastyanov. But probably one of those children will travel to space in the future too!
- Let's not forget that the first travellers into space were two Russian dogs Belka and Strelka!
There were former pilots and all types of aliens at the fest:
... and dancing girls from the police academy.
Who said that Russian policemen are rude and angry?
The highlight of the fest - a gallery of children's paintings about life in outter space
Cave diving in the Urals
I’ve been living in the Urals for 31 years but the region keeps on surprising me. The recent revelation was diving in the Urals. As you might guess, Russia is not a diving country. There is Lake Baikal, of course, and the Black Sea, but do you know any other diving places? It turned out the Ural Mountains are a mecca for divers and they come here from all over the world. It is an ideal place for ice diving, free diving and cave diving – a dream for every pro diver. My new friends from DiveXpert Club based in Yekaterinburg opened a whole new world to me and I’d like to thank them once again for the information and amazing photos of the Orda Cave – an absolute gem of the Urals.
If you are interested in diving and are looking for something unique – the Orda Cave is the place to explore. It’s near the village of Orda in the Perm Region, on the left bank of Kungur river. Orda is . It was formed about 500.000 years ago. The water is incredibly clear and it is cold (the water temperature is +4). Divers call the cave ‘a white bride’ as the walls of the passages are white due to gypsum rocks formed about 200 million years ago. There was a sea at that time. Currently the length of the explored underwater passages is 4850 meters. New small passages and grottoes are discovered in the cave every month.
Russian divers started to explore the cave in 1990ies. Those days they were not very well equipped and the exploration was a dangerous challenge. Now the Ural divers are members of a GUE (Global Underwater Explorers) team. Cave courses are provided all year long and the village of Orda has a necessary infrastructure for tourists. Andrey Dmitirev from Yekaterinburg is now one of 75 Trimix instructors in the world and the only one in the Urals has been exploring the Orda Cave for many years. Last year the underwater photographer Victor Lyagushkin together with Andrey and other world leading cave divers launched a project: Orda Cave, Awareness. It is a book about the cave with more than 100 unique underwater photographs.
Some of the photos you can see here courtesy of DiveXpert Club, Andrey Dmitriev, Victor Lyagushkin and Dmitri Osipov.
Happy New Year, part II. Old Style Celebration in Nizhni Tagil
New Year celebration in Russia does not stop until mid. January. The party is not over yet for there is Staryi Novyi God (Old New Year) to be celebrated on January 13-14. A strange word combination doesn’t seem meaningless to the Russians at all. While Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on January 7, it’s only logical that New Year comes a week after. And it used to be so until 1918 according to the Julian calendar. After the revolution of 1917 the Bolsheviks replaced it with the New Style Gregorian calendar used in the western countries by shifting 14 days backwards. Russian Orthodox Church, however, decided to stick to the roots and still live in the Old Style. Hence, Christmas and New Year are celebrated in January.
Old New Year is not a national holiday in Russia, thanks God! The official 10 day holiday in January is already much too much. New Year in Old Style is just a good excuse for TV channels to repeat their New Year shows. It’s also a good chance to eat up the leftovers of the Christmas party and hit the last bottle and to ease the post holiday shock. Of course, in some cases instead of easing the shock one can end up in rehab.
You can celebrate Old New Year in the main square of any Russian city – the party ambience with a Christmas tree is still there. I took pictures in the Theater Square of Nizhni Tagil for you. It is the second largest city in the Mid. Urals. With dressed up horses and a drunk accordion player, this New Year fair looks very much Old Style!
Christmas in Church on the Blood
January 7 is a Christmas Day in Orthodox Russia. The main celebrations in Yekaterinburg are held in and around Church on Blood in Honor of Tsar Martyr Saints' murder. Every year the best Russian ice sculptors come to create breathtaking symbols of Christmas and Mother Russia's saints all made of ice.
Tsar Martyr Saints
This year the most prominent sculpture is no doubt the ice icon of the Romanovs family with young Tsarevich Alexey in front. Wish you all Merry Christmas!
Here are some more pictures, Iv'e taken today:
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About the Project
AskUral.com is the blog dedicated to my lovely region known as the Urals or the Ural Mountains in Russia.
My name is Luba Suslyakova. I am based in Yekaterinburg (Russia), and I would love to share useful information about my area as much as possible and be your travel adviser.
Just keep asking me via the contact form and I will come back to you with answers!