Town of ice on the Ob Embankment in Novosibirsk

This winter the embankment of the Ob river in Novosibirsk invites everyone to the 'town' of ice. This beautiful tradition has existed for I don't know how many years already, and snow and ice architects do their best to surprise people. This time they've beaten all their previous masterpieces, having created something like a miniature St.Petersburg, this year's theme.
I didn't manage to visit the 'town' the two previous winters, it was extremely cold, and I don't remember very well the themes of the winters I did manage to go there, but there is always a certain theme.
 It is huge work, with all the amount of ice needed to build the figures, so the entrance should be paid. This year it is 150 rubles per person (children under 7 are granted free access). Besides, if you leave the territory to get something from your car, for example, you have to buy a new ticket. Not very cheap, especially if you go with your whole family, but definitely worth the money.

More ice and snow decorations in Novosibirsk

The 1st of January is a perfect day for a city walk. Few people, nearly empty streets, plus perfect weather this time.
We went for a nice walk, visited several parks and took more photos of ice and snow decorations. It is about -8 C now, and after several previous years it is nature's gorgeous present. One can be out nearly all day long, and this is what we are going to do the next days as well.
 And now more snow and ice figures

 

Snow and ice decorations in Siberia in 2011-2012. The first out of many posts

Hello, everyone! First of all, I would like to wish all of you Happy New Year!
I was pretty busy these days, and not only was it business, but a lot of hectic with New Year preparations and celebrations.
We have already started celebrating with my children, both of them had a party at their kindergarten, and today we visited a public party for children in a big concert hall.
It was wonderful! All of us were really happy.
And after that we started visiting ice and snow 'towns', as we call them here. They are usually situated in parks, on squares and in yards of big houses.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Dear readers! I know it's been again a long time since I last wrote. The end of a year is usually a pretty busy time, seems like everyone is trying to complete all the tasks one hasn't managed to fulfill during a year.
So I had a lot of translation, and it is mostly translation I do in winter. No guided tours since October. But I hope the Christmas week may be different. A year ago, for example, I had two city tours, on the 3rd and on the 7th of January, though it was about -30 on both days!

But this post is a Merry Christmas wish to everyone who happens to read my blog. I am very happy to see each of you here, as I see that I tend to have more readers and this year was special, as I started to receive comments to my posts. I would like to wish all of you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
May God bless you, your family and your friends!
May your business, should you have some, grow, and may all your dreams come true!

I promise to write a post about this year winter decorations in my city. A lot of snow and ice figures are under construction now, and I try to take my camera with me every time I leave my house.

Museum of Nikolas Roerich in Novosibirsk and Verkhniy Uymon, Altai

Nicholas Roerich, also known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh (Russian: Никола́й Константи́нович Рéрих; October 9 1874 – December 13, 1947), was a Russian mystic, painter, philosopher, scientist, writer, traveler, and public figure.
I love his paintings very much. His style is unique and recognizable, it's impossible to mix him up with someone else. As to his philosophy, I hadn't been interested in it much until recently. Perhaps it's my 'middle age' crisis, or I just reached the age when one starts some spiritual search for the meaning of this life, or mere coincidence, but somehow I feel that Roerich's philosophy and view of life is close to me. I haven't read any of his literary works yet, and I haven't read any of the works of his wife, Elena Roerich, but I'm definitely going to. Their philosophy is not completely Christian, and many true Christians say that the Roerichs were even opposed to Christianity, but to my mind its basic principles coincide with Christianity and all other common religions, as it is based on the principles of love and peace.
I don't want to dwell on the philosophy much, as I'm not an expert in it.

Who visits Novosibirsk?

There will be no pictures in this post, but I hope my readers will find it interesting.
The tourist season is over now, and I expect very few tourists in winter. I guided only three tours the previous winter, and it was luck, because many colleagues didn't have any at all.
But the season 2011 was very good for me, so I'd like to summarize it, analyze it and make some forecast for the next season.
My friends and family often ask me if I am honest to say that I have a lot of work with tourists. They cannot believe that Novosibirsk may be attractive for guests. I am convinced, however, that the number of tourists will be increasing, and the last summer can confirm it.
So, who visits Novosibirsk, where are these people from and why they come to the city?

Shinok Waterfalls

I was thinking about visiting Shinok waterfalls for a long time, but I read that it is not so easy to reach the waterfalls, as the path was not a simple one and it could be difficult with kids. Many stories about a hike there were written by travelers with kids and I thought it would be reasonable to wait a little for my sons to be older. But this summer  I thought we could at least try to do it, and after a hike to Multa lakes I got rid of my fears, so we did it!

Interesting places in Novosibirsk Region. Rocks on the Berd (Berdskiye Skaly)

Golden autumn is still with us, and the weather is so wonderful that one just cannot stay at home. My passion for travels captivated me again and the last weekend my husband, my sons and me were out most of the time exploring the surroundings of our city and enjoying the sun, the golden scenery and ourselves.
On Saturday, September 16, we were sunbathing and even swimming on one of the beaches of the town Berdsk, which is only 4 km away from Novosibirsk. The river Berd flows into the Ob there forming quite a big gulf.

Golden Autumn in Siberia

I've had pretty much interpreting and tour guiding work this week, but I just cant' help writing this blogpost about the beauty around me these days.
Now, when September has reached its middle point, it's golden Autumn here and this expression is no exaggeration. There's gold everywhere, in all city parks, streets, all around me in Novosibirsk and outside.
I can't say that autumn is my favourite season, I don't have any favourite season so far, but this period is definitely the brightest and among one of the most picturesque and beautiful ones.
The weather has been perfect the whole week, about 15 degrees in the daytime, but the sun was as warm and bright as in the middle of the summer, so one could see girls in light dresses and men in T-shirts all around.
Now when I'm looking at it, I can say that the middle of September is the right time to visit Novosibirsk and other areas in Siberia with all these trees dressed in yellow, red and still green.

Altai. Multa (Multinskiye) Lakes

This summer we went to Altai Mountains again. I can never get bored of Altai, it's a fascinating, fantastic, wonderful region with so many attractions, that one can spend a life and don't see them all.

I was dreaming about visiting Multa Lakes for many years. The lakes are located in Ust-Koksa district of Altai Republic. This district is a near-border area, and one has to obtain a permit to enter it. This is not difficult at all, and takes only about an hour, but if you are a non-Russian citizen, you have to apply for the permit in about two months.

I didn't manage to visit the lakes in my youth, and it's still difficult for me, as my kids are not big enough to go on a many-days hiking tour. But fortunately, one doesn't have to make a long hiking tour to get there, it's possible to drive there, though not by every car. Not even all off-road cars can get there. The most typical vehicle delivering lazy tourists is of this kind:

Interesting places in Novosibirsk Region. Iskitim marble pit

Though the summer has been busy for me, I could always find some time for a small travel.
I've lived in Novosibirsk all my life, but I never knew there are so many interesting places there. It just never occurred to me to start exploring them earlier, but now when I'm a tour guide and eager to show my tourists the most curious and interesting places in my city and around it, I feel I just have to go and see them myself first.

A deserted marble pit by the town of Iskitim, which is about 50 km away from Novosibirsk, is one of the most amazing places I have ever seen.

A phenomenon of Russian datcha

A datcha is something all Russians know. Some hate it, some love it, some don't have it, but everyone has at least some experience with it. Mine is positive.
A datcha is a country house with a vegetable garden (for those who don't know), and what distinguishes it is that for many Russians it's a good additional income in the natural form. For some people in money form too, as many elderly ladies, suffering from low pensions and wishing to do something about it, sell many things they grow there, like cucumbers, tomatoes, peas, potatoes, raspberries, strawberries and a lot more.
For me and for my while family is much more than that, though having our own ecologically clean fruit, berries and vegetables alone is something, which makes all those troubles worth it.
For us datcha is also an opportunity to be in open air, at a distance from the city, and it's just a priceless opportunity for children to be in the nature the whole day, to go around bare-foot, to eat healthy things, to swin in the river and to enjoy themselves.
What is more, our datcha is on an island. The island is pretty big, and people started to build datchas there about 50 years ago. Our datcha was built by my granddad, and it's the best memory we have of him.
You can come to the island by boat only. Now many have modern boats with high-capacity motors, but many still have something like that:

Interesting places in Novosibirsk Region. Bolotnoye and Turnayevo villages

Today I was looking through new threads at Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forum and again I came across an opinion that Novosibirsk and Novosibirsk Region are in a total lack of any interesting sights.
This is not true, of course, as people have inhabited this region for hundreds and even thousand of years, and a region with such a long history just cannot be that uninteresting. But it is true that you have to do some kind of work to find these interesting places here.
The first thing I recommend is to buy a guidebook. I did this some time ago and I was surprised to read about all these sights, both of natural and human origin.
I am lucky to have a husband and children who don't mind going on sightseeing tours, even if these tours involve somewhat long and tiresome driving.

On the way to Tomskaya Pisanitsa (http://mytravelog.blogspot.com/2011/05/tomskaya-pisanitsa.html)
we decided to have a look at Bolotnoye settlement and a wooden church in Turnayevo village built in the end of the 19th century in the style of the famous churches in Kizhi.

Bolotnoye, situated somewhat 150 km to the north-east of Novosibirsk, turned out to be quite a big settlement with a couple of wooden buildings built in the end of the 19th - the beginning of the 20th century. I didn't take any pictures of them as there are quite a number of such houses in Novosibirsk.
The nature around Bolotnoye is very nice. We were there in the beginning of May, but now in June it should be even more beautiful.

 

 Turnaevo is located 12 km away from Bolotnoye, and I expected the road to be very bad, as the guidebook says there are only 60 houses in the village left. But I was wrong and the road was surprisingly good. When we arrived to the village, we thought that the village didn't look as deserted and poor as the guidebook says. And it definitely has more than 60 houses. Of course, the village is not prosperous and there are lots of destroyed houses and administrative buildings, but we expected it to be much worse.

The church is amazing. Again, the guidebook was wrong saying that it is nearly destroyed and no one takes care of it. The guidebook was released in 2005 and the situation changed a lot since then. The church does look nice and  taken good care of. The priest's house in front of it looks even better and richer. The churchyard is clean and it is evident that the village does want to care about its heritage.

And we liked the scenery around the village even more than the church. This place could be the right one for a small camping or something like that, with the church as the main attraction.

I do hope that more visitors will wish to see this place, it is definitely worth it.

Tomskaya Pisanitsa

Recently I have discovered one more attraction not far from Novosibirsk, which is definitely worth  visiting and spending the whole day there. I read about it some time ago, but it was only a week ago when we made the tour. Now I include this tour into the program I offer and recommend to my tourists and to all visitors of Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Kemerovo.

Bald peaks of Bugotak (Bugotakskie sopki)

Recently I've received an inquiry from a potential client, who is going to go on a sightseeing tour of Novosibirsk and who wishes to see the bald peaks of Bugotak after that. Though they are only 70 km away from the city, I never visited them as a destination and never had a chance to explore them in detail. So I didn't think long, and the last weekend I told my family we were going to see the bald peaks and maybe to have a small hike.