Vladivostok - Moscow (May 17 - June 2, 2016)
Vladivostok to Moscow. --- Trans-Siberian Railway Trip, May 17 to June 2, 2016
Our journey started from Vladivostok. Yul Brynner who stared in The King and I was born here; His statue is in front of the house he was born.
The second stop was Irkutsk. The city's old quarter reminded me the scenes from the movie Doctor Zhivago with it's traditional wooden houses and the old trams. As an admirer of the Decembrists and their women, we visited Volkonsky and Trubestskoy's houses. One could tell the owners lived rather extravagant life during their time in the houses. White Army Admiral Alexander Kolchak's statue stands in front of Znamensky Monastery, at the spot he was executed. The monastery also has tomb of Grigory Shelekhov, who claimed Alaska for Russia, and that of the Decembrist wife Ekaterina Trubetskaya.
From Irkutsk, we reached to Lake Baikal via Listvyanka; The amazing beauty of this Lake has to be seen to believe!
Moving on from Irkutsk, the train stopped at Novosibirsk for about 50 minutes, just enough time to taxi to the city center to see the dramatic Lenin statue with flowing cloak.
The industrial city Yekaterinburg is famous for the Cathedral on the Blood, which was built at the location the last Tsar and his family were murdered. We took a local train and then walked for about 40 minutes, along a beautiful, primeval forest, to get to Ganina Yama, visiting the site the bodies of the Romanov family were secretly disposed of originally.
Next, we stopped at Kazan. Ivan the Terrible conquered the Tatars' capital in 1552. Russia's icon, the St. Basil's Cathedral of Moscow was built to commemorate the capture of Kazan. Like Yekaterinburg, Kazan is a financially well to do city compared with other places we visited along the route.
Another over night train took us to Nizhny Novgorod, which was the first of the six golden ring cities we visited during the trip: Nizhny Novgorod, Vladmir, Suzdal, Rostov-Velikiy, Sergiev Posad and Yaroslavl. Rostov-Velikiy is my favorite. It has an unparalleled view of the Kremlin from lake Nero. We also witnessed a Sunday church parade and a Mass in Rostov. Suzdal stands out as an unspoiled village town. Nizhny and Yaroslavl are actually very large cities, their top attractions are the peaceful and scenic river sides. Vladmire and Sergiev Posad both have some most photogenic scenes.
We saved Moscow for the last. Indeed, Moscow proves to be worthy of the capital of Russia! There are simply too many fascinating things to see! The metro is handy, on top of the fact itself is a bona-fide museum.
We visited many Orthodox churches during the trip. Many have magnificent interior. The choral music were serene, peaceful and simply amazing!
The monuments in the country are many. Don't miss Victory park, and all-Russia exhibition center, both of Moscow. The monuments in these two locations are just awe inspiring!
We took the west bound trains for the journey. The east bound direction is more popular with leisure travelers. We had to change trains in each location mentioned above except Novosibirsk. Long distance tickets were either purchased ahead of time ( or at the time of travel in the station. Mid to late May is the shoulder season, it's relatively easy to get train tickets. Local train tickets were easily bought on site.
Train station in big cities usually has resting room with single/double/dorm types and clean linen, charged by the hour. We stayed in such a resting room in Irkutsk as we got there in the early morning. The room was clean, quite and rather spacious.
In May of 2009, I visited Saint Petersburg. Please see the video for the visit:
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