Vast expanses of Ukok Plateau, Altai Republic

Altai mountains, 2012

Almost a year has passed since we went to Altai. It’s a wonderful place with its own atmosphere where you are surrounded only by nature: great mountains, beautiful fields, clouds… It’s impossible to describe all the emotions after visiting this place.
If you visit Russia, and especially Siberia – I recommend that you see this place with your own eyes :)

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Biking in the forest

Biking

Have I already mentioned that we like biking? Yes, we do!
Unfortunately, most of the Russian cities don’t have any special bicycle routs that’s why people ride their bikes near the right edge of the roadway or on sidewalks.

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Novosibirsk roof views: NSTU dormitories and Karl Marks avenue

Novosibirsk roof views

Recently (about 10 years ago) relatively high buildings began to appear in our city. I say “relatively”, because in other countries one may see higher buildings. Here, in Novosibirsk, a 25-storey house is cosidered to be really high in comparison with ordinary 5-, 10-storey ones.

I like roofs of such buildings, here you may see the city spread out behind you.

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Berd rocks view, the Novosibirsk area

Weekend ideas

Summer has come and it means that people prefer to spend time outdoors.

The most popular places are free beaches where people lie like seals and there isn’t  enough room to swing a cat. Or the nearest forests where people all together make a fire, prepare shashlyk and listen loud music. Just imagine: 1000 squared metres (for examples), a great number of people (not enough space for everyone), but everyone considers it’s his duty to turn on his favorite music and make it louder. Usually after eating,  people dump garbage in the same place.

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The center of Siberia

Slight digression: Novosibirsk — the city I live in — is considered to be “the center of Siberia”, because it’s the biggest and the most populous city in Siberian region; besides it’s a transport, industrial and trade center of federal importance. As you may see, there is no bears in the street and people playing balalayka ;)

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Driveways

Have you ever heard about poor road quality in Russia? Here is an example to understand the size of this problem.

I was taking a walk when I noticed THIS! The other holes in driveways that I saw in all my born days were … eh… a bit smaller ;)

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Where do we live?

The information below concerns mostly young people because when my parents were young, people in Russia could get an apartment for free.

Eh… I said “for free”? No, it was joke. People worked hard for the same company 5-10-15 years to get an apartment. It was ok. The situation changed when the USSR fell into pieces.

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