Novosibirsk, the unofficial capitol of Siberia welcomed us coldly. Literally. Temperature – 7 Celsius, humidity – 93%. It’s that kind of cold that penetrates you to the bones. However, we didn’t feel it at the beginning, as carrying all the luggage on our backs warmed us well, but evening showed us not to underestimate Siberia.
Small difference from hot Warsaw.

The city itself, at the beginning looks exactly as you may imagine: like huge Soviet city of concrete. Over a million of inhabitants, plenty of vast spaces, few people on the street, main square and sculpture commemorate Vladimir Ilyich,

but it’s only a first impression, a sham. After a bit of time you feel much more familiar with the city.
This feeling I got right after we entered the subway. It was totally incomprehensible, I didn’t know why. I needed some time to figure it out. And suddenly – eureka! It’s the carriage! The metro ones! The same as we have in Warsaw, old, produced in Soviet Union, received as gift from the brother nation. Different painting, different seats’ placement but they are the same! You hold the bars in the same place, it smells the same, same plunks, same shakes, like at home!

The metro stations, comparing to the Moscow ones look really poor. I got this conclusion that in the capitol they build it in a Russian way, with taste and splendour, like from before the revolution; stations here are Soviet, ordinary and sad.

We stayed in Novosibirsk for 12 hours only: to get a decent shower, to charge the batteries and do the small sightseeing.
We were helped by kind Tatiana, a girl from here. She went off the work, picked us from the train station, transferred to her place, left the keys, came back to work and at 6 PM, as soon, as she finished her work she took us to show the city.
Just a simple, Siberian hospitality.

Weather there is very fickle. One day you can have 20 degrees with a lot of sun, the next day you may have 5 degrees and a cold rain. Summer sometimes appear there, September looks like November in Poland and during the winter noone is surprised with -20.
Wandering around the city I realized again how much I hate the late-autumn aura. High humidity, constant drizzle, low temperature going under every inch of unzipped wear, make me feeling depressive.
I got cold to the bone and even the best solyanka and blines didn’t help; I felt better only when we entered the warm and bright place.

And, what almost became a tradition, we farewelled with the city running. I mean the city farewelled with us with closed metro station, long queue on another, then, with a labyrinth instead of a straight path to the platform at the vokzal. As result, we reached the train a few minutes before its departure, totally breathless and dishevelled, temporarily not giving a shit to the outside temperature.
Luckily, the conductors are nice and kind, in contrary to provodnitsa from the previous train

The whole day, tiredness and cold caused that one beer put me to sleep for over 10 hours! I woke up before Krasnoyark, only 1000 km from Novosibirsk!

Nothing changed there. It’s still raining, maybe one or two degrees warmer.
Below you can see the platform and some local folklore. Mister on the right side of the picture is absolute hardcore for me, it’s around 10 degrees there.

Yenisey from the train.

In the meantime, in the trainlife runs a bit slower. Everyone has plenty of free time and organizes it on one’s own way.

But wait! We have a huge change outside the window! Still, a lot of birches, but more hills appear, we have curves as well. And, what’s the most awesome, with the sunshine you can see the real beauty of Siberian taiga! A kaleidoscope of colours! Red, brown, orange, yellow, amber, green, this is what I expected from this ride!
Generally, my impression is that Novosibirsk divides two different countries. Only language stays the same.

We have 12 hours to Irkutsk.

P.S. Update 4. Internet ne rabotayet. It turned out that even at carrier’s sales room you can get a cheater. When buying the SIM card I asked the guy 5 times whether it works in whole Russia, including Irkutsk and Vladivostok and he confirmed it 5 times. I guess, these cities lie near Moscow for him and Russian Far East is a different country, as the SIM card will not work there.
So, no Internet until Baikal.
Wot bandit.