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Tallinn – City of Knights
The valliant knights of the Teutonic Order were in charge in Reval (as the town was called in those days) for hundreds of years throughout the middle ages. The city flourished as part of the Hansa and the whole city center is a gem of Unesco world heritage quality. Today, the knights are brave, but […]
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St. Petersburg to Tallinn – 10106 km
The bus from St. Petersburg to Tallinn was a 7 hour pleasure ride. The bus was called “LUX express” and had free coffee, hot chocolate and wifi (which didn’t always work 🙁 ). We had to wait first XV minutes to go through the passport control, then at least one hour at the customs because […]
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Colours make us happy / Kleuren maken ons blij (met Heppie)
Good morning! Goedemorgen! When we arrived in Irkutsk, the first big city in Siberia, the Russian Federation, these flags where hanging in the street. Toen we in Irkutsk aankwamen, hingen deze kleurige vlaggetjes op straat. Both in Mongolia (especially inside the Gers, the nomadic tents, and in the clothing) and in the Russian […]
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Laser-beam
Before we came to St. Petersburg we watched a movie about St. Petersburg. In the movie we saw a laser-beam in-front of the main church, but when we came there for real there was no laser-beam 🙁 . (Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEooD5xiLMo, at 4:27 to 4:43, approx.) Does anybody know why?????? If you do, […]
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Morozhenoye – our favourite word in Russian
Almost as special as vodka is the Russian ice-cream – morozhenoye. Not only is it enjoyed in the middle of the winter, but it is distributed and enjoyed everywhere. On every train platform we stopped at, in every park, there was a babushka selling ice cream. Some good, some excellent. (And some molten and falling […]
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Hang – a mesmerizing music instrument
Today in a park in St. Petersburg, we heard for the first time ever the musical instrument Hang. It was very beautifully played by Sergei K. and we got a copy of his first CD. It is a very interesting instrument, developed just in the last fifteen years in Switzerland. If you know someone who […]
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Train to St.Petersburg – 9743 km
The train to St. Petersburg signals that we come to a part of the world where there is serious money. This ultramodern Siemens train zooms along beautiful tracks all the 700km to St.Petersburg in just a few hours. Here it is called Sapsan, but it is more or less the same as the German ICE-3 […]
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Marx, Engels and Lenin – the Soviet holy trinity
The Soviet holy trinity is still present in the cityscape of every Russian city we visit. Both in statue form and in road names. Most of Lenin, quite a few Marx and some Engels here and there. In the 90’s, in the Yeltsin times, there was a lot of shame for the Soviet […]
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The Church in Russia
The Church in Russia is coming back with a vengeance. After 70 years of oppression during the Soviet times, the Russian Orthodox Church is back in full force. Everyone we have met so far say that he/she believes, and some are regulars on the service. Some observers abroad who are worried about the strong ties […]
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Moscow, Goran’s old neighbourhood
We had a whole day of walking around the neighbourhood where I used to live in the boom years of 1996-97. It was before the stock crash of 1998 and the private economy was booming. The government was short on cash, but business were thriving and growing like crazy. Now the whole town has risen […]
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Train to Moscow (4 nights) – 9093 km
The train ride from Irkutsk to Moscow (more than 5000 km) was the longest leg on our journey. Four nights and three days in the train across the Siberian plains, the Ural mountains and the Volga-land to the capital. We had sun and rain and more sunshine, as the forests and villages swooshed by. Our […]
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Irkutsk – Walking around Town
Irkutsk is a pleasant town, especially in the center. Very walkable and plenty of cafés, beautiful old wooden houses and renovated 19’th century classical buildings. It was founded in the 1700s, when Russia expanded eastwards at an amazing pace, conquering kingdoms and khan-doms. During the 1800s, it was filled up through deportation. Hundreds of thousands […]
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The Russian Banya (баня)
The Russian баня (banya) is like a sauna but you get to hit each other with birch branches. It can be over 80ºC hot on the top but the lower you get the colder it is. We went to a баня in a local family’s house. They were selling smoked fish to eat in the […]
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Baikal – the Pearl of Sibiria
The Baikal Lake is enormous. It contains 1/5th of all liquid fresh water on the planet and is more than 1500m deep. It is a geological rift valley, where the Earth crust is pulling apart, and it is still widening with a centimeter or so per year. It is also magical. In the myths of […]
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Into Sibiria – Train to Irkutsk – 3901 km
Night train into Sibiria. A romantic train ride over the mountains in northern Mongolia and onto the Sibirian lowlands. We set off in the evening and spent almost 36 hours on the road. However, at least six hours was waiting time at the border crossing. First three hours at the Mongolian side, then another three […]
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Khostai National Park – Przewalski Paradise
The Takhi horse, often called Przewalski after the first European to document this animal, is the original horse – like the wolf is the original dog. Over 5000 years ago people in Central Asia tamed the Takhi and over the generations it was transformed into the horse as we know it today. Thousands of takhi […]
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China – het perfecte middelpunt!
Vanuit China kan je naar heel veel landen in Azie. Dat is heel handig als je wil reizen. Een paar van die landen zijn Viëtnam, Nepal, Indië, Bhutan, Mongolie, Khazakstan en Rusland. Er zijn er best veel meer. Ik ben al geweest in Rusland, Mongolie, Viëtnam, Japan, Thailand, De Filipeinen en Laos. Daarom is China […]
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Mongolia – Nomad Country
Mongolia is huge. Similar to the size of West Europe, and the population is only three million people (of which most live in Ulaan Baatar). I think that the main reason for the low population density is the difficulty in growing food. Large parts of the country is desert or semidesert. The rainfall is low […]
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Inefficient but Fair – Empty Wagons over the Border
Sometimes, there is a tension between the values of fairness vs. efficiency. It seems like we hit into one of these on the ride into Mongolia. The 16 wagon train was almost empty. According to our wagon attendant, less than 30 passengers. This is supposedly typical for this season. The train is full in July, […]
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Mag ik je voorstellen: Heppie
Hallo allemaal, dit is Heppie, de giraf. Hij is met ons mee op reis. Hier zie je hem met de Olympische Fakkel. In 2008 waren de Olympische Spelen in Beijing, de hoofdstad van China. Heppie zal je regelmatig meer vertellen over wat we allemaal meemaken. Met zijn lange nek kan hij lekker veel zien. Veel […]