Trans Siberian Railway - Places we passed through

On the Trans Siberian Railway you pass through some towns where history was made. Some of it less internationally known but others will be incidents that we all know about.

Charlie and Michelle  gave us a book on the Trans Siberian Railway which has become the bible for this part of the trip because it gives details of the places we are passing through. Some of them are worth recording.

From the beginning of the trip

During the first night we passed through Nizhny Novogorod.  The name of this town was changed in Soviet times to Gorky after the write Maxim Gorky who was born there. The Soviets also closed the town for foreigners and the dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov was exiled here

Next was Perm which was used by Chekhov as the town from which his "Three Sisters" were desperate to leave and is similar to the town where Boris Pasternak sent Dr Zhivago

Yekaterinburg is where the Bolsheviks murdered Tsar Nicholas II and his family in July 1918

It is not lost on me that this place that Grandpa passed through in different times should subsequently become a place that has gone down in history for such a terrible and historic reason

By the time we got to Novosibirsk we had crossed the River Ob. The Bridge that Grandpa crossed is a 7 span bridge built in 1898 and which won a gold medal in the 1900 Paris Expo along with the Eiffel Tower.  We could see it clearly as there is a new bridge now alongside it so pictures were possible.

Irkutsk where we got off the Trans Siberian is the capital of Eastern Siberia and now we have travelled 5181 kms, by my reckoning over 3000 miles. It is known as the Paris of Siberia and it was from here that trade in Siberian furs and ivory to Mongolia, Tibet and China outwards and tea and silk inwards was centred

We have come so far and are only just starting the second week of our seven week trip.  It is awe inspiring to be here on the shores of Lake Baikal and to see such a beautiful place that is so far from anywhere let alone home.

To think that Grandpa did it too makes me feel very emotional and very glad we came