A nice week-end in Tomsk

In a sudden change of mind, I decided to spend the week end in Tomsk with friends. Tomsk is a city located at about 250km North of Novosibirsk. If you happened to like Jules Verne, then the name of Tomsk should have rung a bell to you. This is the city where Jules had the bad guys (the Tatars) burning the eyes of Michel Strogoff, who was being accused of being a Russian spy (a Russian spy... how original. come on, Tatars, you can be more creative than that. And, don't you think Michel is a terrible first name for a Russian spy?) Anyway, I don’t mean to ruin the story if you haven’t read it, but it turns out that the Tatars did not burn the eyes of Michel well enough, and Michel Strogoff recovers his sight a few pages later. This being said, I don’t know if Michel had time to have a peek at the city before being caught: it is a very beautiful city actually. Lots of students, lots of historical buildings and museums, and a beautiful university campus. Have a look at the pictures I posted… Also, the monument in the honor of the soldiers who fell during WW2 is impressive and commands respect. The whole city clashes with the idea that I had so far about Siberian cities and their massive square buildings. And I did not see any sign of the lake used for storing nuclear waste near the city, which is mentioned in my guidebook. Probably some ecologist propaganda again…

So what did we do in Tomsk? We walked all day, stopped for coffees here and there, enjoyed the nice weather, and then we switched to beer at around 8pm, and went to a Tomskian club. Can't do that in any city, can you?