On Loooove boaaaat… Na na na na na na na na na

This Friday, after a tiring week at work we decided to do boat tour on the river Ob. The goal was simply to enjoy the river in its liquid state while it lasts. I was not expecting the tour to be so nice: what a beautiful and inspiring moment… almost spiritual. The light was almost perfect (I hardly had to warmify the pictures to give them this yellow light), and the boat was slightly too fast for the mosquitoes and horseflies to keep up with us… perfect. It felt like on the Love Boat TV series, which the not so young among you must remember…. I was expecting to see the doc, Gopher or the captain’s red hair daughter to show up at any time. The boat went upstream to a tiny island with a name I don’t remember (Ob Island HV554 or something like that) and the cool kids left the boat to spend the night on the island. I could have spent the night out too, no question about that, but I had this 5000-piece puzzle of a DNA molecule at home which I really wanted to complete.

I am posting a few pictures of the trip below. You will see the sunset by the longest bridge of Siberia (still, just long enough to connect both ends of the river), some guys fishing, a nice picture of a power plant shining in the sunlight... All that within a 60 minute boat ride.

Scenes of the Volga

I had the chance to spend a magnificent week end by the beautiful river "Volga", in the city of Kostromo. It is about 250km from Moscow. Why would I go all the way there while I have the beautiful river "Ob" right by my place? Well, look at the shots below. How could I resist? I enjoyed the many opportunities the city can offer:


Enjoy the beautiful beach, only minutes from the highway.

Relax or challenge yourself with all sorts of activities, also minutes only from the highway.













Discover the local fauna (minutes from the highway).













Finally, the town center and its highlights.













Now, being serious for a second: I had a splendid week-end there. The long evenings on the banks, with seagulls warming their butts on the lamps, and the charms of the city made it really nice. I am ready to go back there in a second.

A peaceful Saturday eve

I am back in Novosibirsk after a short trip in the UK... Good time there by the way, but out of he scope of my blog. You'll have to contact me directly to know how I spent my time in the Highlands of Scotland and know about my time in Wimbledon and Cambridge.
So for my second day back in the city, I decided to spend the evening in Novosibirsk on Saturday, just wandering around in the parks and enjoying the calm and relaxing atmosphere of a late summer evening. So I went and I walked around Lenine's square, in the very same parks where they have the snow sculptures during the winter, and watched for random things. This was a pleasant moment, as the temperature is very nice and people enjoy being outside and socializing in the parks. (Myself, I am not really socializing much yet, as my conversation is very limited, but I tried to be in harmony with the overall atmosphere by walking slowly and smiling. I hope the locals appreciate the effort.). The pictures below are random shots around Lenine square: the parks, the opera, the three lads and some more bear pictures.



And finally, this little show from our local Central Park, right in the heart of the city. Far from Manhattan, but the similarities are striking, aren't they?

Congrats to Russia!

Last night, Russia won 3-1 against Holland, the same team that won 4-1 against France. The nerdiest among you will reckon that if Chasles's relationship applies as in the vectorial world, that means that Russia virtually won 7-2 against France... And this happens only weeks after Russia won the Eurovision contest! (a contest where the French guy was singing in English...geezzz, it is not easy to be French this year). Anyway, it feels good to have Russia giving a flavor of humility to Holland, the so-called "other country of cheese".
But: what's left that we can beat the Russians at? Mmmmh... not much as long as there are no contests of safe driving and even stairs building.

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?

Spring is here for good

Spring has settled for good now in Novosibirsk: here some pictures of the countryside around Akademgorodok where we are going for bikeride every week end, and a few pictures in Akademgorodok. I don’t recommend you watch these pictures at work if you are in an open space environment, as your Ooohs! and Aaahs! may attract the attention of your coworkers. Enjoy. I will be posting pictures of winter very soon again.

Sign of summer

Summer is coming. Beside temperature rising up, days getting longer and skirts getting shorter, a reliable sign of the arrival of summer is the barrel of KBAC (pronounce "Kvass") popping up at most of the street corners. KBAC is a drink made with bread and water, which is not as bad as it sounds. It tastes a bit like a beer on its way to become a beer...or something like that. Its alcohol content is near zero, meaning don't buy KBAC only for your Saturday night party, because things could get boring very quickly.
The barrel of KBAC comes with a baboushka, a past middle aged lady who serves the drink and makes faces when you don't have change. Baboushkas have signed an exclusivity contract with the authorities to serve KBAC. Or so it seems...(or maybe drinking lots of KBAC makes aging faster?)
A 0.4 liter glass of KBAC is about 15 roubles ($0.60), which is a fair price for wet bread.