Today was the first day on the road. We drove about 250 Km from Novosibirsk to Barnaul, stopping at Novosibirsk University to see some interesting buildings.
I'm getting the hang of Russia's "dynamic lanes" system in the cities. ie there are no lanes marked, so depending on the traffic a road can have 2, 3 or 4 lanes, and as you can imagine it's a bit of chaos, but the trick is to follow the flow. Once out of the city the driving is fairly standard.
Half way between Novosibirsk and Barnaul we stopped in a field on the side of the road for our first picnic.
After we check in at the hotel in Barnaul we visited the city, which looks like most other medium sized Russian cities with it's old tramways and war memorial. When you see the thousands of names on the war memorials in each Russian city you start to grasp the impact that WW II had in Russia and why the Victory day is still celebrated with massive parades all over the country. Anna would argue that today the Victory Day celebration is more a military show off of force than a remembrance day, but she also took it as a display of where the public money (at least a part of it) is spent - kind of transparency on the government behalf :)
The embankment over River Ob was quite nice. There were a lot of stairs to climb, but offered nice views over the city.
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| Visiting Novosibirsk University |
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| Lunch in a field on the side of the road |
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| We made it to Barnaul |
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| Views of Barnaul from the embankment |
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| Enjoying a ride in a Soviet era tram |
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| War memorial |
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