Parks, art and guards...

The train from Novosibirisk was not due to depart until 8.42pm so we had another full day to fill. We wandered around a few of the parks - there are plenty of parks and squares with monuments and statues - and paid a visit to the regional art museum. Some interesting pieces but it was very hard to fully appreciate them as the main source of light was from the windows dressed with festooned net curtains! Some of the attendants obliged by putting on the monstrous strip lights but for about £1.40 each it's hard to complain.  We boarded the train without too much drama. This time we were sharing our cabin with two people - who 'kept themselves to themselves' - which troubled me slightly as that is usually a euphemism for murderer but the night passed without incident and sadly without much sleep. 

We arrived in Krasnoyarsk at 8am and were met at the station by Svetlana - the owner/manager of the hostel. She had offered this free service as, she said, it was a difficult place to find. Yes, that is true. However I suspect it might have been that people took one look at the outside and ran a mile! The hostel was a converted apartment in a large apartment block on a housing estate made up on large, grey concrete apartments on the edge of of town. The entrance was something you might see on a TV cop programme where they are doing a drugs bust - metal door into a dark lobby up a few steps to the apartment. Inside it was fine - clean, basic (very basic) and for one night at £14 or so it did what it needed to do. Although I do question how it got 9.4 score on booking.com.

With only one day here we headed off to explore. The obligatory Lenin statue on lenin St was our first stop. We are getting quite a collection of Lenin pics - then onto Krasnoyarsk's own Gorky Park. It actually looked more like what I was expecting in Moscow - lots of fairground rides mostly shut, actually looking quite sinister. We walked along by the river for some distance to a footbridge that took us over to a nature reserve then we headed back to town. We eventually found somewhere to grab some soup and checking my 'steps' we realised we had already done 10 miles - and this was meant to be a pit-stop town. 

We decided to visit the regional museum nearby which randomly had an Eygptian themed exterior - with no actual Eygptian artifacts or references inside at all! The layout and displays were however really good - recreating what life was like for Siberians through history from ice age to present and even had a 4m high woolly Mammoth skeleton. Again it was ridiculously hot - and many of the museum guards were fast asleep!! We contemplated trying to smuggle the mammoth out but decided we couldn't get it in our bags. 

We were pretty shattered when we got back to the hostel so grabbed something quick and a couple of take out beers (55p a bottle) and called it a day.

When we woke the snow had well and truly arrived so it was a good time to head off. We got a taxi to the station and boarded the train. Well I nearly didn't. The train guard refused me entry as the number on my ticket did not accord with my passport. She was adamant. So was I. We got on the train! Our sole cabin companion, a man, climbed into his bunk as we left at 1.24pm. He didn't look like he had the energy to be a murderer so I felt safe. It was nice to be on the train in the day to see the views. The landscape has changed quite a bit and you can see some hills In the distance and long expanses of land. By the time we arrived in Irskutsk we had crossed another timeline now 7+hrs UK and we are 5185km from Moscow.