Thursday, Mar 23 2023

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'Siberia is indeed a land of superlatives: bigger than Europe and the US combined, with the biggest gas reserves in the world'

What to see

Beaches

You may be bang smack in the middle of old Imperial Russia, and so about as far from the sea as you can get, but Novosibirsk boasts several notable beaches.

One is in the city, called Nautilus, on the west bank of the Ob River near the Tube Bridge - and gets crowded on hot summer days.

Or venture to the Ob Sea, a vast artificial lake created in 1957, and filled in 1959 near Akademgorodok, where university students chill out between lectures.

Museum of Happiness

Organised in 2009 by a family of Irina and Yuri Dryomin, The Museum of Happiness quickly became popular for ‘the feeling of pure joy it leaves you with’, as visitors say.

The owners of the museum travel the world to gather the items, symbolising happiness to people of different cultures.

There is a collection of ‘German Happiness’, along with the one for France, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

One of the great sights for early travellers across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway after its opening in 1899.

One of the first stone buildings in Novosibirsk, the cathedral stands at the very beginning of its main street, Krasniy Prospect.

Built in the neo-Byzantine style with a gilded dome, it is named after one of the giants of Russian medieval history, but was also a monument to Tsar Alexander III, who initiated construction of the railway and the establishment of a station at Novonikolayevsk, as the city was then known, and donated the land and the money for the building.

Akademgorodok, or Novosibirsk Scientific City

This is a satellite town, some 20 km to the south from the centre of Novosibirsk, amid enchanting woodland close to the Ob Sea. Accessible by local train or minibus from the city, too.

Set up in Soviet times by one of Russia’s greatest minds, mathematician Mikhail Lavrentyev, it allowed the young forward-thinking scientists who moved East from Moscow and St Petersburg a pleasant lifestyle, enabling them to work successfully.

It is home to 32 institutes and researching centres, the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Novosibirsk State University.