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Citation du moment
« Il n'y a pas de bonnes habitudes. L'habitude, c'est une façon de mourir sur place. »
Albert Quentin - Un singe en hiver

Siberia baby!

5 Apr 2014 | Ulan-Ude, Republic of Buryatia, Russia

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As I cannot walk over the border, and hitchhiking is promising hard, I decide that after all I should try the transsiberian train! So I take a ticket from Sukhbaatar, the last city in Mongolia, to Naushki, the first one in Russia. It's a 20km-1hr ride (plus several hours of customs and immigration controls) that leaves me in a little wooden town in the middle of nowhere. So back on thumb, it feels great to have that freedom of movement again, and also -unlike Mongolia- my basic of Russian allows me to communicate with people.

Within a few hours I reach Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Republic of Buryatia. Buryatia is named after the original inhabitants of the area, the Buryats, which are basically of same origins as the Mongols, they shared their language and their nomadic way of life. But since, people have moved around, or been moved by the soviet regime, so there is an incredible mix of ethnicity and people. No one can really say they are 100% something. And same goes with religion, even if Buryatia is known as the Buddhist capital of Siberia, there are also a lot of Chamanists, and all types of Christians...

I spend only a few days in Ulan-Ude, staying with Sveta snd Anton, which are incredibly super nice and welcoming! I visit a bit of the city, meet several people, everyone is warm and welcoming, it's good going around. And just before I leave, Anton takes me to the ethnographical museum which is a very interesting open-air museum, showing evolution in architecture and life-style since the old ages, the recent building being actual houses that have been transported all the way to the museum.

For sure I'll be back!