Far East Russia from East to West

It all started sometime ago by one email from my mum. She sent me a random presentation with photos of the Trans Siberian Magistral with one little word, which read: ” Are we going?”. She may have expected the answer “Of course”, what she didn’t expect that it would be now, this year, this Summer, in this year. Firstly I had to convince her that the Port of Vladivostok is no longer shut to people from outside. Something many may not realise nowadays, but the town was indeed shut to outsiders, including Russians until mid 1990’s. Next, was to calm her down, that we could get visa and travel freely similarly to what we’ve done last year and no, we won’t need to spend times at police stations trying to register. After that everything was piece of cake.

We couldn’t find any tourist guide, but one map, and so our exploration was rather random. Travelling through the town was easy due to its extensive bus network, buses although not always listed on relevant bus stops were frequent, cheap and stopping everywhere. And if we were in any doubt, the locals were always more than happy to help.

At some point we just indulged in travelling by random buses through unknown places, yet arriving exactly where we wished to be.