The Great City of Omsk

Well, what can we say, the Omscovites have done nothing but exceed our expectations in every way since our arrival. We have had a very busy schedule with many activities which has given us some wonderful perspective! We feel like we have managed to see a lot of what Omsk has to offer in a very short period of time. The past few days have been filled with trips to various museums, theaters, as well as professional meetings with individuals amongst our respective professions. To top it off, we have experienced a traditional Russian birthday party in the woods of Siberia, the words smallest printed book (with some chat time with the author) along with another trip to the “Baunya” complete with massages and a full course meal… in a bathing room! The Russians sure know how to do business. Apparently, it is quite common to hold a dinner business meeting in bathing attire, while enjoying a meal and traveling back and forth to the sauna! It may sound a little informal but they do it well and I could see how it could be as common as our business meetings the golf links.


The museums are quite amazing. They are usually smaller and generally not overly showy with their exhibits, but they display their history well and tours usually are accompanied by a guide. Where, without one, we would certainly have not taken away from them what we did. At the Siberian Culture Museum we played numerous games and were taught traditional Russian dances and songs (see accordion picture below). At the numerous art museums we have toured we met with many famous Russian artists, including a man who has virtually cornered the market on artistic miniatures. It was quite intriguing to speak with him and view the instruments he uses to create such masterpieces. He literally creates pieces of art smaller than a thumb tack ( if our readers have time; I suggest you check our his website www.konenko.net ).

In addition, we saw a delightful Russian play titled “Suicide” or “Self-Murder” (translation differences) which despite its ominous title was actually rather comedic. As Nikki noted, you can tell a good play when you laugh with everyone else despite the language barrier. We spoke with the director afterwards and were able to provide him some perspective as to how it translated to Americans. He is considering bringing the play to the U.S. so you may want to keep an eye out for it!

We have also spent some time visiting the local historic centers of the city and the two old fortress gates that remain. It is incredibly interesting to see that in certain areas of the city buildings remain from the Tsar era, then the next building over is from the Communist era and the building behind that is from current Capitalistic Russia. This is further evidence that the Russian people have experienced a lot of change in a very short period of time.

We also took took a trip to the local orphanage to visit the with underprivileged deaf children of Omsk. This is an orphanage which is supported by the Rotary and Rotaract clubs of Omsk, who have just recently provided them with a soccer field for activities and sporting. During our visit they performed a play for us titled “The Wolf and 7 Kids” (kids being baby goats). We would say it was probably hands down one of our favorite experiences to date on the trip. Before we left we spent some short time with the kids taking pictures and providing them candy and stickers. They seemed to be genuinely content and happy despite what some of us might consider a significant disadvantage.

But the majority of time to date has been mostly spent with our relative professions. I would say on some days almost half of our day every day is spent with our respective professions, which has provided each of us with a much broader perspective of our fields.

Now we are gearing up to move on to our next city, Krasnoyarsk. A city that is located in a more mountainous region and is of similar size to Omsk. The journey will take us on a 20+ hour train ride through forests of birch trees and we are very excited to get the experience to ride on the one of the words most infamous trains routes the TransSiberian. Despite this excitement we are finding it very difficult to leave our host families and Russian friends. We have spent 8 days in close contact with these wonderful people and feel as if they are part of our family now. Every day we have dined and shared celebrations with these individuals and there is truly no words in the English language that could express the level of their hospitality. Someone asked us what was the biggest surprise that we had received to date? I think we could all answer that honestly, the level of hospitality and warmth we have experienced. If the other cities are even half as gracious as the Omscovites… we are truly having an experience of a lifetime.