One Night in Novosibirsk

My first trip to Novosibirsk was not a welcome break in my itinerary. After an 11-hour flight from Atlanta to Moscow, knowing I was facing another 10-hour flight from Moscow to Magadan, I was not pleased to learn that I had a two-hour layover in the middle of nowhere.

We flew into Novosibirsk in the dead of night, so I couldn't see anything. About half the plane from Moscow got off there, though, so there must have been something of a town. The airport terminal was clean and well-supplied with a cafe, a store, two bars, and a few souvenir stands. It was certainly cleaner and better-managed than the domestic terminal in Moscow. We got back on the plane a couple hours later and I didn't give the place another thought.

On the return trip a few days later, we flew back into Novosibirsk during the day. I was pretty surprised to see what I would describe as a fairly large city in the middle of Siberia. I would later learn that Novosibirsk is the technology and research capital of most of Russia.

I noticed two things immediately in Novosibirsk. First, the people were much friendlier than in Moscow. That is not to say they are generally friendly, just that they are not universally surly. Second, no one speaks English (at least no one we spoke to). I found this to be the case throughout Russia. The further away from Moscow, the nicer the people are and the less English they speak.

On a side note, I'm not being uncharitable toward the folks that call Moscow home. Most people would agree that almost every capital city is this way. New Yorkers are famous the world over for their brusque nature. The condescension of Parisian waiters is the stuff of legends. I think it goes with the territory of living in a huge, busy city. One naturally has less time for the distraction of foreigners.

I found myself in Novosibirsk again a couple months later, again at night, again on my way to Magadan. Unfortunately, Magadan was completely fogged in. Allow me to put this in perspective for you. Magadan can be graciously described as an outpost. It is famous only for the concentration camp Stalin instituted there. It is snowbound most of the year and its "airport" is basically a landing strip with an outbuilding for a terminal.

For all its faults (aircraft quality, comfort, etc...), Aeroflot actually runs a pretty tight ship. They were always on time and seemed to take pride in that fact. So for them to delay a flight because of the weather, I knew it had to be bad.

A few hours later, when it was apparent that the fog wasn't clearing, Aeroflot did something U.S. airlines stopped doing 20 years ago. They informed us that they'd be buying us a meal and paying for a hotel room for us until the next morning. The thought of a meal, a shower, and a good night's sleep sounded fantastic at that point.

We left the Novosibirsk airport terminal on foot. It was mid-April, so the snow was beginning to melt. The hotel and restaurant were right across the parking lot. The hotel looked pretty dingy from the outside, but it was large and by then I'd learned to reserve judgment on all things Russian until I knew what I was talking about.

Inside, the restaurant was clean and the food was decent enough. I had fried fish and my wife had soup. As promised, the meal was covered by Aeroflot. Registering for the room was a little more difficult as they spoke no English and I speak the Russian of a five-year old. We muddled through it though, and went to our room.

My wife, unaccustomed to budget accommodations, was horrified. Having lived in a tent in the Middle-Eastern desert for six months earlier in my life, I was a little less apoplectic. The room was basically a step up from an Eastern-European youth hostel, albeit a small step up. There was no bathroom, of course, and instead of a double bed there were two twins on opposite sides of the room.

As luck would have it, the communal shower was right across the hall from our room. This guaranteed a steady flow of foot traffic by our room all night long. Things could have been worse, though. We could have been across from the communal toilet, whose aroma could be appreciated all the way down the hall where our room was located.

As with most things in life, you get what you pay for. It still beat sleeping hungry in an airport terminal. When I returned home, just out of curiosity, I looked up the hotel on the web. The hotel doesn't have a name, it's just referred to as "Hotel in Tolmachevo Airport", and no photos were posted (not hard to believe, actually). When I converted rubles to dollars, I discovered that the princely sum of $19 is the going rate for a room there.

If you ever find yourself in Novosibirsk, there are options for accommodations. There are a few hotels, a unique cabin rental outfit, and even a boutique lodge (though I don't know how "boutique" it really is). If push comes to shove, there is always the Novosibirsk airport hotel where 20 bucks will get you through the night!