Tim and Gem's Honeymoon Adventure: The little town we knew nothing about, Tomsk, Russia October 17

We had met a few people on our travels who recommended that we visit Tomsk (a city we had never heard of). So with no other place to go, we decided to make this our next stop.

After a 36 hour train from Irkutsk we arrived early in the morning, and greeted by freezing temperatures and a blanket of snow. Hostels in Russia are notoriously hard to find with little or no signage. Thankfully with the help of google maps and a quick call to the hostel, it wasn’t long until we were in the warmth and comfort of our hostel.

Later that day we met with our roommates in the hostel, Mike and Georgia, two Australians who had been living in London for the past few years. They were the second Australians we had met so far on the trip, and were doing the Trans Siberian too, but in the opposite direction to us (like most of people we had met).

After lurking around in the warmth of the hostel for a good couple of hours, we decided to brave the cold and see what this charming little city had to offer. The weather on this particular day was by far the coldest we had experienced to date! We were wrapped up with several layers, thermals and all and the ice-cold wind cut to the bone! Although it was cold and our toes were quickly frozen, it was hard to ignore the pretty wooden architecture (which it is well known for).

Majority of our days, which thankfully got a lot warmer during our stay, we spent exploring, streets lined with old wooden houses with window frames and detailing that resembled that of ginger bread houses. The many monuments and statues in Tomsk, most of which were odd and made no sense, and hanging out with Mike and Georgia.

English was a lot more common in Tomsk which made ordering food and going out a lot easier. We went to a bar and grill with Georgia and Mike and were served a pretty mean feed and some tasty beers and Russian champagne. Afterwards we all went to a little jazz bar nearby where we sipped on some more champagne and vodka, and shared a watermelon shisha.

Our Finish friends from Olkhon Island gave us a local Russian contact in Tomsk – Ilya. He was an absolute legend, and he was more then happy to take the four of us along to one of the Saturday tea parties.

None of us were sure what to expect from this Russian tea party. All we were told was that this guy was a huge tea enthusiast, and has people over every Saturday to enjoy a few glasses with him. We walked down Tomsk’s oldest street and Ilya opened the door to one of the old wooden houses. We hung up our coats and were welcomed in to a room toward the front of the house. Inside there was a group of people, around the same age as us, sitting around the tea master who was arranging the bowls and making his master brew.

At first, it was admittedly a little odd and the four of us weren’t sure what to make of it. We didn’t dare make eye contact with one another and risk breaking the silence with laughter. After a few glasses of some very unusual (but tasty) tea, the mood in the room lightened and it turned out that a few of the locals spoke very good English and we were able to have a really nice conversation. All in all it turned out to be a really fun morning!

Ilya was an absolute champ and took us out to a very Russian restaurant where there was no English translation. We were surrounded by locals and would have had no hope if we tried to go here by ourselves.

Ilya kindly obliged and walked us through the menu and placed our order for us. We were served up bowls of soup, plates of delicious food and some tasty traditional fruit drink. And for the five of us, a bill that came to less then $40 – it pays to know a local.

The following day Ilya was helping his friends out at a market that he described as a sweets market, and he invited us to come down and check it out. As soon as we walked through the door we were greeted with the aroma of cinnamon and baked treats. The room was brightly lit, there were colourful decorations and action going on everywhere. We were given some tokens with our tickets of entry that Ilya explained we could use in the market. There were activity stalls in the upstairs arena that everyone could participate in. We made some chocolate covered treats, and got to try the little samples at some of the stalls. We ended up getting ourselves some cupcakes, coffee, macaroons and countless other treats.

After eating our weight in sweets (and some left over for desert) we walked back to our hostel. Once again the wind was ice-cold and Gemma resembled a mummy, wrapped up so only her eyes we showing! We headed home and packed our bags ready for the journey to following day to Suzdal.