The Trans-Siberian trip revolves around taking the long train Journey. We spent almost 7 days in the trains and traveled nearly 11,000 KM across Asia and Europe. The journey was incredible and more importantly comfortable. Meeting people on the train for a chat. Running out of stations in the freezing weather to take pictures, stretch and get some fresh air etc… was the common theme. I don’t know how it is in the Summer but the experience of going across Siberia in Winter is unique and needs to be experienced.

Here are some pictures to remember the train journey.

As always, click through for full screen slide shows.

A major portion of the Russian Experience came from visiting various cities. And each town is packed with religious icons. Here is a presentation of the interesting churches and symbols I took pictures of. As one of us pointed out, aptly, this was a tour of Saints and Sinners.

Enjoy. Do click through for full screen slide show at picasaweb.

I am starting to have insomnia thinking about Baikal. The thought of a bike tour around the lake is taking strong roots and I am totally convinced that it is something that needs to be done. In my mind, it seems like a seed is being planted to kick start a nomadic lifestyle.

Baikal, sharp, crisp, bi-syllable, banana shaped fresh water lake seems to be taking over my thoughts. There is something magical and alluring about this lake. When I was on Train-007, something strange happened while passing through Baikal. I guess it was a combination of train fatigue, heat and the extremely annoying change to the direction of sunlight. I was looking froward to the views of the frozen lake and once the lake came into view, the sunlight started playing tricks. The train passed along the coast and was constantly changing directions from NW to SW and back to NW. The cabin was a toasty 30C and the blindingly bright sunlight reflecting off the frozen lake was increasing the temperature and made me squint. When I peeked out of the train, all I could see was the sky and the frozen lake reaching out at the horizon. The urge to get out of the train was at its peak (like I said, It could be the heat and fatigue, but I prefer to consider it the Baikal Allure).

However, a few hours of torture later, the mysterious Baikal disappeared from view and all was normal again.

Now that I am back, I get flashes of light and shadows and constantly see the vast landscape of Ice, sky and Sun. It is as if Baikal has a spell over me. I am forced to check out maps and stare at the lake. I am strangely starting to read Cyrillic. I religiously research about the lake, the people settled around, the weather conditions, climate patterns etc… I dream about biking along rough roads and camping among conifers. I feel the warm sun on my face and I realize I am at home and over slept.

It is difficult to look forward to the daily chore when you know there is a different life out there. It seems like I am getting flashes from a parallel Universe or may be from the future.

I wish to think it is from the future, and if that is the future, I need to prepare for it. I have strategize my life towards being a nomad. Need to find a source of $ to sustain my life. I do not need much money, just enough to survive and a few additional bucks for the rainy day. Generating savings for survival is trivial. I don’t think  that is a concern. What is a concern is that I am afraid the dream may disappear. I want this dream, I have always spoken about being a bike nomad but now I have a strong urge to be one.

I think Baikal is the key. I have a feeling that it is going to open the door to my future.

Here are some abstracts from a recent trip to Russia. You can click through to the picasa web gallery to see them in higher resolution. Enjoy the images.

St. Petersburg is the center of the arts in Russia and fittingly, the grandest and largest art museum, the Hermitage, is located here. I have recorded my impression on the Hermitage here.

Hermitage is a collection of a bunch of buildings and is massive in scale. Photographing architecture is non trivial and I usually don’t attempt them either. But the impressive structure of the Hermitage made me pause. The challenge to capture the immense structure egged me to click away. But I had to be careful what I shoot and how I shoot it. I quickly thought about it, the obvious solution is to shoot a panorama. The light was good (about mid noon) and I had a lens that shoots normal (40mm equivalent). I had to shoot from a distance (of course) and I had enough space as the square was large and due to the winter weather there was no crowd either.

I parked myself in the center of the square, adjusted my stance to the center of the building and shot two sequences of 8 shots each (all handheld). I had to check to see if I had captured the exposure and the framing right. Luckily, the lighting did not change (I shot manual exp of course) due to the overcast skies.

The trouble I realized was that, even though I will get the entire building framed in the panorama, I am going to suffer strange optical distortions. You can observe the building tapering at the far end. I guess I need more rigorous technique to shoot panoramas but I will take what I have.

It is not perfect, but a lot of details and the scale is captured in one image. I have to resort to using deep zoom again for displaying the content. Enjoy the imagery.

If you are reading via a rss reader, please visit the site for the deep-zoom content.

This is a start to a sequence of image posts based on some of the pictures I shot in Russia. Starting on a holy note, we visited numerous churches during our trip and each one was them was spectacular. Some large, some small but all of them equally beautiful. I think It is difficult to convey the beauty and details in words and tricky with pictures sometimes. I hence decided to go along in creating deepzoom imagery to really drive the beauty of these structures.

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This was the smallest church we visited in the whole trip. Somewhere in Ekaterinburg and in my enthusiasm, I forgot to note the name down. I am sure someone will step up in filling for my memory loss. Please do let me know the name so that I can have a proper document for interested visitors. Till then enjoy the imagery.

This is the Chapel of St. Catherine and is right here.

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I am unable to find much history of this chapel, but feel free to let me know in the comments.

Note: the view above is composed using stitching 4 images in Photoshop and composing them using Microsoft’s excellent Deep Zoom composer.

If you are reading via a rss reader, please visit the site for the deep-zoom content.

A long trip now-a-days means tons of images. Given that digital camera allows you to play the statistical game on the cheap along with images that are carefully composed, I seem to end up with a mish-mash of images that I intentionally shot and numerous grab shots. The challenge I face is editing.

I have numerous carefully crafted images that do not seem to work when I see them at the editors desk. There may still be images in them but I am unable to extract the mood I want. So those are easy to discard. The grab shots are a bit more tricky. Since I did not plan them, I have to work on a story while editing. The trouble is that when I see them in new light (sic), I have many interpretations of the image. Some do not work off the bat. So they get discarded. But the ones that I think have some mileage take way too much time to work on. Should I crop? Does it work better in monochrome? I like the blue but the yellow is distracting.

The agony of choice!

I am also struggling in terms of figuring out whether I should post images in batches (which will keep my audience engaged) vs. post them all at once (audience will get the whole story). It does not help that my fellow travelers have been posting stunning images and I seem to either have repetitions or less interesting pictures to show. Working on stronger compositions is going to take even longer, darn…

Anyhow, I suppose since I was traveling with some really good photog’s, The travel images are out for the general audience. However, my personal fans (all 2 of you) will have to wait till the goods come out. I am frantically working on it, but do not wish to short change the story value of the images. So please continue waiting, I will come up with the goods asap.

This is a picture I shot and stitched before the Trans siberian trip. I am home now and take this as a teaser before I bombard more pictures here.

Click through to see the details.

Wow, it is really over. Am heading out to Moscow to catch my flight back. In the couple of days in St Petersburg, I managed to pick up some awesome souvenirs and artwork that will work very well in my house. St.Pete is the hub of arts and crafts and I heard that there are tons of artists busy with their craft on the streets in summer. I have to believe that because even in this cold I found few artists on the street. Of course, I had to patronize street artists and I picked up some impressionist oils there.

I guess I left a good impression on the manager of the hotel – she was off shift but still sent a note with warm regards That’s a check for St.Petersburg.

We took the morning express Sapsan from St.Pete to Moscow. The high speed train made short work of the distance and we were in the capital by 1100. It is kind of interesting that the trains have progressively gotten better in this trip and the rides shorter. It really helps to alleviate the rail fatigue.

We decided to laze the morning in a cafe. Found a starbucks and stuck there till 1300 before taking the express train to the airport.

Well Moscow was not going to displease me as the baristas were hot. Had a pleasant time in the cafe and a bit of relaxation before I catch the long flight home. To that is a check for Moscow. I should say that a country where every city you visit has friendly people is an alright country. It is more that alright, it is great.

Heading back, I am thinking of the 2 weeks in Russia. It has been an adventure well worth embarking on. Thee is everything to love and nothing to hate. The places and more importantly the people make up for the harsh winter cold. I would love to make more trips. A trip to Baikal in summer is definitely in the cards. I hear Russian girls are even hotter is summer. I can’t wait…

11000 Km, 14 Days, 6 guys, 4 Trains and -34C. Met countless people, forged many friendships and picked up good memories. Thats how I would sum up the trip. The trip is over but the journey continues. It is impossible to sum up the journey with words or pictures. The memories will fade over time but they will also morph into tales that will be told for a long time. And there are many adventures in the last couple of weeks that will grow into mini stories on their own.

Russia is a vast country, and I think it is fitting to finish the trip in St.Pete’s. I understand now the essence of Ilya’s statement. Siberia is the heart of Russia. The landscape and people dominates the real Russian experience. Ekaterinburg is the intellect, Moscow the bank. St.Pete is the soul, the cultural essence of Russia. True that it resembles some town in western Europe, but it embodies what Peter the Great envisioned in the 17th Century. It is a face to the rest of the world and it is a pretty face.

We landed in St.Pete at 6:45 in the cold morning. The charm of the city is apparent even in the darkness of the early morning. I think I have met more english speaking people in this town than the rest of Russia. I do not judge a town based on the fluency of english but it certainly helps to get things done. The breakfast spread in the hotel is the best I have ever seen (with real honey, in honey combs). St.Pete is a lot more nicer town than Moscow is and I certainly prefer the cultural capital over the political one. Dawg observed that the city is flat. That is such a welcome sight compared to the crowded skyscraper’d cityscapes of every other city I have seen.

Once rested, we had to do the sights of St.Pete. First stop Hermitage. Let me put it this way, even if you don’t understand art, you hate museums, know no history, make it a point to visit the Hermitage. Like Cap’n Cliff put it, it is Visual Sensory Overload. I cannot even recall the number of paintings and ornaments I have seen but the master works blow your mind away. I have distinct memory of Rembrandt’s – the lighting and composition of his paintings are stunning. Da Vinci, Monet, Van-Gogh, all in one place makes my head spin. I did manage to pick up some interesting paintings by local artists that I will add to my collection.

After that, we headed to the Cathedral of Peter and Paul which is inside the Fort that Peter the Great built. It was a good walk in chilly weather with strong winds but the views made up for the hike. By random coincidence, we learnt that the cathedral is closed on Wednesdays and we had to forego the saintly duties for the day. Oy my way, I met another artist who was trying doing some good oil paintings. He was standing in the cold trying to paint and sell and I had to stop. I love picking up stuff direct from artists and I couldn’t resist picking up a couple of his works. And it turns out they were painted on Christmas and the New Year’s eve. Awesome.

We had planned for a proper end to the trip by setting up a Vodka Night and we hit up a local restaurant called the Russian Vodka Club and Museum. An evening of reminiscing about the trip over shots of crappy and some great Vodka followed. I raised a shot of Altai to remember the people I met on the train and finally a Beluga Gold to toast the trip. This morning, all of us are hung over but that’s alright. Epics always end that way