Siberia: Land of Natural Wonders and Adventurers’ Paradise
By Oleg Kiriyanov
Contributing Writer
If you ask somebody what he or she knows about Russia, probably 90 percent answer, “The country where Siberia is.” Correct, Siberia occupies more than a half of Russia’s territory stretching from the Ural Mountains to the Far East.
Its area is more than 10 million square kilometers -- 4,000 to 5,000 kilometers from west to east and 2,000 to 3,000 kilometers from north to south -- vast territory, which is difficult to imagine until you get there. If you see five to 10 people a day while traveling in the vast Siberian valleys or mountains, that means you are walking along a crowded avenue, from the Siberian point of view.
It is obvious that Siberians have a different sense of distance. For them a distance of 500 to 600 kilometers means “close,” 1,000 to 2,000 kilometers “not so far,” and only above that is accepted as “far away.” For people from Novosibirsk, the most popular place for weekend parties is the riverside of the Katun River -- about 550 kilometers away.
Well, great distances between cities and the small number of popula
Nov 1, 2007