13 Things To Do In Tomsk – Siberian Athens, My Birth Town And The Fairest Of Them All!

Far far away in cold snowy Siberia, hidden away from the curious eye amidst vast taiga forests, there is a small beautiful town called Tomsk. With lengthy severe winters and hit-and-run summers, surrounded by endless kilometers of taiga terra and swamps, Tomsk scares away the weak-hearted. So the townsmen, or Tomichi, if you prefer the authentic name, are all strong and brave, hard-tempered but sweet and good-natured people. That’s how I would start a fantasy fairy-tale story about a little brave girl Katya and her Siberian adventures. J

Sadly, this is a blog post, not a fantasy saga, and I have to push myself back down to earth, even though in the imaginary world of the little brave girl Katya, the world I mostly live in, Tomsk will always be the fairest place of them all!

This winter I finally made it home. For the first time since I left for the States 10 years ago. I won’t bore you with my personal life story, but would like to spare a quick warning – immigration is no joke and some things (it all depends, of course) might take years. My mom and sister visited me in US repeatedly, but I didn’t see my father for 10 years. As well as my hometown, friends and relatives.

You might be eager to know how it feels stepping off the plane into the city where one was born, spent childhood and youth and then happened to be absent for a decade. Imagine the moment you are about to skydive, looking at the tiny land below you, the stomach jumping to your throat and your breath skipping. Then remember the happiest instance of your life - your heart palpitating, warm waves running over your body. Coalesce these sensations into a stream of simultaneous feelings, garnish with disarray, bizarre numbness and some Matrix effect of the world slowing down. That’s how it feels.

A month and a half flew by. I did a lot, but mostly tried to catch up. It’s not an easy task stuffing 10-years worth of catching up into a month and half. I spent time with my dad, visited friends, visited places. Places like my school, university campuses and buildings, the neighborhood where my family lived when I was a kid, nearby woods where I used to play, the cemetery. I played my old detuned piano, browsed through hundreds of old black and white photographs, enjoyed being in my room which stayed almost the same as it had been a decade ago. I was obliviously happy even though at times it felt like a bizarre mirror world where everything stayed in the past and all clocks stopped. The figment of my desperate imagination.

I took lots of pictures, of course. I do that a lot – take pictures excessively to such an extent I reproach myself for wasting precious time on amateur pointless photography. Yet, I managed to compile a pretty decent photo essay of decorated for the New Years winter Tomsk – eye-blinding white, sparkly and festive.

People feel differently about their birthplaces. I love my birth town. I romanticize and glorify it. It just doesn’t make sense for me to criticize the place where I spent my childhood, grew wiser and taller, where my grandma spent her laborious life, where my parents live. It’s called home and it is full of memories. It will always stay the best for me no matter whether it shines or pales.