Omsk Things to Do

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This is the Tara Gate, the "gate" of wishes, but it also leads to the local Medical University Institute and the Museum of Litureature. The Omsk city hall is right beside the pedestian mall leading to the gate

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Russians have noted and put to extremely good use the artistic value of "decorating" with lights!
If the "evening wear" of the drama theater did not show you their skill, note what they did for the Siberian Cadet Military College

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The museum of Litureature houses a substantial collection of personal items of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. His "anti-materialistic" views seem to be universally accepted by Russians. That, if no other personallity feature, sets them apart from most of the rest of the world, especially the US!

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As are many buildings in Russia that date back to the "Imperial Era", the Drama Theater is a "work of Art" in it's own right and therefore, at least worthy of a "drive by". Unfortunately time was short in Omsk, so I never did get to attend a performance here so I did not see the interior but the exterior has been "refreshed" in the same way that much of Russia is getting a "face lift" or "make over', new paint, resoration of exterior facades et al.
The real JOY OF JOYS, is the night time photo showing that the Russian have seen and understand the total effect of decorating with lights. Once you have seen this building "dressed for the evening" it's daytime apperance will fade to virtually "non discript"

This original buildig si the Opera theatre....it seems russian architects always enjoy a lot designing opera theatres: they keep out all their fantasy...
I don't know if you'll like it...maybe too much cement...but it's original and i like original things....be sure, russian architects are able to build much worse things...
By the way, inside is not bad; one evening i went there and attended at "rigoletto" opera; a good exibition, i think, though they singed in russian.

here there are many place where it's possible to lodge (they call it "turbasa", touristic base); they're like little hotels, very cheap compared to our standard (for 2 night in a double room, food included, we paid about 20 EU/person total) .

...here it was possible to ski in forest....

Banyas, or steam rooms, are typical of Russian culture. I had the pleasure of hanging around with some friends in one for a while.

We were at a friends Dacha that had a Banya in it, so we split up in two groups, the men and the women. While the women went in, all the guys sat around eating watermelon and drinking vodka. After the women got out it was our turn (The picture above is of two of the women coming out, the Banya is in the background). The Banya is a wooden structure with a fired heater to make a group of stones extremely hot. To build steam, water is thrown on the stones.

My experience inside is detailed in the next Tip.

Okay, here was my experience in the Banya. We all stripped down and found a comfortable spot on the benches in the Banya as the guy that owned the Dacha (bald guy in picture) threw water on the stones. After hanging around talking for a while, we took turns laying on our bellies on a wooden bench. I had the opportunity to wack Ruslan with branches on the back and legs. He kept telling me I wasn’t hitting him hard enough, but as this was my first time I didn’t want to hurt him.

Then it was my turn to lay down. I remember thinking how odd it was, but that I felt comfortable, even though I had no clothes on and a guy was hitting me on the back with branches. Maybe it was the vodka… maybe it was the friendliness of the people…but I think it was probably both.

While the branch wacking thing was still going on, one of the guys told me to throw on my shorts to hit the shower. So we went into the changing room, threw on our shorts and ran out of the banya to an outdoor shower. The water was freezing, but oddly refreshing. After this, we ran back into the banya to hang around and talk some more. We ended with a quick cold outdoor shower, and then went back to drinking vodka and eating watermelon (The picture is our first post banya drink).