Kicking around in Khabarovsk (17th to 19th December 2008)

Khabarovsk proved to be our least favourite Russian city, not only because we started off on the wring footing - with an expensive hotel just outside of town as all others were full upon our 11pm arrival but because there was really not much to do and the city lacked any atmosphere or emotion. Stuck in a cold and windy location the coolest thing about the city (quite literally) was the river front that was entirely frozen and a more than impressive sight. The ice was inches thick and broken up as it froze as the waves crashed. It was actually more impressive than the ice at Baikal, which we thought would be hard to beat. Frozen solid as far as the eye could see we saw cars drive over and people borrowing holes and ice fishing - catching dinner we assume. We had fun skating on the frozen water and walking along the front - if only it wasn’t so cold. Jack Frost did more than nip at our noses - he bit right through them and I would be surprised if he didn’t freeze our brains to within an inch of their usage! It wasn’t the fact that it was minus 17 - that in itself would have been bearable, it was the wind that had it’s gnashers out on full display - biting hard on any part of our body open to the elements. Stuart’s beard and my eyelashes froze and our legs were whipped with a fierceness that I had not known existed (we had not put our thermals on the morning of the first day as we were meant to only be popping out for brekkie!). Taking a photo required a good five minutes of work up time - getting to the point of mind over matter. Then when the gloves were off it was a whole new battle of focusing and pressing the button as quickly as possible before you ended up suffering the consequences of your actions for the next half hour, with hands still bitterly cold even though stuffed back in gloves.

We had two days in Khabarovsk and spent the first just wondering around, slipping in to coffee shops for a quick warm up, here and there. We had an interesting but delicious breakfast at the local fast food joint, consisting of broth with hard boiled egg, chicken and chips and a a creamy chicken pancake - of course we went back on day two for breakfast. Sadly day one’s dinner was not so successful and we had a horrid mix of reheated disgustingness at a little Russian cafe. We promptly treated ourselves to Baskin Robbins to compensate and came across Spabro Pizza, where we went for dinner on day two. The second day was altogether a bit more jovial. We changed hotels to a cheaper one and like the others it had a manager for each floor, which we still find odd. Perfectly pleasant, even if it was a time warp from 1973, it was also closer to the centre of town and over looked Lenin Square, complete with intricate ice sculptures and a giant Christmas tree. In the morning we jumped on a local bus,which turned out to be a must as it was the funniest bus ever, all decorated for Christmas with monkey cowboys and tinsel and the fewest amount of seats they could possibly get away with! We headed towards a market we had read about in a magazine and the journey took us through the suburbs, which was interesting to see. The market itself was huge but relatively quiet and selling mainly shoes, tat and more shoes as well as the odd furs and kinky lingerie! In the afternoon we wandered through some of the city parks and then rested our weary feet in Spabro, scoffing pizza and salad before getting on our last leg of the Trans Siberian Train.