Blogshank - Mike Smith, Illustrator and Diary Blogger » russia

Olkhon Island

Mike — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:15:10 +0000

We spent 4th-7th October on this island, which was a detour off the train line. It’s in the middle of Lake Baikal, which is the deepest lake in the world and supposedly contains 20% of the world’s freshwater.

(I decided to crop out the text on grounds of pointlessness, and just put some of the pictures up.)

Taiga Forest

Mike — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:43:45 +0000

In Tomsk we met someone called Gregory who got together some of his mates with carrier bags full of vodka bottles, and took us into the Taiga Forest to murder us for a barbecue.

Gregory turned out to be the perfect host, guiding us back out of the forest in the small hours.

The trouble with staying in hostels is that you get on a kind of treadmill, meeting only other tourists. (We tried to correct this by using the couchsurfing website.) I wish I’d done more cartoons like the one below, but the trains and buses were too clattery to draw in.

Omsk and Tomsk

Mike — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 08:40:10 +0000

When Caz was little there was a world map their kitchen wall, and she found it hilarious that there was a place called Omsk and a place called Tomsk. Her Dad said they must go there one day, so we took a diversion to Tomsk, which is a small branch line (ie several hours in Russian terms) off the trans-Siberian railway. Caz’s Dad flew in to Moscow and joined us especially for that bit.

“The lady said she knows 3 expressions in English: ‘Thank you,’ ‘I love you,’ and ‘It’s a miracle!’”

011007

Mike — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 11:16:37 +0000

240907

Mike — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 10:56:14 +0000

230707

Mike — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 09:31:38 +0000