Omsk: Where Siberia Gets a Side-Eye and You Get aCold Shoulder (Literally)
omsk is a city that’s basically a weather warning come to life. i just checked and it’s -16.92°c right now, feels like -23. if you thought -20 indoors was a problem, stepping outside is like walking into a freezer aisle you accidentally left the door open on. highs barely crack 0, lows flirt with the solstice line of ‘why don’t trees just give up?’ read about it:(but honestly, use google maps to plan this because getting lost here is a skill that requires extreme patience).
starting with the obvious: the place is flat. like, grassy plains so vast they make a field in ohio look like a shark net. marshes, peat bogs, and saline lakes scatter the horizon like sad, muddy afterthoughts. rivers flow quietly (the irtysh, for the record, basically runs through the city but it’s quieter than your mom’s voice when she’s done with your nonsense). if you’re here for views, you’ll either freeze until your eyelashes grow a second set or wander into a birch forest that feels like being dropped in a russian IKEA display of tree trunks.
history is here somewhere. i’m not sure if it’s the palace of governors or dostoevsky’s exile townhouse, but omsk has stories. founded in 1716, it’s been a military fort, a gulag neighbor, and now a stop on the crisp sits fresh button-up shelves. 1496153 is the population, give or take. russians mostly, but everyone here’s got a cousin who thinks they’re the first exiled artist their barista knows.
neighbors: if you hate omsk’s vibe, novosibirsk (200km east) is a short drive. tyumen (200km west) has the tsars’ ghost in every building. kasp (literal neighboring country) is 100km south if you want to trade frozen fish for… more frozen fish?
tourist stuff? nikolsky cathedral, palace of the governor-general, and whatever that ‘military school’ turned into. all of it stares at you like ‘you got this place on a dare’. the irtysh river confluence is just water and sadness. don’t forget the saline lakes (tenis, saltaim, ik) - they’re so salty you can drink them and pretend you’re in the dead sea. but the water’s so ick, you won’t.
cuisine is a mistake. someone told me there’s a dish called ‘pelmeni with existential dread’. it’s meatballs in broth? maybe. the steppe agriculture part is real though. unless you count vodka and grilled potatoes as a meal, this is the siberian version of ‘food exists here.’
the people? mostly ethnic russians, but everyone’s got a grudge against winter. they’re friendly enough, but you’ll know it when they say ‘berezina’ instead of ‘tanak. the local airport (named after someone from 1934, probably drunk on vodka) gets you here. time zone is utc+6. area code is 3812, which is just a random number someone picked because they hate math.
distinctive features: it’s a gateway to kazakhstan, which is less romantic than it sounds. the trans-siberian railway is here, as in ‘random trains to nowhere’ dull. sunny days are rare, summers hit 35c (if you’re lucky) but the air is so dry you could dehydrate a camel outdoors. ground-level maps show this place as a flat wasteland, but the salty lakes and i’m-not-even-bluffing marshes make it… uh, unassuming?
takeaway: don’t come here for vibes. come here to prove you can. it’s cold, it’s slow, and the marshes are literally alive. but hey, you survived.
i’ve been here 3 days. my eyelashes are 30% ice, my camera died, and i’m fingertexting someone 1000km south. maybe i’ll post a photo of a building? here’s a few:
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