1. Blini are eaten with everything exept cheese.

Blini are eaten with jam, meat, caramelised milk …, but no cheese. And tea is drunken with lots of sugar.

2. Russians know how to use cable to decorate their capital. It looks like Spider came to visit.

Cables, there are everywhere, covering house walls, connecting lamps and busses or just dangling down the pole.

3. Russians are very pragmatic. Write the words as they are spoken and nobody gets confused with pronunciation e.g. Cheppi Mil.
4. During summer not only plants, but also streets are watered to cool down the atmosphere.
5. Salary in Russia must be incredible cheap. Where ever you go there are usually more employees than customer, in supermarkets, cafés or the train station.
6. Russians are big fans of green and black tea. You get in great quality everywhere for a few rubles. But a normal coffee is hard to find outside the modern coffee shops. Freeze dried coffee powder is general standard in hostels, trains and other small bistros.
7. Russian people have a different concept of recreation areas. There city parks usually equal a faded version of a Tivoli sprinkled into a area of trees and concrete paths. People are sitting on benches instead of the grass areas and everybody is eating icecreme.

The concept of a russian recreation area is somewhat different (Tomsk City Park).

8. Public traffic is as pragmatic as the Russians them self. The are usually constructed once and used until they fall apart. You pay a fixed price to the driver independent of the length of your journey directly to the chauffeur. If the vehicle is packed, you just hand the money to another passenger, who hands it further in the direction of the driver. The same happens with the change.

I am pretty sure maintenance of tram trams is even less frequent than in Berlin.

I did not recognised that I am in the way while taking a picture.

9. In Russia exist a lot of untouched nature, so there is no need to take care about environment protection. Plastic bottles are just thrown away, when empty and a catalyst in cars are seldom.

On example of many that we found aside from tourist tracks.

10. The balcony is a part if the apartment that can be individualized and probably has to, giving the old Plattenbau a colorful touch.

The variety of balconies in Russia is unique.

11. If you can’t find your hostel at the stated address, walk to the back door and have a look at the balconies. Usually they pin up a poster to indicate which bell you approximately need to use to get inside. 
12. Shops are open until late in the night if you need some extra beer or vodka, but you don’t need to try to find a bakery that opens before 9am.
13. Showers are called banja (sauna) in Russia. Nearly every house in a village has a banja but non has a shower. Usually it is a small wooden room separated in two with a oven in the middle. The oven heats a bowl with water in the front room and the whole back room (the actual sauna). You go into the banja, sweat, and hit yourself or your partner with birch branches. Then you go back to the front room soap your self, mix the hot with cold water in a second bowl and „shower“. Thereafter you can hang out in the yard, cool down an watch the stars.
14. Russian people smile inversely. Since our first day we wondered why all the Russians seem so grumpy and act awkwardly when we tried to be friendly. On our last stop in Ulan-Ude we found the Din A4 long explanation pinned on the hostel wall. Russian people don’t smile to be polite, but to show honest sympathy to the people they know. The lady in the supermarket does not smile, because she does not know you and if you smile at her she will think that you are for some reason laughing about her.

If the world would run out of drinking water tomorrow, lake Baikal could supply the whole humanity for the next 40 years. (I read it somewhere, so better double check before you reference to me.)

A very different way to install a european style toilet the russian way.

Our very impatient, disoriented, downward smiling bus driver and his bus.

Waiting for the ferry can get a little time consuming.

Our new russian friends, Lara and me.

Nikitas homestay, a very cosy place to meet people and eat pancakes.

Chuschir, a very remot place in Siberia, if you exclude all the people coming during summer time.

Olchon woods criss-crossed by sandy paths.

Olchon is also a an area of shamanic spirits, we heard.

Frequent companion on the sandy paths of Chuschir are the cows, making the place a little indian like.

Olchon sunset, enjoyable 300 days a year due to the special clime on the island.

Tom and Tommy watching the sunset.

Several „breads“ as russian call the off road cars are making the trip to the north cap each day.

It actually feels like being on the sea, except that you are able to drink the water.

Happy greetings from the north cap from Tom.

The north cap trip also included fish soup from the typical Omul prepared by a bus driver in a bucket. Jummy

Despite the enormous amount of fresh water in the lake, a great part of the island consist of steppe.

How needs a harbour, we had a beach and a ladder. Only the bike got a bit in trouble getting his bike on the boat.

Arrived in Ust-Bagusin, we actually did neither find a passenger friendly harbour.

Waiting for the Marschrutka in Ust-Bagusin.

Evil twins.