Me and my husband have a tradition - every New Year we visit places which are different from our homecity. This is our 4th year we met in a different place, and I can say that this year is our "Omsk year". Omsk is a city in Siberia named after the Om' river. It is not really big in comparison to Novosibirsk, but it is worth visiting. I am sorry for such a typical phrase :) Let's get back to the 31st of December.
It took us 14 hours to get to Omsk from Yekaterinburg by train. Omsk was built along the bank of the river Irtysh slowing into Om'. That is why it takes much time to get from point A to point B. Let me explain - we wanted to go to the Omsk fortress and we saw a lot of interesting things on our way there which we didn't plan to see... But that's a stem for another story.
Omsk is well-known for its cheese, subway having only one (!!!) station, it was also the second capital of the country during the Civil war. "Thankful" to its location it was also a place for prisoners during existence of the Russian Empire. These old prisons are still there, within the territory of the Omsk fortress. Fyodor Dostoevsky was in this prison, too. Unfortunately not so many people know about it. Omsk is not a well-developed touristic place at all. And we couldn't even imagine what treasure we would find there.
So, we came to the Fortress and looked at Irtysh. It didn't flow at that time because it was winter. But its size is really terrific. And at that moment I realized that Dostoevsky stood here, too, during he was a prisoner. I just saw it - in the same cold and white winter, he was here. And he described it in his book "Crime and Punishment": "Siberia. On the banks of a broad solitary river stands a town, one of the administrative centres of Russia; in the town there is a fortress, in the fortress there is a prison. In the prison the second-class convict Rodion Raskolnikov has been confined for nine months. Almost a year and a half has passed since his crime."
Stay there. Stand there. Look at the river and feel yourself as a part of history. Find lost treasure of Siberia.
