The City is Currently Closed for Renovation. Please visit us again in 2 years: TOBOLSK

We enjoyed two days in the city of Tobolsk.  Technically, it is not on the Trans-Siberian route, but we heard it was a very pretty town, so we took a bus north for 4 hours from Tyumen to visit.  Unfortunately, the city was closed for renovation so we had to go back.  No, not really, but it felt like it.  We were annoyed in Krasnoyarsk when it seemed that every sidewalk in the city had been dug up to be replaced by the inlaid bricks the Slavs love so much (which is ridiculous, since it the winter they are slippery even when dry--but that is a post for another day)--but in Tobolsk, not only had the sidewalks and roads been dug up, but so had the main tourist attraction--the ancient kreml [kremlin] or fortress.  Actually, we were able to walk around most of it, but as newly minted lawyers all we could think about were potential tort lawsuits arising from the dozens of tourists wandering through the construction zone.

We met some very nice people in Tobolsk.  Our first night, a woman stopped us on the street and started speaking to us in pretty good English.  Her name was Lilya and she is an artist at the famous Minsalim Folk Trade center, which is on the route of all Trans-Siberian tourists (particularly those with the Lonely Planet guidebook, which we have seen in multiple languages) and so she loves tourists.  She introduced us to a French couple--Christophe and Isabelle--that was also in town and we all went to dinner together.  The French couple didn't speak Russian, and Christophe's English wasn't great, so we did a 3 way translation of some menu items: me from Russian to English and Margo and Isabelle from English to French.

The next day Lilya showed us around her workshop and introduced us to Minsalim himself--quite a character (it is apparent why no visit to Tobolsk is complete without meeting him)--and also took us on a walk to the old cemetery where some of the Decemberist exiles are buried.

This area is home to some of the Tartar people, who are descended from the Huns and are Muslim.  We went to the mosque when we were walking around the old town and were standing outside wondering if we were allowed to go in when an old babushka came up.  I asked if we were permitted to look in and she said "Of course!"  She took us in, showed us where to put in a couple of rubles to contribute to the mosque and we sat and looked around while she said her prayers.  We walked out together and she told us a little about her life.  She was very proud of her 3 daughters and her son, who she had raised after her husband was killed shortly after WWII.  She was also very proud of her beautiful red leather boots made in the Tartar style.  She said her son had teased her that since now she was old she didn't need such classy looking boots, but, she said, she had always wanted such a pair so she finally decided to get some!