so i landed here completely by accident. well, not accident - my flight got rerouted because of some weather thing and i ended up in a city i couldn't even pronounce on first try. the airport was small, the sign said something in cyrillic that my translation app kept glitching on, and i had about forty bucks in rubles and a camera with a dying battery. perfect. that's basically my whole vibe anyway.

the weather when i stepped outside was that weird in-between temperature that feels like the sky can't make up its mind - around 18 degrees but it felt like 17.6 because of the humidity sitting at 71%. my hair went flat immediately. the air had this heavy, almost thick quality to it, like the atmosphere was personally holding me in a hug i didn't ask for. locals walked past me in light jackets like it was nothing. i was in a t-shirt getting slowly damp. a guy smoking by the door looked at me and laughed, said something in russian, pointed at the sky. i think he was saying it would rain? or maybe he was telling me my fly was down. impossible to tell.

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Q: Is this place worth visiting?
A: only if you want something real. no tourist polish, no english menus, just actual life happening. i got photos here that i couldn't replicate in a place designed for visitors.

Q: Is it expensive?
A: shockingly cheap. my coffee was like eighty cents. the hostel was twelve dollars a night. you can eat like a king on what would be a sad sandwich back home.

Q: Who would hate it here?
A: people who need everything labeled in english. people who get frustrated when google maps just... gives up. people who require structure. this place laughs at structure.

Q: Best time to visit?
A: summer, june through august. the temperature actually cooperates then. i heard winters are brutal but honestly that might be the whole point if you're into that kind of suffering.

Q: Is it safe?
A: i felt safer here than in some western european cities honestly. locals mostly left me alone which is my preferred amount of human interaction.

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i found a guesthouse run by a woman named irina who spoke exactly three words of english: "breakfast", "bathroom", "no smoking". she communicated the rest through hand gestures and aggressive pointing. i respected that. my room had a poster of what i think was a kitten on the wall and a radiator that made sounds like it was dying. i loved it immediately.

the city center was about a twenty minute walk from where i stayed, and the whole way there i kept stopping to take pictures of things that probably weren't interesting to anyone but me - a fence painted in that specific shade of faded red that only happens after years of harsh winters, a dog sleeping on an abandoned car, a playground with swings that looked like they'd seen some things. a local guy stopped and asked if i was a journalist. i said i was a photographer. he nodded like that made total sense and walked away. i think that's the most interaction i had with a local that wasn't transactional.

there's this thing that happens when you travel alone to somewhere completely outside your comfort zone - you start noticing everything because nothing is automatic anymore. every sign is a puzzle, every menu is a game, every interaction requires full attention. it's exhausting and also the most alive i've felt in months. i don't know how to explain it except that my brain was actually on for once instead of just running on autopilot.

i found this coffee shop - well, it was more like a kiosk that happened to serve coffee - and the woman there made me something that was probably not a latte but tasted like one if you used your imagination. she charged me like thirty rubles which is nothing. i sat there for two hours watching people walk past the window. an old man with a cane. two teenagers sharing one ice cream. a woman in a business suit looking at her phone with the expression of someone whose day was going exactly according to plan. i took photos of all of them without asking because i'm a terrible person but a good photographer and those are mutually exclusive sometimes.

*the light here is different. i don't know if it's the latitude or the humidity or just my brain making excuses, but everything looked golden in a way that didn't feel fake. i got shots i would have had to fake with filters back home. it was disgusting how easy it was.

some guy at the bus station told me there's an old monastery about an hour away that basically no tourists visit. he drew me a map on a napkin which was mostly useless because i can't read russian handwriting but i appreciated the effort. i went the next day and he was right - it was empty except for a monk who nodded at me and went back to sweeping. the whole place felt like it had been there for centuries and would continue being there long after everyone who visited forgot about it. that's kind of the point of churches i guess but this one felt particularly unbothered by modernity.

i met another traveler there, a german guy named matthias who was doing the same thing i was - just ended up here because of travel chaos and decided to see what happened. we walked around the monastery grounds for an hour talking about nothing important. he showed me photos from mongolia. i showed him photos from vietnam. we agreed that eastern europe and central asia are the best places to be lost in because no one expects you to have a plan.

the pressure was around 1010 when i checked some weather app, which someone told me is basically normal, and the sea level was listed as 1010 which made no sense because we're definitely not near the sea. the altitude situation seemed complicated. i stopped trying to figure out the science after a while. i was here for photos not a meteorology degree.

"you want real russia? this is it. nothing for tourists, everything for living."

that was irina's daughter who showed up on my last day and spoke english way better than her mom. she took me to this market near the river where they sold vegetables and also some kind of dried fish that i definitely didn't ask about and she made me buy and i definitely didn't eat but i took a photo of it because it looked like something from a movie set. the market was the kind of chaotic that makes sense once you're inside it - everyone knew where to go, what to buy, how to bargain. i was the only person just standing there taking pictures of fish.

i spent six days here and i still couldn't tell you the name of the city properly. i know it starts with a K and has about nine letters and no one pronounces it the same way twice. that's fine. i don't think knowing the name would have changed anything. i came for rerouted flight reasons and stayed because there was something here that i couldn't get from a place where everything works the way it's supposed to.

my battery died on the last day and i had to put my camera away and just... exist. it was terrible. i highly recommend it.

if you're thinking about coming here, don't. i mean do. but don't tell anyone i said that because this place being slightly impossible to get to is kind of the point. the secret stays good only if it's slightly inconvenient.

the closest major city is about four hours by train and i heard that's where all the "real" tourist stuff is but honestly i didn't go. i don't need tourist stuff. i need places that make me feel like i got lost on purpose and found something by accident. this delivered.

local tip*: learn to say "spasibo" (thank you) and "izvinite" (sorry/excuse me). you'll use both constantly and people soften immediately when you try. i also learned that pointing at things is universal and nothing to be embarrassed about.

i checked the yelp reviews before i left and they were all in russian which i couldn't read but the pictures were good so that counts as research. the tripadvisor entry for the monastery had three stars and one review that just said "quiet" which is the most accurate review i've ever seen for anything.

there's a reddit thread i found later about this region that said it's underrated and i agree but also i kind of want it to stay underrated so... don't share this post. keep it between us. tell your friends about somewhere else. this one's mine.

i'll be back. not because i have a plan but because that's how this works - you go somewhere by accident, you leave with photos you didn't expect, and then you have to go back to prove it wasn't a dream. that's just how being a photographer works. or maybe that's just how being me works. same thing really.

tripadvisor | yelp | reddit | lonely planet | atlas obscura | flickr

Lost in Siberia With My Camera and Basically No Plan

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