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Ulan – Ude , a Siberian city with Mongolian roots
This beautiful and mysterious city remains unknown for the majority of the travellers. A quiet but very vibrant place that is famous mainly for its proximity to the lake Baikal and the Old Believers’ (or Old Ritualists) villages that are located around. But what else to do in a Siberia, and more specifically in Ulan Ude in winter when temperatures are way below 0?
Having an almost 7-hour flight which leads you in a different continent but within the same… country is very uncommon. This is the flight that took us from Moscow to one of the most Asian-influenced Russian cities, the capital of Buryatia, Ulan- Ude . Definitely a taster for what is to travel in the biggest country of the world! Additionally, as the 20% of the population is originally from Mongolia, Ulan – Ude is probably an introduction on how Mongolia looks like. Unfortunately this time we are skipping Mongolia but we will come back in the future to explore it as much as possible!
A tourist visit to UU (amongst other Russian cities) was prohibited by the Russian government till the early 90’s . Since then, the city has attracted lots of foreign tourists especially due to the Lake Baikal and the Buddhist culture that is present in the area; in fact, the biggest Buddhist temple in Russia is actually few miles away from UU.
In my point of view cities like Ulan-Ude have a lot to teach travellers but it may be tricky to reach them from the other side of the world. I would visit it again though , not even questioning this! But what do you think? Is Ulan-Ude in winter too remote (and frozen) for your bucket list?
Ulan-Ude looks such a unique city… Siberian with Mongolian population! Great culture and post, thanks for introducing us this unknown corner of the world!
It was indeed a hidden gem with great history! Thanks for reading 🙂
This is really interesting I hadn’t the slightest idea this city excisted!
Such brave travelers you are – minus 34ºC!! And very interesting to read about such hidden places.
The trans-Siberian train is on our bucket list, maybe Ulan-Ude will be a stop – in the summertime 😉
I had zero information about Ulan-Ude. Such a charming city. Thanks for sharing
Your style is unique compared to other folks I’ve read stuff from.
Thank you for posting when you’ve got the opportunity, Guess
I’ll just book mark this page.
Well, it would’ve been wrong to say that we are from Mongolia. Yes, Buryats are indeed mongolic people. But we lived in our land for more than two thousand years. And it was Russians who came here from original Russia(Russians afterall are Europeans an originate from there) and killed most part of Western Buryats. But no hard feelings, it’s a history already.
Ethnic Buryatia is called – Bargujin-Tukum. It was a confideration of mongol tribes around Baikal.
But thank you for an article about Ulan-Ude!
I hope it was to you liking.
Oh yes I have read the history of the area hence my “Mongolian Roots” characterization but thank you for making it more precise and adding extra information! It’s the core of travelling to learn more about the places we visit, I think. I enjoyed so much my time there, hope I could have stayed longer and I wrote the post about Ulan Ude for other people to get to know it and, potentially, visit it! Thanks for stopping by ☺