Inspired by some Russian winter fairy tales, I've decided to come back aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway to discover the real Siberian winter. I took a similar trip from Beijing to Moscow two years ago in summer, but I've always wanted to see these places in the icy cold of the Siberian Winter. And I was not disappointed.

Meeting the nomads in the Mongolian desert, hovering across the world's biggest and deepest frozen lake, walking the in the streets of Buryatia at -30 degrees Celsius, flying through the steam of the almost frozen Angara river or joining a traditional sleigh ride through the Russian Taiga. All of this made me feel like I was looking into a fairyland which had never existed anywhere apart from dreams. What a miracle! Siberia is something really extraordinary and fascinating.

Our stops: Omsk - Krasnoyarsk - Irkutsk - Listvyanka (Lake Baikal) - Ulan-Ude - Tarbagata - Ulan Bator and the Mongolian countryside.

The lyrics in the video are based on the opera "The Snow Maiden" from Nikolai Rimsky‐Korsakov and couldn't fit better to my images.

Camera: Dennis Schmelz & Christopher Schmid
Edit & Sound Design: Dennis Schmelz
Speaker: Joe Goffeney
Grading: Dennis Schmelz
Title Design: Julius Dürrfeld
Adviser: Claudina Hoff ter Heide
Music: Dan & Adam Skinner (Far From Home)
Lyrics: Parts of "The Snow Maiden" from Nikolai Rimsky‐Korsakov

Thanks to Lernidee Erlebnisreisen  for making this trip possible.

© Dennis Schmelz | 2019