At the second attempt we did it, again we had some difficulty in finding our way out of the city, but we found the P422 which rejoined the M53 after Marinsk. The road turned into a dirt track for about 10kms before Marinsk, which looked like a backwater town with not much allure.
We drove non stop to reach Krasnayarsk which we hit at around 10pm local time.
Instantly we both liked the feel of the city. As you approach the city the countryside is hilly and mountainous in the distance. The city itself, once beyond the outer suburbs, has a distinctly European feel to it in both architecture and ambience and the city centre is pretty and full of character.
Both Rich and I have thought the siberian/Asian Russia is a lot nicer and more like home than European Russia. It seems the further away from Moscow's clutches a city is, the more of its own character it retains. Less Soviet.
We went out for a bite to eat and when one of 4 guys hears us speak English, they all turned to talk to us. They said "We speak English because, we are pilots". Oh really how interesting.
All 4 guys work for TransAero flying cargo on the 742. They asked us if we new Sergey, a STN based captain who Rich flew with just before we left and who I did his RST in the sim about 6 weeks ago.
The guys had trained with him and some of the other Russian Ryanair lads.
We have taken their details to pass onto Sergey as they were keen to catch up with him. Again it was quite a bizzare turn of events. In the morning we had a brief walk around the city. We both loved it and felt that it is a place that we would have liked to have spent more time exploring, but with the time constraints upon us, we had to crack on. From Tomsk to Krasnayarsk we covered 376 miles.
