A tenth of the
world's fresh water.

The place itself

The scale is difficult to convey and the sources do it better than adjectives.

1. Lake Baikal

   Wikipedia · Reference

   Deepest lake on earth, roughly 25 million years old, with endemic species found nowhere else including a freshwater seal. A World Heritage site.

2. Trans-Siberian Railway

   Wikipedia · Reference

   Nine thousand kilometres and eight time zones. The route, the history and the branches, properly sourced.

3. Siberia

   Wikivoyage · Guide

   Volunteer-written, ad-free, and realistic about distances and conditions.

The current reality

1. Russia travel advice

   UK Foreign Office · Advisory

   Siberia is Russia, and the advisory applies. Regional restrictions, consular limits and detention risk.

2. Russia

   CIA World Factbook · Reference

   For scale and geography.

If you go anyway

The Trans-Siberian still runs and people still ride it. What has changed is everything around it: routing, payments, insurance and what happens if you need help.

1. Russia travel advice

   UK Foreign Office · Advisory

   Applies to all of Siberia. The operative detail is the absence of direct return flights, which turns a delay into a much larger problem than it would be elsewhere.

2. Russia travel advice

   Government of Canada · Advisory

   A second national judgement. Comparing advisories is the fastest way to separate policy from risk.

3. Sanctions programs

   US Treasury OFAC · Legal

   Why Western cards fail across Russia, including nine thousand kilometres from Moscow where cash is even more of a problem.

4. OSAC

   US State Department · Security reporting

   Regional security reporting, which matters because Siberia is not uniform and neither is the risk across it.