Tuesday 2 November 2010

tomsk


This is basically just a geogblog these days, but after the wild excitement of not knowing anything about Bulgaria, I realised that I didn't know anything about Tomsk. Do you?

Here is the news from Tomsk:

Newsflash 1 - in the mid-19th century, a fifth of the population were exiles. 'But exiles were sent to Siberia!' you are thinking. More fool you. Tomsk is in Siberia.
Newsflash 2 - by WWII, 1/12 Tomskians were students, giving rise to the nickname, 'The Athens of Siberia'. Hmm. Athens? The other Athenses got that way for other reasons than being studenty? It should be somewhere with nothing else but students. Like the Keele of Siberia.
Newsflash 3 - The local football team is called FC Tom. I think FC Tom would be a good character to be a friend of Norman and Enid Oklahoma. Maybe the crusty but lovable judge?
Newsflash 4 - That picture is a satirical monument to Chekhov (I've often thought of putting up one of those). He made an unflattering mention of Tomsk on his way to Sakhalin. As if Sakhalin is much to write home about.
Newsflash 5 - Tomsk has museums of local history, wood carving and oppression.
Newsflash 6 - The Mayor of Tomsk is is Nikolay Nikolaychuk. The previous Mayor, a guy called Makarov, was suspended from his post pending the outcome of criminal proceedings. Nikolaychuk represents the United Russia party. They got the second-highest number of votes in the last elections. The highest number went to the Pensioners Party.

That was the news from Tomsk.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can I confidently predict that your next post on world tidings will be from Alderney?

(I'm currently reading The Borribles, which proved inexplicably popular on a poll for Londonist readers' favourite Londony book. It's for kids so I don't have a problem revealing that the Borribles, the heroes, are on a quest to kill the Wombles. This means I'm reading a book about a group of people I hate. I might as well be reading A Tale of Two Cities again.)

Robert Hudson said...

Aged 13, I absolutely loved The Borribles.