Novosibirsk Opera
The central railway station Novosibirsk It is a building of Soviet architecture that dominates over the Nikolai Garin-Mikhailovsky square , behind the grayish industrial area that has boosted the economy of the area. Its particular green tone announces the splash of color that the place represents in the inhospitable Siberian geography. Without being an obvious destination like **Moscow or Saint Petersburg,** this city on the river Ob is emerging in recent years in terms of creativity and attracts more and more visitors, competing with the big cities of the Russian West.
Bearing in mind that for the population of the country classical music and ballet it is as mundane for us to watch television, its State Opera House it is one of its clearest symbols. Remembering that it is the largest in the country is saying a lot, with some twelve thousand square meters of extension. Its dimensions are such that they put even the famous Bolshoi of the capital in evidence. Hence its nickname: The Novosibirsk Coliseum.
The most impressive building in the city
The theater is located in the lenin square , welcomes almost two thousand spectators and is not silenced by the disproportionate statue of the Russian revolutionary located in front of its main entrance. Its interior is just as spectacular, with dozens of classic sculptures and illuminated by chandeliers six meters in diameter and weighing more than two tons. It is also one of the venues where the Trans-Siberian Arts Festival .
Just like the famous railway line from which it takes its name, this contest is an important point of connection between the place and the rest of Russia and the world, in this case with international culture and arts. Its second edition is celebrated between the next days March 23 and April 8 and has the prestigious local violinist Vadim Repin as artistic director and main promoter. Its programming in terms of music and ballet is world-class, as if it were the Olympics of high culture.
Interior of the Novosibirsk Opera
Master Repin's favorite restaurant is **Salt**, the whim of the region's star hotelier, Dennis Ivanov. The place is exclusive for the quality of its stoves and for his fickle schedule , since the Russian millionaire often closes the premises for his friends or for private commitments. The elegant and Nordic interior design (with one of the most original bathrooms in the world) announces the international flavor of signature cuisine that defines its delicious menu. This is the most sybaritic project of his and that is why Ivanov acts in it as an art curator. Because what happens on its few tables is more than gastronomy.
Nordic design in Siberia
Much more accessible and infinitely more popular among the population is Beerman & Bar, one of the branches of Beerman chain that dominate the city . It is the opposite proposal to Salt: tables prepared for large groups, beer as the protagonist in the glass and great attention to local gastronomy on the plate.
One of Salt's minimalist dishes
Although curiously the icon of Novosibirsk (translated as the new Siberia) is the tiny chapel of saint nicholas . In addition to being considered for years the geographical center of the Russian empire, its kilometer zero, it is a somewhat historical building. Built just one hundred years ago to celebrate the Romanov dynasty, it was destroyed in the 1930s, in times of communism, and replaced by a monument to Stalin to be rebuilt after a restoration in 1993 to celebrate another anniversary, this time that of the city itself.
It is not very big, even less if we compare it with the gigantic Opera House that is just a few steps away, but it is inevitable to notice it due to its preponderant position at the end of the Krasnyi prospect , the great commercial artery of the city and its main street. That's where the Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and its charming brick architecture. It is a great opportunity to admire the style neo-byzantine in this Orthodox church that survived the Soviet regime despite everything, after being used for decades as a granary, another anecdote in the short but intense history of the surprising Novosibirsk.
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Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral
Chapel of Saint Nicholas