Getting a car for yourself

That's probably the first question most of the foreign visitors are asking when coming here. Yes, the city is quite large and it's good idea to get a car especially when you used to this in the country where you are from.

If you come for long, you can buy a car, and there are too many car dealerships in Nsk to list them here, including Mercedes, Volvo, BMW, Peugeot etc, also a lot of used (mostly Japanese) cars for sale and of course dealers of Russian-made cars. Good idea is to get a Russian car (new) - it is crap, but it is inexpensive crap in both original price and cost of maintenance and spares are always available, and you will sell it here when leaving anyway. Used Japanese perform normally better than Russian new cars, but service cost is higher.

Also it is possible to rent a car. There are several companies that do this:

Oka naprokat - Lets small Russian cars Oka for rent. tel. 222-05-19, 222-59-02, located at Maksima Gorkogo, 85. Email - prokat@ngs.ru

Akademprokat - Toyotas for rent. Tel. 332-20-80, 332-32-44. Located at Musy Dzhalilya, 21 and Krasniy prospect, 86 - 307. www.akademprokat.ru.

Zapadno-Sibirskaya Transportnaya Kompaniya - tel. 349-63-53, 349-68-36. Located at Tolmachyovskoye shosse, 43/1.

Moy Gorod - tel. 221-22-12, 227-13-31. Located at Dimitrova prospect, 7 - 101.

Oranta-Novosibirsk - tel. 227-62-22, 227-62-23, 227-62-24. Located at Kraniy prospect, 86 - module 3, 410. www.oranta-sk.ru, oranta-nsk@gcom.ru

Pegas - tel. 330-17-10, located at Ilyicha, 6. pegas_nsk@mail.ru

Using taxis

Novosibirsk is quite large city, so using taxis might be expensive. The good thing is that you're not limited to official taxis and you can also just wave your hand standing on the road and some driver with 'entrepreneurial spirit' will pick you up shortly. General guidelines for bargaining with drivers - short distances (equal to 20 minutes walk or one-two stations by underground) - 50-100 Roubles. Longer distance - 150-200 Roubles. From/to airport - 250-400 Roubles. This all depends on the car, drivers mood and availability of other options.

Using underground (metro, subway, tube)

This is probably the best mean of public transport here - fast, reliable, inexpensive (40 cents a ride) and you will not freeze while using it or waiting for it in winter (comparing to onground public transport). The only drawback is that the underground can't take you anywhere in the city, and it is covering only main streets (central area and a bit around).

Using buses/trolley buses/trams

These are very developed public transports, the net of their routes cover all the city and you can get to virtually anywhere on these (using connecting routes). Among them there is something we can't even have English equivalent for - in Russian it is called 'marshrutnoye taxi' or 'marshrutka' - in fact it is a passenger van turned bus - like any bus it has designated route and bus stops, but moves much faster than real bus and sometimes is quite convenient.

Getting in/out of the city, to the Oblast and neighbour regions

Coming here from far away is best done by airplane. There are multiple flights coming in and out from many cities of Russia and abroad. Moscow, Hannover, Frankfurt, Seoul, Tashkent, Dubai just to name a few.

Shorter distance - like to other Siberian city - can be travelled via also an airplane or a train. And if you're trying to reach some neighbour cities like Kemerovo, Tomsk, Omsk - there is a special option of electric train. Very clean and comfortable. You can also go there by bus, but it will be terrible experience: the buses are old, dirty, stinking and often breaks in the middle of the road.

Small towns of Novosibirsk Oblast can be reached by buses and trains, but these are not very comfortable trains - wooden sits, old cars etc.

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