It sound almost impossible to believe, but when the decade just started, the largest shopping malls in Novosibirsk were TSUM (on the right part) and GUM (on the left part). As their names suggest, these were the remnants of Soviet era, they rented out their space to mostly everyone, and they were light-years away from current standards defined by places like Mega.
TSUM and GUM are still alive but their days of glory are totally over. They’re now considered something like ‘second class’ places.
The revolution started with appearance of Festival - the new shopping mall on the Marksa square, it seemed big at the time, only to be beaten in terms of size by Mega, Royal Park, Siberian Mall. On the food part of the story Gigant and Lenta entered the scene.
The current king of shopping is definitely Mega mall which unites many famous brands and three main attractions - Ikea, Leroy Merlin and Auchan. It grew so famous and popular that there is a steady inflow of people from neighboring regions who come over.
Tolmachevo airport
Look back ten years and you would feel that the airport has been completely rebuilt, which is in many senses true - fully renovated, modernised, re-equipped and now it feels may be if not on par but somewhere close to standards defined by Western airports or Domodedovo airport in Moscow. Thumbs up to its management!
Berezovaya Roscha metro station
We always felt Novosibirsk metro could have and should have been bigger, so every step ahead in developing it is a good sign. Berezovaya Roscha gave a boost to so-called ‘second line’ of metro, developing into direction of Zolotaya Niva area. With this the second line has good chance of becoming a valuable part of Novosibirsk metro rather than some short appendix.
3G/mobile internet
Back in the days the ways you can connect to the internet were really limited. There was dialup, there were leased lines and ADSL (but fairly limited at a time), and there was GPRS internet (based on the GSM subsystem to transfer data). GPRS was available basically everywhere, but the speed was godawful slow. First step by the mobile operators was to upgrade its network to EDGE - another, faster subsystem to transfer data.
But the real breakthrough happened when Beeline and MTS launched their 3G networks (2008), and when 3G-modems and unlimited billing plan surfaced and became available to everyone (mostly in 2009). Suddenly people found themselves in position of having almost equal to leased line or ADSL internet speed, but available without any wires run through their houses, and they could take it with them almost anywhere if using with laptops.
Rock City club
Opened in September 2002 this was something totally new to Novosibirsk. It was biggest club then, it looked totally trendy and cool, it housed concerts of local and country level stars - this was a big bang that redefined the clubbing industry in Novosibirsk. Everything in it was anew, including absolutely nonsense payment system (via special cards you get at the entrance) - why this was their choice and why real cash is bad to them - something completely beyond our comprehension. But even this didn’t stop its rise, and now this place holds high rank among Nsk clubs.
If you have any comments, suggestions, ideas, please email us. Your feedback is very important.
Mr. Gorodetskiy, the Mayor of Novosibirsk, announced yesterday that the amount of financing provided for the construction of the awfully needed Third Bridge will be doubled this year thus hopefully increasing construction time. No exact indication however on the shortened schedule.
Today Putin announced that he believes that the gasoline price is too high in Russia and this is just damn great development for everyone who like us has a car. We truly believe he is right and whatever the possible decrease might be, we will welcome any.
Not sure if this is linked to heat wave in Moscow or not, but our weather forecasters expect heat wave of up to +30C coming to Nsk within a week's time.
The company you probably never heard of, Tomsk-Avia, announced launch of the new flights to Tomsk and Omsk from Novosibirsk. The flights are run three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. The only problem with the flights is the aircraft it is run on - the dreaded An-24, Soviet-made. Though we don't have worries about its safety and reliability, the comfort is a big question mark. Anyway, the ability to get to Omsk in less than two hours is a huge improvement over train trip which is 6-8 hours.
Featured
Goodman - this is most likely the best meat in town.
The place is pro-American, and may be too much, but the focus is on the America of the old days, when men wore hats, the cars were nice and the jazz was cool.
It is expensive place, but a) the food is absolutely damn great and b) it is never crowded so you can have a quite conversation or date without loud music and noise. And again - free wi-fi!
Located at Sovetskaya 5, on the ground floor of the new business-centre.
