The Trans-Siberian: Moscow to Lake Baikal
When to go
Late May to mid-September is the easy season: long days, warm evenings in Irkutsk, and the boats running on Lake Baikal. July and August are the busiest, and the sleeper berths on the long legs go first. Winter is a different and very cold journey — Siberia goes well below minus thirty, and Baikal freezes from about January to April, when people walk and drive on the ice. Spring and autumn are short and muddy.
The stops
Interactive map of the route on our site ›
- Moscow2 nights
Red Square and the Kremlin have been a World Heritage site since 1990. In the old Bakhmetevsky bus garage, designed by Konstantin Melnikov in the 1920s, the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center opened in 2012 and tells the story of the Jews of Russia.
- Moscow Kazansky stationstop on the way
The train to Kazan leaves from Kazansky station, whose tower copies the Söyembikä tower of the Kazan Kremlin. It stands on Komsomolskaya Square, called the square of three stations, with Yaroslavsky and Leningradsky stations across from it.
- Muromstop on the way
Night on the train, not a hotel night: the sleeper to Kazan takes about twelve hours. Murom, passed in the dark, is the home of Ilya Muromets, the strongest hero of the Russian folk epics.
- Kazanone night
The capital of Tatarstan, on the Volga. Inside the white Kazan Kremlin, a World Heritage site since 2000, the Qolşärif Mosque, opened in 2005, stands a short walk from the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the 1500s.
- Sviyazhskstop on the way
An island town founded by Ivan the Terrible in 1551 as a fortress for his siege of Kazan, now joined to the shore by a causeway. Its Assumption Cathedral, with frescoes of the 1560s, has been a World Heritage site since 2017.
- Agryzstop on the way
Night on the train, not a hotel night: the sleeper to Yekaterinburg takes about fourteen hours. Somewhere in the night you cross the Urals into Asia, and the clock moves two hours ahead.
- Yekaterinburgone night
On the night of 16–17 July 1918 the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev House here. The house was pulled down in 1977, and the Church on the Blood was built on its site, consecrated in 2003.
- Tyumenstop on the way
Founded in 1586, Tyumen was the first Russian town in Siberia. The train passes it in the evening, out of the Urals and onto the flat West Siberian Plain.
- Omskstop on the way
Night on the train, not a hotel night: Yekaterinburg to Novosibirsk takes about twenty-one hours. Omsk, on the Irtysh, is where Dostoevsky served four years of hard labour from 1850, the years behind his Notes from the House of the Dead.
- Novosibirskone night
The city grew from 1893 around the building of the Trans-Siberian bridge over the Ob, and is now the third largest in Russia. Its Opera and Ballet Theatre, under a great silver dome, opened in 1945 and is the largest theatre building in Russia.
- Krasnoyarskstop on the way
Night on the train, not a hotel night: Novosibirsk to Irkutsk takes about a day and a half. At Krasnoyarsk the train crosses the Yenisei; the first railway bridge here, finished in 1899, won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1900.
- Irkutsk2 nights
The Decembrists, officers who rose against the Tsar in 1825, were exiled to Siberia, and several of their families settled here; the houses of Volkonsky and Trubetskoy are now museums. The wooden houses with carved window frames still stand in the old streets.
- Listvyankastop on the way
A village on Lake Baikal, about an hour from Irkutsk by bus, where the Angara leaves the lake. Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, 1,642 metres, and holds about a fifth of the world’s fresh surface water; the Baikal Museum here shows the nerpa, the Baikal seal, the only seal species that lives only in fresh water.
What it costs
Eighty dollars a night is the room, and only on the seven nights slept in a hotel. The four nights on the train are not hotel nights and are not sold: the berth is part of your train ticket. The tickets are yours and are not included; they are bought from Russian Railways (RZD), leg by leg, in a four-berth compartment (kupé) or a two-berth one (SV). Be plain about money: Visa and Mastercard cards issued outside Russia have not worked there since March 2022, in shops, ATMs or most booking sites. Bring enough cash in dollars or euros for the whole trip, change it in banks there, and arrange the tickets and the rooms ahead through an agent or at the station counter.
What to know
Three things. One: the papers. Visa rules for Russia depend on your passport — some nationalities enter without a visa, others need one or an e-visa — so check your own case with the Russian consulate and your own foreign ministry’s travel advice before you book anything. Two: the clocks. The route crosses five hours of time zones, from Moscow time to Irkutsk, which is five hours ahead; the tickets show local time at each station, so read them carefully. Three: the sleeper. Bring food and water for the long legs (there is boiling water in every carriage and a dining car on many trains), keep your passport with you because it is checked against the ticket at the door, and keep your luggage small enough to go under the lower berth.
Roads, tolls and rules
This route has no car, and the distances are huge: about 5,170 km of rail from Moscow to Irkutsk — around 800 km to Kazan, about a thousand on to Yekaterinburg, 1,527 km to Novosibirsk and 1,842 km to Irkutsk. No leg is a short hop. Every leg here is an overnight sleeper, and the night is spent on the train, not in a hotel: the stops marked “night on the train” are not hotel nights. The last leg, from Novosibirsk to Irkutsk, takes about a day and a half. The towns where you do sleep in a hotel — Moscow, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk — are big cities, and rooms at eighty dollars are not rare there. If you would rather not do the long leg, a flight from Novosibirsk to Irkutsk takes about three hours.
Travel The Trans-Siberian: Moscow to Lake Baikal
The route on our site, with a room up to $80 every night.