This will be a 4 hour plane trip from Moscow to Novo - we are stockpiling our DVD's -

Where we are going!!

Hi Everyone! I wanted to give our family and friends a place where you can view the updates of our adoption. This will be really useful when we are in Russia. You can follow our steps and hear what is going on before we get home.

I thought I would give some background information on the region that we are adopting from. We are going to Novosibirsk, Russia. Yep, that's right smack in the middle of Siberia. Novosibirsk is the city that prides itself on its size: it is the third-largest city in Russia after Moscow and St.Petersburg (the largest city east of the Ural Mountains). It has the biggest railway station along the Trans-Siberian route, the largest library in Siberia, and the biggest opera/ballet theater in all of Russia -- even bigger than Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. The City lies on both banks of the Ob River.

Novosibirsk has the third main cultural and scientific center in Russia (after Moscow and St. Petersburg), the university of Novosibirsk is quite famous too. The city is developing quite rapidly, and is considered to be the capital of Siberia. In 1943, the Academy of Sciences opened up its Siberian branch in Novosibirsk, which signaled the beginning of the city's transformation into the educational hub of Siberian Russia. While there are many research institutes located within Novosibirsk itself, there are still many more clustered in Academgorodok , a small city founded in the 1950's by the Academy, 30 km south of Novosibirsk. At its height, Academgorodok was home to 65,000 scientists and their families, and was a privileged area to live in, with well-stocked stores and dachas for the academic elite. .

Climate: The winters in Novosibirsk are very severe, cold and snowy. Summer is rather hot and dry. Temperatures in summer range from 20 to 22°C, (68-72F) ; in winter - 18 - 20°C , (0 to -4F)but sometimes they may go up to -35°C (-31F) in winter and 35°C, (95F) in summer . The difference between the highest and the lowest temperature is 88°C, (190F). The average sun in this region is 2880 hours an year.