Omsk Oblast (Russian: О́мская о́бласть OHM-skuh-yuh OH-blust') is a region in Western Siberia, which borders Tyumen Oblast to the northwest, Tomsk Oblast to the northeast, Novosibirsk Oblast to the east, and Kazakhstan to the south.
Cities
![](https://maps.wikimedia.org/img/osm-intl,a,a,a,420x420.png?lang=en&domain=en.wikivoyage.org&title=Omsk Oblast&groups=mask,around,buy,city,do,drink,eat,go,listing,other,see,sleep,vicinity,view,black,blue,brown,chocolate,forestgreen,gold,gray,grey,lime,magenta,maroon,mediumaquamarine,navy,red,royalblue,silver,steelblue,teal,fuchsia)
- 1 Omsk — One of Siberia's most important cities and one of Russia's largest, an excellent stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway
- 2 Tara — one of Siberia's first cities in the 16th century and the "mother" to many of Siberia's most important cities as it was an expeditionary base; it is a sleepy town home to a number of historical churches
- 3 Bolsherechye — a historic old Siberian fortress town (1627), which contains a huge zoo; its hippopotamuses made the news by turning up in a nearby lake and giving a couple drunk fishermen a real scare!
Other destinations
Understand
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Omsk_Lenin_street.jpg/300px-Omsk_Lenin_street.jpg)
Talk
Expect that some knowledge of Russian will greatly assist you in your travels here.
Get in
Omsk is a major stop (and indeed, one of the best stops) on the Trans-Siberian Railway. This capital city is also the "terminus" for the Trans-Siberian Railway's South Ural branch.
Omsk Tsentralny Airport (OMS IATA), serviced by flights from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, and Andijan, Uzbekistan.
Get around
See
- 1 Achair Convent. A beautiful convent outside Omsk, which was used as a gulag in the 1930s, where over 100,000 perished from malnutrition and the cold
Do
- Cruising, whitewater rafting, and canoeing along the Irtysh, Tara, and Shish rivers
- Hunting
Eat
Drink
Stay safe
Go next
The next major stops on the Trans-Siberian Railway are Tyumen to the west and Novosibirsk to the east. The first major stop to the west along the South Ural Branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway is Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan.