Laura Gather came to the HSE to study Social Science. She is from Germany and studies in Cologne. This May, her friends and she travelled by the Trans-Siberian railway. From Moscow, they went by train to Ekaterinburg, then to Omsk, Novosibirsk, Ulan Ude, and Irkutsk. Laura spent two nights on Olkhon Island and one night in Listvianka before she finally returned from Irkutsk to Moscow by plane. She has shared an account of her travel experiences with Read Square, HSE online student magazine run by Russian and international stuents.