After two and a half days traveling on the train we reached Khabarovsk. The Far East's most pleasant surprise. A wonderful riverside setting and broad boulevards lined with pretty tsarist-era buildings. The city has developed its riverside for the public to enjoy. It has a great strolling area with multicoloured tiles, parks, monuments and walkways. Billed as the "world's coldest city of over 500,000 people" we arrived on a warm summer in May.
Founded in 1858 as a military post by Eastern Siberia's governor-general, Count Nikolay Muravyov, during his campaign to take the Amur back from the Manchus. It was named after the man who got the Russians into trouble with the Manchus in the first place, 17th century Russian explorer
Yerofey Khabarov. 
The Trans-Siberian Railway arrived from Vladivostok in 1897. During the Russsian Civil War (1920), the town was occupied by Japanese troops. The final Bolshevik victory in the Far East was at Volochaevka, 45km west.
In 1969, soviet and Chinese soldiers fought a bloody hand-to-hand battle over little Damansky Island in the Ussuri River. Since 1984, tensions have eased. Damansky and serveral other islands have been handed back to the Chinese. China is only 90 minutes by boat from here to Fuyuan, across the Amur River.
Khabarovsk Territorial Museum
There are no tigers in Siberia.....this is a tiger located in the Amur River area.....commonly called the Siberian tiger.
There are no tigers in Siberia.....this is a tiger located in the Amur River area.....commonly called the Siberian tiger.Located in an evocative 1894 red-brick building this museum contains an excellent overview of Russian and Soviet history. Another section has garments, sleds and carvings of native peoples.
Young and older Lenin 
Crusin'on the river......
The adjacent building has a wing dedicated to the Amur River, with live fish and animals from the area.
VLADIVOSTOK
At first look, Vladivistok is something like "Russia's San Francisco". Most striking is the dock-lined Gold Horn Bay (named for is likeness to Istanbul's).It's a great place to finish a Trans-Siberian trip.Population 610,000.
Founded in 1860, Vladivostok (meaning 'to rule the East') became a naval base in 1872. Nicholas II came in 1891 to inaugurate the new Trans-Siberian rail line. By the early 20th century, the port town was teeming with merchants, speculators, and every nation of sailors - Russian,Koreans and Chinese. Many built the city .
After the Japanese War of 1904-05, it played a stretegic role. When the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia , the Japanese,Americans,French and English poured ashore here to support the tsarist counterattack. It held out until 1922, when Soviet forces finally marched in and took control - it was the last city to fall. Stalin shot or deported most of the city's foreign people. It was closed from 1958-1992 because it was a strategic military port.
In 2012 after the Asian Pacific Economic Conference, billiions were spent on infrastructure.
A giant suspension bridge was built, 
and another spanning more that 4km to Russky Island across the Eastern Bosphorus Strait. A 
brand new university campus opened here in 2012, hoping to turn the city into a high tech researach hub. 
Perched near the waterfront, the S-56 submarine houses photos of Russians lost in battle.
A portrait of Stalin is near the back, and the officer's bunks.
On the outside there is a '14' marking the WWII sub's 'kills'.
GOODBYE TO OUR BEAUTIFUL TRIP THROUGH RUSSIA....
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