I've said it before and I'll say it again, Trailblazer guides take some beating.
- Adventure Travel
Trans-Siberian Handbook
by: Bryn Thomas
UPDATES
Updated information
Thank you to Julia Fitzgerald, Jonathan Streit, Helen Clive and other readers who sent in the following updates.
Moscow
We got into the Armoury at the Kremlin without a guided tour. It doesn't seem necessary any more (you just buy a ticket, which however still has a time printed on it, and take your audio guide).
Lenin Mausoleum and Red Square
It's not really the whole of Red Square that is closed when the Lenin mausoleum opens, just a small strip of it.
Yekaterinburg
We highly recommend the restaurant ПОДКОВА ТРАКТИРЪ, ul. Lenina 28/2, near the marker with the number 32 on the map in the guidebook. The restaurant has a garden, English menu, excellent food, nice design in rural style and business lunch for around 200 RUR.
We found the Yekaterinburg regional museum and the decorative arts museum rather disappointing, comparing to what can be seen, for example, in Irkutsk or Ulan Ude. Might be worth pointing out in the guide that compared to these two cities, the other stops have relatively little to offer.
Irkutsk
Although the weather in Irkutsk was warm (T-shirt was sufficient), we found it rather chilly at Taltsy open air museum and in Listvyanka, because the water cools down the air there. It might be worth noting in the guidebook that even if it's hot in Irkutsk, taking warm clothing for Taltsy and Baikal is necessary.
Page 281, Map, Listvyanka
The Baikal museum is drawn on the wrong side of the Eastern road to the hilltop (the road to the hilltop is directly on the right (=Eastern) side of the museum when standing in front of it).
In Listvyanka minibuses between Irkutsk and Listvyanka run every 15min, so it's not worth caring about official bus departure times, unless you hate minibuses.
Listvyanka there is even a chairlift to the hilltop, for the very lazy ones.
Irkutsk
We had a very unpleasant experience at Hotel Angara. We gave our clothes to wash at the lady on the floor without asking for the exact price beforehand (stupid us). It cost us about 1300 RUR for two small bags of clothes, e.g. for a towel we were charged 80RUR. We consider this quite overpriced, and recommend future travellers to investigate on the prices before using services of Hotel Angara. Although surprisingly many of the staff speak English, we found them little helpful when it came to more "exotic" requests, such as calling ahead to the next hotel on our behalf.
Trains
It can get quite hot in the trains when the windows cannot be opened (as it was the case in two of the three trains we used).
Irkutsk
Maria Travel seems to have ceased to exist, or at least I couldn't find it.
Accommodation
We consider Hospitality Club (www.hospitalityclub.org) a very useful thing. Not only allows it to find accommodation with local people for free, it also is a good opportunity for non-Russian-speakers to meet locals who speak English. Therefore, it might be worth mentioning it in the guide. Another similar site is couchsurfers.
Meeting Point Hostel in Yekaterinburg
http://www.hostelworld.com/availability.php/Meeting-Point/Yekaterinburg/32300
Or go to www.hostelworld.com and search for Meeting Point hostel in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
The owner says the hostel price is the lowest in the city.
Beijing - The Paragon Hotel is listed as very near the station & as we were leaving from there fairly early in the morning decided to stay there. But when we needed help from the staff in getting to the station with heavy bags, as one needs to cross the busy road via a foot bridge, we didn't get the help we needed. In the end we had to pay a taxi driver 100Yuan to carry some of our bags on foot.
