Ulan-Ude

Introduction

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© hazelnutty

Ulan-Ude is the capital city of the Republic of Buryatia, Siberia, Russia and is located about 100 kilometers southeast of Lake Baikal. It has about 375,000 inhabitants.

Weather

Ulan-Ude has a Steppe Climate with cold winters and warm summers. Average daytime temperatures in winter (December-February) are mostly in the -12 °C to -18 °C range, while nights plummit to -23 °C to -28 °C. During the summertime (June to August) temperatures are 23-26 °C during the day and 10-14 °C at night. This is by far the wettest time of the year, though only around 50-60mm of precipitation a month. There is only around 250mm of rain (and snow) a year.

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© hazelnutty

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Avg Max	-18.3 °C	-12.9 °C	-1.2 °C	8.7 °C	18 °C	24 °C	25.7 °C	23.2 °C	16.2 °C	6.2 °C	-5.8 °C	-14.7 °C
Avg Min	-28.6 °C	-26.1 °C	-15.1 °C	-4.6 °C	2.5 °C	9.4 °C	13.3 °C	11.1 °C	3.7 °C	-4.9 °C	-15.6 °C	-23.9 °C
Rainfall	5 mm	3 mm	2 mm	7 mm	13 mm	40 mm	72 mm	59 mm	27 mm	8 mm	10 mm	12 mm
Rain Days	1	1	1	2	3	6	9	7	5	2	3	3

Getting There

By Plane

Ulan-Ude Airport (UUD) offers flights to Moscow, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Ulan Bator and Yakutsk.

By Train

Ulan Ude is located on the main line of the Trans-Siberian Railway between Irkutsk and Chita at the junction of the Trans-Mongolian Railway which begins at Ulan Ude and continues south through Mongolia to Beijing in China.

By Car

The city is located along the Baikal Highway (part of the Trans-Siberian Highway), the main road to Vladivostok.

Sleep

Upscale

View our map of accommodation in Ulan Ude

Keep Connected

Internet

Russia is a huge country, and excess to the internet varies a lot. The main cities and tourist places have (free) wifi excess at lots of places, like restaurants and cafes (McDonald's is always a safe bet). Internet cafes are present in larger places as well. Rural areas and especially if you venture into remote and/or mountainous areas have little excess at all. Most travellers will find connections though when using their phone or tablet.

Phone

See also: International Telephone Calls

The emergency number is 112. The country code for Russia is 7. Russian phone numbers have an area code with three, four or five digits (according to their province), followed by an individual number with, respectively, 7, 6 or 5 digits, always yielding 10 digits in total. The three digit code 800 is used for toll-free calls. Mobile phones always have three-digit "area" codes and seven-digit numbers. Calls within any one area code may omit the area code (except in Moscow). Inter-area code calls within Russia: 8 (wait for tone) full Russian number including area code. The international access code for dialling outwith Russia is the sequence of 8 (wait for secondary tone and then) 10. International calls to Russia, as always, replace the plus sign (+) in the international phone format with the local international access code for the country you're calling from, followed by Russia's country code of 7 followed by the individual Russian phone number including area code.

You will require a SIM-unlocked GSM 900 / 1800 compatible international cell phone when buying a Russian SIM card. If you do not have your own international cell phone, it's best to buy a cheap cell phone with some value on the card. Foreigners can purchase a local SIM card by showing your passport. BeeLine is considered to be the best in terms of reliability and connections quality. However Megafon's services can be a bit cheaper.

Post

Russian Post is the national postal service of Russia. It's English version is currently under construction, but mainly involves the track&trace system. The domestic post is reasonably reliable, and sending international mail is fairly reliable but slow, taking at least a few weeks to European countries, longer to the USA or Australia for example. The delivery of mail sent from abroad to Russia is highly unreliable, and people or companies tend to use foreign adresses, from where a private carrier sends it to Russia. Alternatives like poste restante are non-existent with Russian Post. Most cities and large towns in Russia have a Central Post Office (Glavpochtamt), which also sells stamps and envelopes, and usually has fax services and Internet availability, though the latter mostly not in smaller places. Also, many hotels have postal services, including mail boxes. Post offices tend to keep long hours, usually from 8:00am or 9:00am until 8:00pm or 9:00pm Monday to Friday, and closing earlier during weekends. The main central post offices in the biggest cities keep even longer hours. For sending parcels, you can also try services by DHL Russia and FedEx Russia. For all mail you can use the regular alphabet, though maybe include the country's name in Cyrillic. For sending post to Russia (or trying to receive it) note that addresses should be in reverse order: Russia, postal code, city, street address, name.

External Links

• Official Website