Tynda

Tynda (Russian: Ты́нда TYHN-duh) is a large town in Amur Oblast. Known as the "Capital of the Baikal-Amur Mainline," as it was intended to be a major hub, Tynda is at the junction with the partially complete Amur-Yakutsk Mainline, which will link the BAM with the planned terminus of Yakutsk.

Understand

Tynda is Evenki's word related to "flat river bank" or a "place for grazing of deers". The town has a river with the same name, separating the town from the railway station. The 16-floor apartment houses in the center and wooden barracks in the suburbs are two contrasts left over from Communist times.

US Wenatchee is Tynda's sister-city.

Get in

Railway station building, the "flying bird"

By train from Khabarovsk or Komsomolsk-on-Amur from the east. From Blagoveshchensk by the train #81/82 "Gilyuy" (фирменный поезд). The western direct destinations are Neryungri, Anapa, Kislovodsk and Moscow.

Get around

When you get out of the station building turn to the left to the bus stop and take a bus #35 going to the city. Equally you can start walking ahead across the bridge along the pipes and get to the central street Krasnaya Presnya, built by Moscovites.

There are a number of private taxi agencies and public buses.

See

Tynda museum

• Museum of BAM history (Музей истории БАМ), 22, Sportivnaya st., ☎ [phone]. It has eight large rooms each for its own story: aboriginal people, gulag, railway history, flora and fauna, minerals etc. Fee: RUB25. RUB25 for camera. (updated Jan 2011)

Do

• Ust-Koral (Усть Корал). Mountain ski base. 

Buy

In the second tower you can buy a ticket for a train or a plane at the agency office on the first floor.

Eat

There are a lot of cafes.

Drink

Sleep

• Hotel Yunost (Гостиница Юность), 49, Krasnaya Presnya st., ☎ [phone]. Spacious multi-floor Soviet-style hotel in the center. 
• railway resting rooms, Tynda station. clean and tidy a room for 24 hours cost RUB1100, a shower is an extra RUB100. 

Connect

Go next

Local airport serves flights to Blagoveshchensk.

Routes through Tynda

Bratsk ← Severobaikalsk ←

W  E

→ Komsomolsk-on-Amur → Sovetskaya Gavan