Talk:Novosibirsk

Trivial Information and Orthography

1.There are bits of information that either belong in sepatate articles or in some new section of the article ("Trivia"):

The lunar eclipse, the paragraph about the lions in the zoo.

2.The orthography keeps on flipping between American and Imperial at every edit, I suppose it isn't that important, but if we could decide...

Comment added by Crocodilicus (talk • contribs) 18:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The Pillsbury Crescent Roll commercial of the girl acting like Dorothy on the Wizard of Oz is in Novosibirsk. Kochamanita (talk) 03:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The name

The name was given after St.Nicolas, not the tzar. It's the same patters as St.Petersburg build by tzar Peter The Great, however named after the saint. Ruslan Moskalenko rmoskalenko@hotmail.com

Wasn`t it named after Nicholas I of Russia? Hard to believe that it was named after living & ruling emperor. 81.198.236.204 00:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC)errant

I think there were semi-official attempts to revert to the old name in the 1990s, I have a good-quality 1996 atlas (in Swedish) where it's actually called Novonikolayevsk. That wouldn't have happened if there were not official Russian maps in circulation with that name. Strausszek (talk) 23:38, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

New Siberia?

The name means "New Siberia", right? If so, this info is good to include in the article if true. --Menchi (Talk)â 03:57, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 True. (I'm russian) 12.53.38.63 (talk) 01:48, 29 July 2009 (UTC)duck

True but rather "New Siberian"

Novosibirsk agreement

Hmm, in this edit, User:213.249.242.25 added the following text to Novosibirsk:

The Novosibirsk Agreement is the informal name for the promise made at a meeting in Novosibirsk by Tony Blair to Paddy Ashdown that he would share government with the Liberal Democrats and institute Proportional Representation in UK elections on coming to power. The promise was not kept.

I asked the current user of that IP, and he/she confirms that they didn't make the edit (it's clearly a dynamic IP). I can't find any reference to this agreement anywhere, and several brit-polit folks I spoke to haven't heard of it at all. Remarkable claims like this need to have a citation (a newspaper article, book reference, etc.) showing they have some reality. I've removed the above paragraph from the article - if someone can provide solid citations, we can restore the content (along with the citations). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:21, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Google gives nothing. Nothing at all except Wikipedia clones. Looks made up. DJ Clayworth 17:59, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, that was my impression too. This may be a rather subtle way to discredit wikipedia; find some article divorved entirely from the subject matter (where peer review is weakest), and inject crap there - e.g. add "this is where Laura Bush has all her secret abortions" to Ulaanbaatar - and later claim that "unreliable web encyclopedia makes scurrilous unsubstanciated claims...". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:05, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The meeting does get a mention in a Guardian online article from October 21, 2000 on the publication of volume 1 of Ashdown's diaries. It's currently only available via the Google cache of it. Here's the relevant bit, in case it disappears.

Around lunchtime on May 1, 1997, Mr Ashdown telephoned Mr Blair at his Sedgefield home to predict the landslide the prime minister-to-be was still refusing to countenance. The size of Labour's majority made a coalition not only unnecessary but out of the question, as the pair agreed during another telephone conversation 24 hours later.

The first volume of Mr Ashdown's diaries does not cover the period after the election. However, Mr Blair and Mr Ashdown discussed closer cooperation in the unlikely setting of Novosibirsk in Siberia, where their RAF VC10 touched down to refuel early on July 1, 1997, on the way back to Britain after the handover of Hong Kong to China.

Walking round the plane, Mr Blair in a souvenir blue Denver fire service tee-shirt, picked up a few weeks earlier at the G7 summit, discussed what was to become the five-a-side joint cabinet consultative committee with Mr Ashdown. The anti-coalition majority in the parliamentary Labour party, including much of the cabinet, has long suspected the joint committee was intended to lead to what Mr Ashdown called The Full Monty.

A leak last November of Mr Ashdown's private files recorded how during a Downing Street dinner on October 21, 1997, Mr Blair had discussed axing "two easy people to move out of the cabinet" - believed to have been David Clark and Gavin Strang - to make way for Menzies Campbell and Alan Beith.

If anyone has access to volume 2 of Ashdown's diaries, it would be worth a check to see if he says anything more. Though it seems the meeting was not of great significance, it is clear that the original edit was not malicious. --Cavrdg 11:04, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort in looking this up. Yep, it looks like it is genuine after all. Still, I'm disinclined to restore it to the Novosibirsk article (as it really has nothing to do with the city at all). Whether it should be in the Blair and/or Ashdown articles is another matter - it rather pales when compared with the supposed Granita and Loch Fyne Oyster Bar "agreements". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:02, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

No problem. It did ring a bell with me and I've now found the reference I remembered, in Andrew Rawnsley's Servants of the People, ISBN 0140278508. Here it is.

Tony Blair couldn't sleep. He was restless, buzzing as the plane carrying him back from the handover of Hong Kong to China streaked to Britain in the summer of 1997. Word was sent down the VC-10 for Paddy Ashdown to come join the Prime Minister in his private quarters. The two men, leaders of rival parties though they were, supposedly fierce competitors in the gladiatorial arena, chatted and laughed as intimate friends until they became so noisy that they disturbed a pyjama-clad Cherie. The ceremonialising and speechifying in the Far East had been long and draining. The Prime Minister's wife did want to get some sleep. Couldn't the two of them find somewhere else to do their business?

At a refuelling stop in Siberia, Blair and Ashdown got out to continue their conversation on the tarmac. They were challenged by a Russian official who did not recognise the man wearing tracksuit bottoms and a Denver Fire Service sweatshirt, a souvenir of the G7 Summit, as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Once that little local difficulty was resolved, the two men walked and talked in the Siberian dawn, carrying on with their tryst of Novosibirsk.

They were taking up where they had left off before the election. A clandestine understanding had been struck that there would be a coalition government between the two parties, with at least two Liberal Democrats in the Cabinet, if Tony Blair didn't have a majority significantly better than John Major's. It was third party insurance for Blair against a hung parliament or a majority vulnerable to left-wing rebellion.

The landslide upset the coalition calculations of both men when they spoke on the Friday after the election, just as Blair was about to go to Buckingham Palace. Ashdown was in his Commons office, accompanied by two trusted Liberal Democrat Lords, Richard Holme and Roy Jenkins. There was not time for a long conversation. It is one of the weaknesses of the British way of changing governments that on their first day in office, at a moment when they are utterly exhausted, new Prime Ministers have to make snap judgements with enormous long-term consequences. Blair had a thousand decisions to make that day.

It became evident to Ashdown that negotiating all the twists and turns involved in forming a coalition with the Liberal Democrats was not something that was going to happen the morning after the landslide. Though he would later rue an opportunity lost, at the time Ashdown himself was very uncertain about whether a coalition was now feasible. He was worried how he would explain to his contingent of forty-six MPs that they would not be swallowed up by a government with such a huge majority. Blair did not pop the question. ‘It was like an old-fashioned romance between two would-be lovers,' says one of those involved. 'It was up to Blair to propose. He didn't.'

Ashdown did not press his suit. Watching television that afternoon, the Liberal Democrat leader saw Robin Cook come on the screen captioned as Foreign Secretary. Ashdown asked himself whether he minded. He decided he was relieved.'

As you say, it's not really relevant to Novosibirsk. I'll have a look one of these days to see if it fits well into one of the articles on the political history of the period. --Cavrdg 18:26, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

About the "seal"

I don't understand why it says "seal" and not "coat of arms". --B. Jankuloski 10:04, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Because the article uses {{Infobox City}}, in which "seal" is hard-coded. As applied to Novosibirsk (and indeed any other Russian city/town), it is obviously incorrect. Feel free to manually subst the template—this will need to be corrected eventually. Thanks for spotting this!—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 13:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Third largest, or fourth?

The lede says it's the third largest city in Russia, but farther down it is said to be the fourth. I don't feel like researching this at such a late hour... S. Ugarte 10:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

It's the third largest as of the 2002 Census. According to some later estimates it is sometimes considered fourth; however, Census data are the only data allowing comparison of numbers obtained using the same methodology. Anyway, I made the corrections. Thanks for catching this!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:24, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Infringing copyrights

After adding new information, i put copyrights to the site, that i took texts from. Also added a link to this site, 'cause it's only resource in the web, containing reliable info about city (i'm novosibirsk's citizen, so i know it). Nevertheless, all copyrights and links was deleted. [2] 13:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Fox domestication

"In the 1950s, Soviet scientists set up an experiment on a farm outside the city of Novosibirsk to understand how animals were domesticated. They decided to study foxes, which are closely related to wolves and dogs....More than 40 generations of foxes have now been bred in Novosibirsk, and the results speak for themselves. The foxes that the scientists bred selectively have become remarkably doglike. They will affectionately run up to people and even wag their tails." -- Time magazine: The Secrets Inside Your Dog's Mind By Carl Zimmer Monday, Sep. 21, 2009.[3]

Maybe add to article? Ikip (talk) 15:17, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

That's just hilarious :) I don't know if this article (which is a broad overview of the city) is a good place for something like this though. On the other hand, I have no idea where else to stick it. If you were to insert this factoid into this article, which section do you think it should go under?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:09, September 21, 2009 (UTC)

Economy & S7 Airlines

There is a mistake. S7 Airlines has a headquarter in the Ob town. Also in source on page 67 wrote "Ob-4, Novosibirsk, 633115, Russia". Ob-4 is town & Novosibirsk means region.89.176.224.112 (talk) 08:45, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Edit "buttons"

Edit "buttons" are concentrated on section of Zoo, please if someone can put them on proper places, for each section.--Palapa (talk) 11:08, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Image bunching is always a bitch. I've done what I could; it's not perfect, but better than it was. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:01, January 28, 2010 (UTC)

@Ezhiki, Thank you. --Palapa (talk) 15:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)