Friday afternoon as the moon completely blocked the sun, enrapturing huge crowds of Russians and foreign tourists. The peak of the eclipse occurred in Novosibirsk, Russia's third-largest city.
There, forecasts of cloudy skies proved wrong, and tens of thousands of people who had flocked to the center of town were able to observe the rare total eclipse of the sun — which lasted two minutes, 23 seconds.
Traffic stopped. Crowds wearing protective eye wear cheered and whistled as the moon covered the sun, the wind died and day became night. The NTV news channel reported that more than 10,000 foreign tourists arrived in Novosibirsk, the largest city in the eclipse's path, to watch.The eclipse began in Arctic Canada, then passed through Greenland, western Siberia, Mongolia and China.
