The Blue Eye of Siberia

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  Irkutsk, Siberia, Russian Federation
Tuesday, June 10, 2008

If it wasn't for the winters I could live here. The problem is that Siberia has the ultimate in continental climate extremes, and the temperatures range from -50C in the winter, to +40C in July. If it wasn't for that though..... 
The train journey up here from Ulan Bataar took one and a half days. Apart from a few Western backpackers, passengers on this route are largely Mongolian traders on their way to Russia in the hope of making a quick buck. But between them and the Roubles stand the Russian Border Guards, and for the first few hours of the journey the train is a frenzy of Mongolians swapping their wares and hiding it in each other's compartments. There's so much of the stuff that some of them have brought little sack trucks and trolleys, just to move it up and down the corridors. Eventually, and very gradually, it begins to settle down with contraband and goods spread evenly along the train - but of course it will all need to be moved back again once we're over the border

Round the bend, Trans Mongolian Express

. How they remember who's got what is beyond me.
Before we reached the the Russian border, the train stopped at a place called Darchan, which is the 2nd biggest city in Mongolia (although that isn't really saying a lot). This is where the Russian passengers on the train revealed themselves. They'd be the ones in the station buffet, clearing the shelves of all the vodka then....
The border crossing itself is something else. I've crossed borders by train in the old USSR before, and the bureaucracy has to be seen to be believed, but here they've raised the game to a whole new level. They're not particularly interested in Western tourists (so Julie, Dean and I were processed quite quickly), but they'd like to collect a little excise from the Mongolians, and this can take some time. There was also a compartment further down our carriage that contained two Russian girls, a Mongolian and a pair of cats - the sniffer dogs found this quite interesting. At three o'clock in the morning, after six hours of sitting in a siding, our passports were handed back and we were on our way.
I woke up in a different country, with different scenery. The train had stopped in Ulan Ude, Siberia, which is the capital of the Buryat Republic. Buryats are very similar to Mongols in many ways, and although they are no longer nomadic, they share a lot of physical characteristics

Lake Baikal

. They also the have the same religion, and this makes Ulan Ude the Russian centre of Tibetan Buddhism. Originally they were animists though - Siberia is the home of the Shaman.
From Ulan Ude the train heads North and then West, leaving behind the Selenga River which we followed up from Mongolia. We are now traveling through the Siberian "taiga", vast forests of birch, cedar, larch and other pines. I thought that the steppe went on for ever, but this is just mind blowingly big. Also the silver birch is my favourite tree, and here they have birch forests that are bigger than France. My cup runneth over....
Back in Copacabana Bolivia, I promised to bring you to the largest lake in the world. The train suddenly emerges from the forest, and there it is: Lake Baikal, the Blue Eye of Siberia. The statistics are impressive. The surface area of the lake is about the same size as Switzerland, and it holds more water than all the North American Great Lakes combined - 20% of the world's fresh water is here. It is the oldest lake in the world, and the deepest. The water is so clear that you can see 40m below the surface (around 130 feet) - swimmers and boat passengers have been known to suffer from vertigo.
Baikal is also home to an incredible array of wildlife, more than 1,500 species, two thirds of which are found nowhere else

Valery makes a picnic, Siberian style

. There are freshwater seals (the only ones in the world), and a species of salmon more than 4000km from the ocean. There are black-headed gulls just like back home, but these are migrants that over-winter in the Philippines. One of the strangest creatures in the lake is the Oil Fish - they are long-finned and translucent (you can read a newspaper through them), and are most famous for disintegrating into a pool of oil and bones when they're taken out of the deep water. The most common edible fish is the "omul" which is dried or smoked and sold on market stalls all around Baikal. It tastes a bit like herring.
In the winter, ice on the lake is over 1 metre thick. The Russians open a road across the ice every year, from Listvyanka to Slyudyanka at the Southern tip of the lake. This knocks about 4 hours off the journey time between the two towns compared to the rest of the year.
The lake is also getting wider and deeper. Geologists tell us that a new ocean is being formed here, and that eventually Eastern Siberia will break away from the rest of Asia. That's always assuming we don't fry the planet in the meantime I suppose?
Listvyanka, Baikal
My home for the next couple of days is in the village of Listvyanka, on the shores of Lake Baikal, and we're staying with Valery

Soviet Car

. He's a biologist at the University of Irkutsk about 70km down the road, but these days he mainly makes his living through tourism, and takes paying guests in his apartment.
This is a typical Khrushchev era apartment, and I've stayed in this type of place before. The rooms are large, but they lack amenities, and the utilities can be very iffy. The water supply failed twice while we were there, and Valery was spotted filling buckets of water from a stream out the back so that we could flush the toilet.
After the Janying and Genghis beer, I'm now on the Baltika which is a brand of beer sold widely in Eastern Europe. Just up from the apartments is a Ski Centre/Hotel, and I made my way up there for a Saturday night out. It was a mixture of locals, hotel guests, and a bunch of people on a management training course who decided to adopt me for the night. They drank too much vodka, and I drank too much Baltika. On Sunday there were shouts of "Hello John!" in the street on at least four occasions, with people I barely recognised giving me the thumbs up. One of them even ran up and gave me a big kiss, Brezhnev style. I think they like me.....
So what's a Saturday night out in Listvyanka like? I've got used to them now, but to begin with the lasses looked like tarts, and the lads like something off Crimewatch. If you can picture a Welsh Young Farmers' annual bash being hosted in an open prison, you're about half way there..........

Baikal ferry

.
Siberian houses are traditionally made of wood, and have a banya (Russian sauna) in the back garden. Valery takes us to a different one each night and I think they're great. Funny how different circumstances produce different reactions though. Banyas are heated by wood-burning stoves, and in many ways are the same as the inside of my ger. Maybe it's OK in the banya because I'm not trying to get into bed? Now I think about it, not only does Valery take us to a different banya every night, but each time he takes us there in a different car.......there's something going on here!
Irkutsk, Siberia
Valery is a nice guy, and cooked us traditional Siberian food a couple of times a day. This included things like tea made from blackcurrant leaves, wild garlic, and dumplings stuffed with potatoes (a strange combination that actually works). At the end of the day though, we were staying in a single bloke's flat with a single bloke doing the cooking.
Now I'm living with a real live babushka! When we first arrived in Irkutsk we were met by a girl called Zena who took us down to Valery's place. Now we're back in Irkutsk we've moved in with her garndmother. We're eating proper home cooking and she's lovely, although she's scolded me a couple of times for not eating enough

Join the Army. Visit Chechnya.

.
As a city Irkutsk is fine, although Dean and Julie seem a little underwhelmed. As far as I'm concerned it all depends on your attitude to travel though, and this has been an opportunity to see how the majority of Russians live. I've spent a couple of days just sitting in the park, paddling in the river, and generally wandering round. I'm officially Russian now anyway - today I sat on a park bench in the sunshine with the rest of them and drank a can of beer. Believe it or not, that is the first time in my life I've ever done that.
Irkutsk was also a good place to recharge the batteries, and get ready for the train journey to come. This is the big one - nearly 6,000km to Moscow and it takes around four and a half days. It could go either way - good trip or stir crazy, we'll have to wait and see. It's good to catch the train though, as the roads round here can get a bit sticky. This is the main road to Yakutsk Siberia after it rained (slow to load, but I thought the text at the beginning is quite interesting as well):  http://www.englishrussia.com/?p=315
  
  

I'll catch up with you on the other side................. 

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

View from my room, Trans Mongolian Express	Selenga River, Trans Mongolian Express	View from my room, Listvyanka	Valery's kitchen
First view, Lake Baikal from the train	Baikal ferry 1	Baikal ferry 2	Baikal ferry 3
Port Baikal from the water	"Golden Eagle". Trans Siberian Express	Port Baikal	Port Baikal. Ships and goats
War Memorial, Port Baikal	Rock painting, Circum-Baikal railway	Rock painting 2, Circum-Baikal railway	Grafitti, Circum-Baikal railway
Walking the Circum-Baikal railway	Light at the end of the tunnel, Baikal	Wooden houses, Listvyanka	Wooden houses 2, Listvyanka
Wooden houses 3, Listvyanka	Wooden houses 4, Listvyanka	Old Soviet locomotive, Port Baikal	This is one family's holiday home!
Valery's apartment block	My room, Irkutsk	Orthodox Church, Irkutsk	another Orthodox Church, Irkutsk
Monkey Business, Listvyanka	Yuri Gagarin's head, Irkutsk	Rehabilitation - Tsar Alexander III, Irkutsk

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