Blogs from Irkutsk, Siberia, Russia, Europe - page 2

Day 4-8 and life on board the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Trans-Siberian Railway is not fast, it seems to trundle along the Russian countryside. I know it is snowing and icy, but I can’t imagine it being much faster in normal conditions. The train is basic but functional, we have four beds in our cabin, a lovely snow covered view, a toilet at the end of each carriage, a samovar in each carriage which provides hot water for making tea, making meals, you can even use it to boil some eggs. The ‘Provodnitsa’ -our stern attendant, there are usually 2 to a carriage, one working while the other rests, is in charge of the carriage, and customer service is pretty low on their priorities. They can be pretty fearsome. Their job apart from checking tickets, is to ... read more

Quick, write something.....I heard him say. 6 hours to kill at the beautifully archaic, baroque-ish, multi faceted Yaroslavsky railway station Luckily there's a bar across the street....although somewhat odd...in the way that everything in Russia is 'somewhat odd' gotta try and put my finger on it... And, I thought it odd, there's not a map to be bought within 1,500 metres of this major railway station, now here's a business idea...... The God of travelling companions is smiling on me again! Finally onboard and meet my rolling railway roommate, a 55 yo Russian doctor, he tells me his name is Vova , short for Vladimir! A neurologist, he works in Moscow and every 3 months makes this trip to somewhere east of Irkutsk to a regional hospital. He takes the train because he has a big ... read more

Hi All, So we woke to a Russia breakfast of omelet and cucumber. Our honcho decided not to turn up in the morning and so we all went for a long walk in our group of six. We took some great photos down on the Lake. On our return she had a bit of a sulk because we wanted to go early. We then headed into Irkursk where our honcho showed us the cities main sites. A list of the sites she showed us include… · Raising of the Cross Church · The Saviours Church · The statue of TSAR Alexander the III · Lenin Statue · Yuri Gagarin Statue · Angara River and banks · An impressive mall · London Pub-with pints of good Russian beer We went to a ropey café for lunch everyone ... read more

Geo: 52.3124, 104.296The Trans Siberian Express has almost the same mythical allure that the Orient Express has/had and like the Orient Express, there are a number of flavours. The one that most tourists take connects Moscow with Beijing via Mongolia but the 'real' Trans Siberian connects Moscow with Vladivostok and is the longest single train ride in the world. We've already been to both China and Mongolia and since we wanted the bragging rights of surviving 7 days and 6 nights on a Russian train heading across the barren tundra of Siberia, we boarded the train in Vladivostok. The experience from that point on was somewhat surreal- The tiny cabin that was to be our home for the next week would make a phone booth seem excessively spacious. There were two narrow benches that folded down ... read more

Another day and another exciting city was on its way - Irkutsk and Listvyanka village, the home of lake Baikal! We drove straight to Listvyanka upon arriving at Irkutsk. It was a quaint little village, 70 kms away from Irkutsk located on the shore of lake Baikal with a population of 5000. A lot of people in this part of the country believe in the Shamanic religion. These are Buryats, indigenous people (similar to Native Americans if you will) who believe that every thing has a spirit of its own. They don't have temples or churches built to worship, they pray to the sun and hence the east side is very important to them. We had planned to meet a Shaman the next day at the Shamanic cultural centre in another village. I checked in to ... read more