Siberia

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When I was younger, I imagined Siberia as a big, cold place, where nothing grew and no one lived. Of course I was wrong, but that is how I imagined it. As I said in the last blog, I have passed through forests, around lakes, and stayed in two cities, one on either side of the lake.

I spent yesterday relaxing and chatting with the people in the hostel. Hostels tend to be friendly places, with backpackers moving through, always moving from one place to another. ones who have been in the city longer offer advice to the noobs. There are lots of people traveling alone, in pairs and in groups, and after a long enough time, people need someone new to talk to. People traveling alone need someone to chat to. People in pairs tend to start bickering after a while and even bigger groups tire of each other. The hostel is a place to meet all kinds of new people.

And so, I spent a day chilling in the kitchen talking to people just arriving and those waiting for their trains and flights out, picking up tips from people doing the trans-sib eastward (who have already done the cities I will be doing) and from those who have done Irkutsk.

This morning I started at the Ethnographic Museum. Irkutsk became a city when waves of Cossacks, Merchants, and exiles moved out east. The original fort was built for trading gold and taxing the furs of the local Buryats. Irkutsk gained in strength and power in the region due to its location between Russia and China. Tea and other goods were brought in from the east and sold west. I saw a Chinese wardrobe inlaid with dragons in the Museum of City Life.

I went to a Indian-vegetarian restaurant I found online for lunch. They had clearly only hear of Indian food by rough description. I have never had Indian food with spouts in it... or dill. In fact, the meal tasted a lot like a Christmas curry... but with dill. Lots and lots of dill. Not entirely unpleasant though.

I finished the day with a walk around a tea museum, lots of samovars and bricks of tea, maps showing the tea route, and a creepy mannequin offering a cup and saucer (I say creepy, it may have been an ordinary mannequin, but I find them all terrifying).

I'm off to Listvyanka tomorrow to go for a paddle in Baikal.

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Comments

[Mum]

Did you ever read the Endless Steppe by Esther something of other deeply cold winters and boiling summers that's how I think of Siberia - perhaps you are in the taiger bit which would account for the forests.

[scenicroute]

Endless steppe
Yep, i'm in the taiga bit. Charlotte was teling me about that book last night! I'll have to read it when i get back!