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Published: April 30th 2009
Day 10 -11 (April 14-15)
We head off in a private bus without staying in Irkutsk and go straight to our guest house in Listvyanka. Breakfast was waiting, wonderful sweet cottage cheese things, pancakes, bread and cheese and meets, porridge and juice and coffee. Fantastic food, and a ideal place to stay.
It is not too cold only -2. with our warm gear on we head out for a walk in the surrounding hills.
A circuit involving some steep and slippery parts up and down brings us back a spot overlooking the township where we can see the frozen lake - which is the largest by volume in the world holding one fifth of the worlds fresh water.
We then walk into town and obtain some roubles. I learn that when ordering a sandwich in Russia it is not a meal. Rather I reveive an open sandwich on just a third of a slice of bread, tasty but just an appetiser.
We are sitting in a café with a view out over the frozen lake. Perfect spot to spend some time. Afterward we wander up the hill to a higher vantage point to what is obviously
a picnic area during the warmer months.
The houses in this area are charming, with decorative window shutters and fences.
I have another cold (only Mongolia has missed out so far) and opt out of the Banya. A Banya is a Russian steam room where you beat or get beaten with branches that have been heated. Everyone said it was a wonderful experience even if a little rough. Dinner was the local fresh water fish Umul all cooked by our host Nicholai. Again such a shame to be only spending one night here.
The following morning after another delicious breakfast we have to leave unfortunately. We take the bus back into Irkutsk for a visit to the Decembrist Museum which was a house of one of those that had been banished to Siberia during an earlier uprising.
Quite a few of the wives followed their husbands, and as they had been part of the wealthier classes this was a very brave move as they would have none of the things that they would have been used to. After a decade or so, their husbands were released from the work camps, and as they were educated soon
became well respected and significant members of the Siberian society. The house we visited was from a few decades after the banishment and was very comfortable if not the opulent style they had come from.
We had an orientation walk of Irkutsk and then shopped for supplies for the upcoming three day train journey at a local market. Cheese, bread and grapes would suffice as we expected to be able to buy some platform food prepared by local babushka’s along the way.
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