Day #54: Day trip to Taltsy

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Awoke to my final day in Russia not feeling too well but was unable to contemplate spending my last day in Russia in bed, plus I had been saving Taltsy as I was so keen to go there. So set off for the marshrutka and was there by mid-afternoon.

Taltsy is a small town between Irkutsk and Listvyanka, and the reason for my visit was the wooded village there. The website is entirely in Russian but from what I could gather it was created as a way of preserving traditional architecture for posterity, so many of the structures there actually used to elsewhere and were moved to Taltsy at various points in the past 40 years or so when they fell into disuse. Other buildings there, however, were just built new in the traditional style for the museum. It is designed to be a bit like Beamish, with people in traditional dress walking around and various homes and other buildings with traditional interiors that you can go in and look at, although on the day I went it (a Sunday) was very quiet and the attempts and bringing it to life were a bit half-hearted. It was a good time to see it, however, as it is in a beautiful setting in woodlands next to the river, worth visiting just for these views alone, and I saw it at a very peaceful time with just a handful of fellow Russian visitors.

There is a lot there and it took me about 2 hours to wander around. It starts with wooden structures used by nomadic communities in Russia (which still exist in the outer reaches of Siberia), in particular the Evenks, showing their teepee-type homes and hunting and burial structures. Then there was an entire village in wood, including different types of homes, a church and a chapel, stables and farm buildings, a police station and several shops, plus a recreation of wooden fishing boats and implements on the river shore. It was really fascinating and I was glad I went, although as it is in a very quiet area just off a fast road, flagging down a marshrutka to get back to Irkutsk was a challenge: eventually one of the white minivans stopped and I got in, only to realise further down the road that it wasn't actually a marshrutka, just someone who had stopped to give me a lift! It was unproblematic, but I don't intend to make a habit of that!

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