Irktusk and Listvyanka on Lake Baikal

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Geo: 52.3124, 104.296

Irktusk and Listvyanka on Lake Baikal 10th -13th Jul

So on arrival in Irkutsk (aka The Paris of Siberia) we are met by local guide Olga and taken for breakfast at Hotel Irkutsk where they have the nicest porridge ever and where we saw the vintage car Peking to Paris race cars. We then had a bus tour of the town which is frenchy but not Parisien more large provinical french town but the train station building is very lovely. Then we headed 70km south on the longest road in Irkutsk 'Baikal Skaya' to 300 yr old Listvyanka village on the shores of Lake Baikal. We stopped off in an open air museum (not unlike one we were at in Switzerland) called 'The Museum of Wooden Architecture' which was set up to show how cossacks used to live in Siberia 100 years ago or so. Worth an hour's stop.

In Listvyanka we were staying in a home-stay on Gudina St which was basically a b+b in a log cabin with dinner thrown in (and laundry for 10euro a bag) and it was all very nice and rustic but with paper thin walls. However it did have a Russian sauna (banya) room, which is basically a shed with 3 rooms, and outer one with a roaring fire stove thing, a middle one with buckets of cold water to throw on yourself or others and a collection of birch branches and then the banya room it self which is dark and dank and roasting and only has room for 3 and was totally brilliant.

We did our turn with the beautiful hot Julia who we "slept" with in Mongolian Ger camp. So picture this, the three of us sit in this roasting room (much hotter than a swedish sauna you get in the gym or a hotel) and then when you are really sweating one of you lies down and the other two beat you lightly (or not) with the birch branches then when all of you can take the heat no more you run out and throw freezing cold buckets of water on each other, have a rest in the outer room which now seems cool and then do it all over again 3 more times for about an hour. AWESOME! I must add here the aussies lasted five minutes, wusses.

So Lake Baikal is 25 million years old, is the deepest lake in the world at 1637m and provides a fifth of the worlds fresh water (I know this cause we went to the Limnological museum & I see we are now 455m above sea level) but you can still go for a boat cruise on it (also I missed my chance to run away with a sailor apparently the skipper told Julia he wanted to marry me). Also the lake freezes solid from mid Jan to end April so they can drive over it even though there's continuous seismic activity. There's many plants and wildlife here and also there's a beautiful precious stone endemic to here called charoite.
So Lake Baikal is pretty cold - about 6 degrees now - and they say if you stay in one minute you add a year to your life, five mins = 5 years but 10 mins = Instant death. So needless to say I paddled for about 20 secs but our C. jumped straight in and swam for about 2 mins. Russian old lads were coming up to him after patting him on the back.

At the Limnological museum there was an aquarium with 2 cute seals, we saw some on the cruise too but not close enough. And opposite the harbour is a new hotel with a rooftop bar that affords great views of the lake which is worth doing for anyone going there. Another nice view out of town is Cherskey observation point which we chairlifted up to and walked back down through some nice woodlands not disimiliar to Irish woodlands only they ski here in winter.

The patron saint around here is St. Nicolas who protects sailors, merchants, fishermen and thieves. The are 17 St. Nic's churches around the lake (which is 27-80km wide) so we just checked out one, women have to cover their heads but the see nothing wrong with running a souvenir ship a the back of the church (i.e. in the same room as the altar). So russian orthodox churches are pretty much as you'd expect all gold bits and full of icons. Nice though.

So each evening was spent drinking vodka on the balcony overlooking the lake with our aussie mates admiring the 'White nights' I never saw darkness at all but I didn't stay awake later than 1am so who knows.

We spent our third day on a walking tour of Irkutsk - taking in the Annunication Catherdral on Ploschad Kirona, Catholic polish church Polskaya Kostyoli which is across the road from Siberia's only gothic building The Church of the Ephiany which was a bakery in communist times. These are all by the War Memorial and a bridge over the Angara river with some good views of the city. Then we had a guided tour in the Regional History museum (interesting) opposite the newly restored Alexander I statue (where we saw a tv show being filmed). Tried clothes shopping on Karl Marx st. but sadly there was still no clothes for giant 'no-tails' like me. We went to what seemed like a nice restaurant for lunch and had Danish style service (aka none) and then to add insult to injury the vegetarian stuff cost twice as much as the meat stuff, so not impressed. Generally Russia is not a good place for veggies and I didn't think it was possible but even their greek salads are bland. Also the food and coffee are never hot enough, weird.

So then it was time for train number 1 called 'Russia' pronounced Rosea at 17.40 and it was only 35 mins late but it was lurvely, good job too as we would be on it for the next 77 hours.....

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