How to Get Lost

Well, we are here for our last non-mobile night in Russia in Ulan Ude, the capital of Russian Buryatia. We arrived last night after a too-long 7 hour daytime scenic train ride, exhausted and happy to be in a room with beds and a hot shower.

This morning, we met up with our guide from Baikal Naran Tour to head to Involgsk Datsan, the center of russian Buddhism near Ulan Ude. The Datsan (monastery/temple) was beautiful and very peaceful, and I unfortunately only took film and 35mm photos there, nothing on digital to post. I’ve been inside various Buddhist temples in Japan and Thailand and North America, but the Russian flavour was quite different, with high ceilings, quilts on the ceiling, and skylights. It was beautiful and well worth the time and effort in getting there.

After our tour ended, around 1, we walked around the downtown core of Ulan Ude. A city of almost 500,000 now, 380,000 in 2001 when our guidebook was published, Ulan Ude is large and spread out, but the downtown core is fairly compact and easy to walk.

We stopped for quite a bit at this spectacular opera and ballet theater. It reminded me more of something to be seen in Spain or Austria than in Siberia.

Walking up Ulitsa Lenina, we strolled along another pedestrian mall and through the central market (disappointing compared to Kazan) to this church which sparkled in the afternoon sunlight.

And of course, no tour of Ulan Ude would be complete without a visit to Russia’s largest “Head of Lenin”, dominating the central square.

We’ve been particularly blessed with weather. While yesterday, on the train, was dreary and rainy, today was beautifully mild and sunny.

After this quick post, we head back to the hotel to get our food and packing sorted for tomorrow’s VERY EARLY train. Leaving just before 1am Moscow time, 6am local time, it’s earlier than we’re used to on this trip. But at least we should have hot showers in the morning!

This train, I am particularly nervous about. We’ve booked the entire 4 bunk compartment, but we’ve also heard some stories from other travellers about mongolian traders trying to take over every available space in every compartment, whether or not they actually are staying in that compartment. We’re hoping to just keep the door locked and secured and hope it’s more calm than that. OK, to be honest, we’ve only heard of one traveller with this problem, a lady from Wales we met in the hotel today. Our Aussie acquaintences in Irkutsk never mentioned this problem. So, here’s hoping! Either way, I will be very glad when our guide meets us in Ulan Baatar.

We’re in Ulan Ude now, having arrived a bit later last night than scheduled. (Mind you, it took a half hour to walk from the train to the hotel.)

It’s a nice little city of about a half million … and no birch trees!!! Finally.

We’ll be here until early tomorrow morning, when we leave for Mongolia. I’m not particularly looking forward to such an early morning, I’ll tell you.

Slept mostly on the train, which was about the only way to pass through the pain. It’s a six and a half hour trip from Irkutsk to Ulan Ude, a distance of no more than 300 km (straight-line, that is). The train needs to take a few bendy twists going through the mountains, pass through a couple of tunnels, and then plods along at an agonizingly slow 50 km/h (estimated). I think we topped out at a few places around 80.

The eastern shore of Lake Baikal was frozen — ice as far as you could see. The exact opposite of what we’d seen in Listvyanka two days ago. It looks like it’s thawing quickly, though, so it shouldn’t be long before the clear waters show through.

Two of our housemates in Irkutsk (a pair of Aussies) told us two things: 1) that we’d love Mongolia (something we’d both strongly suspected), and 2) China would wear us down fast. It’s chaotic, the toilets are disaster areas (that actually scares us), the “queues” aren’t, and pretty much everything we’d wanted to see is buried under scaffolding. It seems everyone is upgrading this year.

We’re just waiting for our tour to start today — we actually got a guide for here — and will be back later with more. Stay tuned…

The cold seems to be slowly moving away. It hit me a little harder than it did Amy, so while she dealt mostly with the sniffles, I’ve been dealt the ol’ phlegm-attack. Mostly throat clearing, so it ain’t all nasty.

Until today, I had yet to cash any of my traveller’s cheques. Useful things these are not. Major problem: very few places in Russia care to honour them. You have search high and low to find places that will handle them, and not for an obscene rate of conversion. It’s silly, really. In future, I’m sticking to my usual system: bring a bank card. It’s accepted at most ATMs world-wide, though you do sometimes have to hunt for the right ones.

After that, we got our visas registered for Irkutsk. It’s a leftover from the Soviet era, so far as I can understand. Basically, any place you stay overnight, you should have your visa registered by your hotel or by the registration office. What ultimate purpose this serves, I have no idea. All I do know is that if your visa isn’t suitably registered, and you don’t have all the paperwork, you’re likely to be buying out the border guard as you try to exit. Most importantly, as in our case, if travelling by train.

Jack had double-booked himself for today, and had to take a group out of town on a three-day excursion (to where, I have no idea). He was supposed to take us to Listvyanka, a small town on the shore of Lake Baikal, about 60 kms away. Instead, he made arrangements with his friend Leonid (yes, like the meteor shower) to take us out.

When I’d talked with Leonid last night, I had wondered what lay in store for us. Was he just a “friend”, or was there more of a professional association to him? (As Amy has pointed out, Leonid has his own company for this very thing. Normally, he does long-term fishing excursions, but made an exception for us.) He rolled up to Jack’s homestay almost exactly at noon — when he’d promised to be there.

Leonid has a nice car — nice by Russian standards, definitely; nice by North American standards, pretty much. It’s a Toyota Mark II — Japanese model, so far as I can tell. (It was right-side drive.) The sound system was aftermarket, though, and was regularly playing Ivan Kupala — an artist reminiscent of Enigma and Delerium, except that he used the songs of old Russian women (singing old Russian songs) as the main part. Amy and I will be hunting for this CD, without question.

After a short stop at the local DHL (despite packing light, this is the second batch of things Amy has sent home — keep in mind, however, that she did buy 10 balls of yarn in Kazan), we headed out on the sole road from Irkutsk to Listvyanka. It’s a rolling road, curving sometimes within sight of the Angara River, lined with birch, larch, and various coniferous trees.

Our first stop, however, was not Listvyanka — it was the Museum of Wooden Architecture. Sounds kinda silly, I know, but museum is just like Heritage Park (in Calgary) or any other pioneer-esque recreation village showing the way life used to be here. But it’s not all about the stereotypical exiled-Russian-living-in-Siberia thing. This was about the Cossaks, the first Europeans to move to this region. How they built their forts to survive against the weather. And about the Buryats, decendents of the Mongols who settled here in permanent wooden gers.

The entire village is made of various buildings, most of which were brought to the museum before their original village locations (often many kilometres away) were flooded out with the damming of the Angara back in the 50s. The reconstruction is mostly complete, and gives a pretty clear idea of what life was like in this region of the world, 300 years ago.

That’s the key difference between what we see at home and what’s here. The stuff we have in Calgary is rarely older than 150 years. This is twice that. The buildings are solid wood — mostly log houses (in various forms). Some are intricate, having several rooms, and separate buildings (for storage of grains and animals). There was a certain flow to everything.

Each building also had what Leonid called a “red corner”, which is supposed to be on the right side of the main room when seen from the door. This is what most would call a shrine. It depicts the Russian orthodox religion, and is a personal place of worship outside of the church. Leonid didn’t know why it was a “red” corner, though. I think it’s because the Russian word “??????” originally meant “beautiful” in English. Only today does it mean “red” — and the original meaning is lost in translation.

From the museum, we continued down to Listvyanka. When we reached the mouth of the river, Leonid pulled his car over and told us a story about a rock that you can see in the mouth. The legend says that Lake Baikal has 340 sons, but only one daughter — the Angara River, the sole outlet of the world largest freshwater lake (by volume). The Angara flows into the Yenisey, and it’s said that the Angara wished to leave Lake Baikal to be with her lover. Lake Baikal refused and threw a stone to keep her from getting away. Today, it’s called the “shaman’s stone”. Angara got away, however, and Lake Baikal grew bitter and cold. It’s known for freezing over entirely, and for very nasty storms.

Listvyanka is a town that was forgotten by the Soviet regieme — or the town chose simply to ignore it. The entire village is wooden; the original part, anyway. Because of its proximity to Lake Baikal, many of the nouveau riche have bought up land and erected the most gaudy monstrosities you’ve ever seen. They look like someone tried to replicate a fairy tale castle, but used cheap bricks and garish pink paint.

Ew.

Lonely Planet (among various sources) recommended Listvyanka as a place to visit because it is reflective of an old Russian fishing village. It’s harder to see now, with the newer buildings (and a hotel under construction) that effectively ruin the charm. It was neat to see, but I imagine that within two years, Listvyanka won’t have the same appeal it did even a year ago.

As we drove down the waterfront, we spotted ice washing up on shore. Leonid had told us that as little as three days ago (!), there was still ice on Lake Baikal in this area. Indeed, if you go further north, you can still drive across the lake — the ice will remain until well into June. The ice, combined with Lake Baikal’s ferocity, turned a wooden breakwater into near toothpicks a week ago.

The pier was full of vendors. Some selling cheap (but expensive) souveniers, and lots of fish. The lake is full of fish and tends to be quite bountiful. And clear, so the fish likely taste quite good. We weren’t too keen on anything fishy today, though.

We returned to Irkutsk, stopping only a couple of times for a last look at the lake, and for a nice photo op we noticed on the way back. It was a six-hour excursion, and both Amy and I would highly recommend calling Leonid if you’re in the area and need an excellent guide.

Tomorrow, we head off for Ulan Ude. We’re nearly out of Russia and into Mongolia. Time is passing too slowly for me, though, as I want to get moving back towards home. As much as I love travelling, I really miss Alex.

I think Geoff has thrown down the gauntlet. Thus today will be the almost “All Amy All The Time” post. (It conveniently worked out this way because I took most of the great shots on my film camera, for once, and only used the digital for the silly ones.)

Today was our one and only day in Russia with a guide. We had originally hired Jack, whose house we are staying at, to give us a 5 hour tour of Listvyanka, a nearby village on the shores of Lake Baikal. I’m usually not one for tour groups, but since this was just us, and since paying $45 each to Jack was pretty much the only way to get all the way to the Lake and back in one day, I thought it was well worth the expense.

Little did I expect that I would have gladly paid twice that for the experience we had today.

Jack was heading out on an overnight tour with a larger group, so he put us in contact with his friend Leonid. Now, at the time, we basically heard “My friend Leonid” and never imagined this guy would actually be a professional in the travel industry. We expected mafia, some sort of good-for-nothing, one of the beer-for-breakfast crew that’s so popular around here, but we never expected what we got.

It turns out that Leonid manages and runs a rather professional independant tour group, Baikal Explorer, here in Irkutsk. And let me tell you, next time I’m in the area (and I will be!), I am calling Leonid.

To start with, he was an extremely fantastic driver. Had the reaction time of a cheetah. Negotiated road bumps so his car would be babied the entire time. Just amazing. And on top of that, at our first stop, the Wooden Architecture “Museum”, he proved to be a knowledgeable and fascinating narrator. When he knew some of the rooms or buildings he would tell us about them. Otherwise, he would translate what the very helpful museum curators had to say about the building.

Having never been in a “guide” situation other than in large groups, perhaps I can’t really convey how amazing it was to be able to ask questions. Just to ask questions. For example, in one of the first buildings, a display featuring a loom and what looked like knitted socks had been set up. The curator didn’t mention the socks, but I wanted to learn more about them so I just asked Leonid. Just like that. And I found out what I wanted to know.

OK, enough raving for now.

The Museum wasn’t so much a museum as it was an outdoor reconstructed village with old (17th century) and (18th century) Russian homes and buildings, as well as a Buryat camp. The Buryats are the “native” people of the area before the european Russians settled here. A non-nomadic Mongolian group, they settled in this area long ago in dwellings of similar construction to the mobile Ger camps we’ll be staying in this weekend. (yeep!!!!)

One of the highlights, aside from the huge wealth of information, is just being able to appreciate some of the craftsmanship details.

After the museum, we headed back into the car to Listvyanka and Lake Baikal. I knew in advance that Lake Baikal would be one of the largest “names” on our list of destinations. But, I wasn’t prepared for exactly how striking this largest freshwater lake would be.

Baikal is also the deepest lake in the world. At it’s greatest depth, it’s more than 1km deep, plus an additional 900m of loose sediment. It’s also the center of two of the earth’s techtonic plates, and really important geographically speaking.

We arrived just as another rain shower was clearing. The mountains in the distance were hazy and quiet and calm, and the water was crystal clear.

One interesting (the only) site in Listvyanka is this breakwater that had been… broken… just a week before by a huge wave of ice, as Leonid described it.

All in all, today was a definite highlight of our time in Russia. I’m much less skeptical about the whole “guided tour” thing. Certainly, had we tried to do this on our own, it would have taken two days and I doubt we would have gotten this much out of it.

Happy.