Irkutsk - Lake Baikal

Luckily we had learnt from Hotel Iren and had good directions to our hostel Irkutsk, which we found no problems. Arriving in the hostel, we were the only ones there. There was another (Italian) guy staying but he was out for the evening. We dumped our stuff and went out on the hunt for some food. We found a Cafe/Bar that we went to, only to find it was the most expensive, trendy bar we have been in so far. A swift beer later we made an exit and continued our search. There were 24 hr off-licenses and 24 hr flower shops but no 24 hr eateries anywhere near. So we stopped of at the local shop and brought some weird sandwiches and two small pizzas which got made luke warm in a rubbish microwave before we took them back. The Italian turned up at 6am, a slight stumble into bed. At about 10am the Italian was up again for breakfast. His name was Paolo.
Our first day in Irkutsk and we went for a wander, down to the main street – Karl Marx street (We are surprised that the cities still keep these names. There is still a Karl Max street and Lenin street in every city, always in the centre). Irkutsk is supposed the be the ‘Paris of Siberia’ and I can see what they mean, lovely architecture and Ulitsa Karl Marx is a big tree lined boulevard with trendy, expensive shops and boutiques. We came across a Blini vendor so enjoyed a cheese blini (the only relevant food word we could remember). Blini is a Russian version of crepes, so think thin pancake loaded with melted cheese – tasty! The good thing about this was the receipt listed all the possible ingredients with the cheese circled.
We then continued around past a large stadium and down the river. This was very pretty, and with the sides still frozen people were walking their dogs or just relaxing out on this snowy frozen river front. We then walked back along the river to our hostel. We stopped off in an underground bar just by the hostel for a few cheeky beers, we also got out our blini receipt and translated all the ingredients, in preparation for tomorrows lunch – Shashlik, chocolate pasta, ham, nuts, raisins, ground meat, tar-tar sauce to name but a few. Not a vegetable or salad in sight.
We headed back to the hostel. Another guy and arrived in this time, an American by the name of David. Paolo had persuaded him out to a local nightclub, and pretty soon persuaded us too. So a quick change and a couple more beers later we set off.
The club was a strange place, there was a pen of chickens with some locals dressed in traditional attire at the entrance followed by a super complicated method of paying for drinks which involved paying a woman in a kiosk to get credits to hand over for your drinks. The club itself was hilarious with Russians doing some very crazy dancing and odd interludes for strippers, which was a bit of a shock. We had unfortunately all decided to spend the night looking flash and drinking Russian champagne (£2.00 a bottle) which really screwed us over the next day! Anyway, much randomness occurred in this establishment, and the walk home was exceedingly cold, at least -20. Sarah and I took a walk along the edge of the frozen river, really amazing as the whole area was choked by a thick fog, it wasn’t possible to see the river and all you could hear were the ice bergs creaking and grating as they flowed past.
Day two in Irkutsk started slowly as we were all suffering the after effects of awful Russian Champagne, just an easy walk in the afternoon to gather supplies for our trip to Baikal and check out some of the old buildings. Traditional Siberian houses are made of wood and don’t seem to age too well! Irkutsk has many traditional old wooden buildings and many of them have sunk into the ground in some cases up to the windows. Some have only sunk on one side so the house is wonky, one house we saw the stairs were almost at a 45 degree angle, some have sunk to the point they have fallen apart. Many of the wooden houses have beautiful carved windows and doors with bright painted trim – a complete contrast to the many Stalinist concrete blocks. We haven’t figured out why the buildings would have sunk as we are not in a permafrost area where the heat of the building melts the frozen ground beneath making it sink or collapse.

Day three we were up early to catch a bus to the tiny village of Litvyanka, about an hour from Irkutsk and on the shores of Lake Baikal. Truly amazing.
Ok, so first the facts… The lake itself is bigger than Belgium and Denmark, its 1.6km deep at its deepest part (worlds deepest lake), it contains 20% of the worlds freshwater, it contains more water than all 5 of the US great lakes combined, its 636 km long, 60km wide, contains over 1000 flora and fauna species of which 80% are endemic including the only freshwater seals… blah blah blah, we could go on forever.
Without stating the obvious its really huge! At the moment its completely frozen, the ice is at least a meter thick so you could in theory walk or drive from one side to the other. From the shore though it looked as if only parts were frozen, but when we jumped down onto the ice the parts that looked as if they were not frozen were in fact crystal clear ice. So clear that you could see all the way to the bottom which must have been over 10 meters until it became too dark. It really was an amazing feeling standing on the completely frozen lake, looking out over what could have been the Arctic, just endless ice with ridges and chunks sticking up all over the place, boats frozen in situ until the Spring.
As we arrived on Sunday there were quite a few Russians day tripping from Irkutsk which gave the village a real sea side/ beach feel. People were pick-nicking (despite the -12 temp) and playing on the ice as if it were a beach. It was also possible to drive directly onto the ice so many Russian men were drinking and driving up and down spinning their cars out of control etc… It was also possible to hire skidoo’s or quads to drive up and down.
The novelty really didn’t wear off all day, we walked about three miles one way past a frozen small port with old abandoned boats and then three miles the other way to the village museum all along the ice, constantly skidding, sliding, jumping and smashing chunks of ice. Every now and then there would be an almighty cracking or groaning sound as the ice expanded. It was absolutely amazing.
We (Myself, Sarah, David & two other English guys) managed to organise a home stay in an old wooden house, we were lucky as the owners lived elsewhere so we were really renting a small cottage in a sleepy little valley. The cottage was essentially a log cabin and was about as rustic as you could get. It had a cooker but only two rings worked, when you turned them on the single electric light dimmed. There was fortunately an inside toilet (the temp plummeted at night) and a fire which helped heat the two bedrooms and main room of the hut. The front room was so cold that our beers all froze overnight and the plates had to be de-frosted before we could use them! We actually had to de-frost all the plates as they had all stuck together, amazing.
The second day in the village was so quiet. We really had the place to ourselves and the weather was stunning – deep blue skies but still freezing cold. We spent this day walking up into the woods and generally exploring and taking photos. After another night in the log cabin the weather had started to take its toll on our health, everyone has painful coughs and dry throats and blocked noses, so today we decided to come back to Irkutsk. The buddies Sarah mentioned before have left today for either Moscow or Ulan Ude leaving us on our own once again in the hostel.
Tomorrow is a day of washing and sorting things out before out next rail adventures. All our fingers and toes are crossed that we have decent cabin buddies!