russia: listvyanka, lake baikal, and irkutsk

One of the best natural wonders in the world is in Russia, though it isn't seen by most visitors because the country is so darn big.

Lake Baikal is the biggest (by volume,) lake in the world, it holds 20% of the freshwater in the world. Huge doesn't even begin to describe it. The lake freezes over in winter, which provides a whole lot of beautiful scenery.

Angela didn't get a spring break, and Claire and I had different weeks, argh. Luckily though, all three of us had the long weekend for International Women's Day. 

This weekend was at the end of Claire's holiday week, and at the beginning of mine. Angela had just the weekend, but we all wanted to see the lake so we booked the flights.

My flight from Moscow landed in Irkursk at 0710, slightly ahead of schedule. It had left the previous evening in Moscow, and Irkutsk is 5 hours ahead, so I didn't immediately feel the time difference. The girls arrived an hour later, none of us had to wait long for baggage. (When you fly the really cheap airlines you're only allowed a personal bag, not even a backpack.)

We took a taxi to a town called Listvyanka, a little over an hour away. Normally we'd all have preferred public transit, but I wasn't able to figure out how to make that happen without wasting an entire day in transit. Checking in to our accomodation was easy enough, but we discovered it wasn't all that great. No open plugs, and the double pained window was missing one of those layers. There was a heater, but it didn't heat the whole room. Oh well, we could suck it up for one night. 

We walked into 'town' to find food, since all of us needed something. We ended up having giant dumplings (called boozy,) and another thing of fried bread with meat inside. I already knew I'd need to find vegetables somehow, but didn't know how.

After relaxing for a little bit, we walked to the lake. FROZEN!! Yes, we'd known this ahead of time, but it still didn't really prepare us for seeing it ourselves. Ice as far as our eyes could see. Magic. Every now and again you see photos of clear ice online, or in the news, this is a lot of what we saw in this part of the lake. 

It freezes quickly, and since there isn't a lot of crap in the water, it is clear and amazing.

Side note: ice is slippery. Claire was ready for this, she'd brough little crampons to put over her boots. Angela and I were not, it took us a bit to walk without sliding all over. This was amusing to all of us. Team photos were fun. The temperatures were below freezing, but it was sunny, so it didn't feel cold, as long as we were in the sun. I wanted to walked more into the center of the lake for a while, but the girls weren't keen on that.

The icy area near Listvyanka is set up for tourists. There was a skating rink of sorts, and some ice sculptures. You could ride on a hydrofoil, or play in a bouncy house. We were just happy to see the ICE.

After getting a dose of the ice, we started walking toward Baikal Museum. It's not a city or history museum, it's scientific. It is technically out of city limits, the walk was a lot longer than we'd expected. Argh. The entry fee wasn't bad, and we enjoyed the exhibits. It basically talks about the flora and fauna of the area, as well as the research being done, and all the statistics of the lake.

The walk back into town was even longer, but we appreciated the views of the lake the whole way. There was also a memorial of a poet who had died in the lake on his birthday. I'm not sure why he was important enough to garner a memorial.

We got back to town not too far ahead of sunset. The sunset over the ice was stunning, though the temperature difference as soon as the sun went below the horizon was very noticeable.

Listvyanka seems to be a town created just for tourists. We didn't see any supermarkets, though there must be one for the few who live there. There are plenty of hotels, each with supporting restaurants. What I'm trying to say is that we had a hard time finding a place to get dinner. Eventually we found a place, which ended up having my favourite and desperately needed item: grilled vegetables.

Eventually we went back to our chilly room. Somehow we stayed awake until 2200, then passed out cold (literally,) until the next morning.

We checked out the next morning, and we able to leave our bags. We didn't intend to stay in Listvyanka more than half the day, intending only to visit a gem museum. Instead, we went back to the ice because we loved it so much, as well as back to the cafe. I needed/wanted more veggies, and we needed food no matter what. The gem museum ended up being closed, though we couldn't figure out why. I tried spinning on the ice, and lets just say I'm no ballerina. Or rather, the Bolshoy would put me in the beginners program ;)

While walking around I remembered something I'd seen on a list of sights: a Japanese POW cemetery. These aren't common, as I think Japan wanted to repatriate its citizens after the war, and Japanese culture is usually for cremation, not burial. The cemetery was small and tucked into the hillside, with an information sign in Japanese and Russian.

We also found a small wooden church. The church itself wasn't particularly memorable, but the gold lame on which the icons were resting was amusing. Gold lame never dies. The historical sign out front told us this wasn't the original location of the church, it had actually been moved a couple times. 

I like learning small things like that.

After all this we picked up our bags and booked a taxi for back to Irkutsk. We checked into our accomodation, a private flat. The lady in charge was quite rude, but oh well, it worked well enough, and more importantly at that moment, it was warm, with plenty of plugs.

The marshrutka we waited for never arrived, so we had to walk even further to a trolleybus stop to get us to our first sight in the city. It turned out our dilly dallying in the morning had made us arrived too late to visit the Angara, a former ice breaker. 

We missed opening hours by about 15 minutes, but did get to see a stunning sunset behind the boat. (And we took team photos with the boat anywho, because we'll never miss a chance to play on ice.)

Dinner was at a random burger joint near the icebreaker. Not great, not bad.

On the way back we again somehow waited for a marshrutka that never came, thankfully it was easy (again) to get to a nearby tram stop to get back to our accomodation. In Irkutsk you pay as you get off the bus, not as you get on. 

I don't know how you're supposed to know this as a visitor, but the drivers each way seemed dumbfounded when we tried to pay as we boarded. There is nothing wrong with this system, we just didn't know.

The next morning my breakfast was a giant bowl of oatmeal. I love the stuff, but I probably shouldn't have made three packets for a single serving. Oops.

Our first sight of the day was a Lenin statue. Imagine how amazed we were when we got close and realized a lady sitting on a nearby bench was clipping her toenails! 

After finishing that, she moved on to putting on her makeup. I guess I always assumed these are things you do at home? Definitely not while sitting near a Lenin statue.

Further down the street we walked past what I think was the city Maslenitsa celebration. Maslenitsa is a Russian cultural holiday where you're essentially saying goodbye winter, hello spring. From what we could see, one of the activities was climbing buttered poles, and the climbers were shirtless!! That didn't seem very smart to us, but I'm not always accused of common sense either, so who am I to say.

Not far from the celebration we came upon a monument of the city symbol: a babr. From what I can tell, it's a Siberian tiger of sorts.

After the tiger we got back on the tram, and went back out to the icebreaker ship. The entry fee was only 150 rubles, woo hoo! The visit started with a (very poorly voiced over for us English speakers) video explanation of the history of the ship. 

Pretty neat video, but the audio was, uh, not great. I think there was a hostage story in there, but I'm not entirely sure.

After that we were able to explore on our own. We got to go down into the engine room, which of course had HUGE engines. Great museum overall.

From there we knew where to catch public transport back to the city center. Our first stop was a church, which had music piped outside. That was a first for all of us. The 'lobby' of the church was better than the interior of the sanctuary, at least in my mind. 

The 'lobby' had stained glass windows and icons. The sanctuary 'just' had a wooden iconostasis and some colourful painting on a low ceiling.

From there we followed a designated walking tour through part of the city. It's a great idea by the city, but following the green line along the sidewalks wasn't always easy to do. We liked the informational signs outside historical buildings, even though we couldn't go in most of them. One of these buildings was originally owned by a Jew (you can still see the star of David in a couple places,) but is now a regional library.

As we walked closer to the river the wind picked up more and more. 

Since we were no longer warm from being inside the museum, and it was cloudy, the wind didn't help. The next sight on our list was on the riverbanks, which made it downright cold.

Irkutsk seems to be one of many Russian cities with a victory arch. This one was similar to the ones I've seen in Moscow and St Petersburg, if a bit more narrow, and it was yellow. We took our team photos but didn't stay long. The wind coming off the river was COLD. That being said, the embankment area is probably a great place to walk in warmer weather.

Further down the street we found a monastery that looked as if it had been painted by Disney while intoxicated. Lot of colours, stripes, etc... The inside of the church we visited wasn't nearly as impressive, nor was it as big as expected.

Across the street was another church, this one a simple white all over. The inside was just as simple, with a large space for selling religious items. Just behind this church was the requisite WW2 memorial, complete with eternal flame. You're not a real Russian city if you don't have one of these along with a Lenin statue.

On the other side of the WW2 memorial was the back of the House of Soviets. Huge and boring architecture, which I've found to be the norm for this building all over the country. The front wasn't any better.

On the front side of the House of Soviets was a small chapel. The informational sign told us this small chapel represented the cathedral of the lady of Kazan, which had been in this spot until it was torn down to build the house of Soviets. Hmmm.

It turned out we were standing in Kirov Square at that point, but didn't know it. I'm pretty sure we didn't miss anything by not knowing this.

We found the green line on the sidewalk again and kept walking, though we skipped where it would've taken us to the Russo-Japanese friendship memorial. Maybe next time.

Near another section of the river we found a huge statue of Tsar Alexander III. Sunset behind the gy was quite nice, until it was ruined by a large group of loud Chinese tourists. (Large groups are almost alwayss loud, and the person giving information through a megaphone doesn't help.)

We had dinner at a sushi place nearby, then went to a coffee shop for dinner. From there we split up: the girls took the bus to the airport, as they had to get back to Moscow, and I walked to the train station to continue my spring break.

While waiting for my train in the station (not an impressive station at all,) I was bit by a mozzie! How does that happen in the middle of a Siberian winter?? Sigh.

I'm pretty sure I'll come back to Lake Baikal, but I don't know that I'll visit it from Listvyanka. To visit Baikal I'll have to come to Irkutsk, so there is a good chance I'll be back to this city as well.