Siberian Adventure Part 4: Olkhon to Irkutsk to Moscow

On May 6th, following our final delicious meal at Solnechnaya, we loaded into Valeriy’s van and were driven to the ferry crossing at the Olhkon Straits. While the ice was still frozen along the shorelines, there was a wide swath of melted water in between. We played on the ice for a little while then loaded into the boat to cross.

We took this hovercraft across.


The view from the ferry crossing.

I'm doing... something.

And they're doing... something else.

This time, it's yoga.

Valeriy, our host at Solnechnaya

Crossing from ice to water

Lake Baikal in liquid form

The boat took us across to a point just south of the small village of Sakhyurta. We said goodbye to Valeriy and loaded into a van. It picked up a few more passengers and then drove for about an hour. We reached another tiny Siberian village and the driver stopped the van. It was 2:00. He said that we would stay there until 3:00 in order to wait for more passengers. I must say that this was one of the most uneventful hours of the trip. When 3:00 rolled around, we discovered we had a full van-load of people. We had to strap all of our backpacks to the roof of the van, and then squish inside like sardines for the three hour ride to Irkutsk. I had taken some Meclazine at the start of the ride, but even though I was drowsy as a result, I was unable to sleep due to the cramped quarters and the rough roads. Let’s just say that I was feeling pretty cranky by the time we arrived in Irkutsk.

We had booked rooms an Irkutsk hostel called Baikalhostel for 350 rubles ($13) per night. It was quite a good deal money wise (or at least it was before the dollar started falling!), although for people (like us) interested in seeing the city, it was in a terrible location, far away from the center. The hostel itself was clean and comfortable, but after Solnechnaya, it didn’t offer much to write home about.

After checking in, we went out for dinner (pizza) and then tried to find our way to the center. Unfortunately, we got a bit lost and ended up wandering around trying to guess in what direction the center might lie. I must admit that I was still feeling pretty cranky at this point - from the ride, from having exchanged the paradise of Olkhon for a big Russian city, and from my knee, which was still paining me - and being lost wasn’t making me feel any better. We stopped and asked a random man for directions (turned out that by that point we weren’t too off course) and thanks to his advice, we reached Karl Marx Street, one of the city’s main drags. We had been walking along Karl Marx for about 10 minutes, when someone came running up behind us - it was the man we had asked for directions! He said that he had decided to come and show us around his city, because we shouldn’t be walking around a strange city without a guide. We all thought that this was a little bizarre, and kept worrying that at some point he would try to solicit money from us or something, but nothing like that happened. Guess he was just being a really nice guy. He pointed out a lot of the landmarks along Karl Marx Street, and walked with us for over an hour before depositing us at a cafe. Very random.

Sunset over the Angara River, as seen during our walk.

The next morning, we decided that we wanted to go to the Decembrist museums and to the Faberge exhibit at the art museum. Don’t know what I mean by Decembrist? Click here. The two Decembrist museums are located in former homes of actual Decembrist exiles, and both were quite interesting. I must say that I lost a lot of sympathy for the Decembrists while viewing the exhibits. Yes, they lost the bulk of their wealth and were exiled to Siberia... but even so their lifestyles were so much more opulent than mine will ever be. Ahh well...

Decembrist Museum #1: Trubetskoi House

Decembrist Museum #2: Volkonskiy House

After leaving the Decembrist museums and lunching on Chinese, we went to the Faberge exhibit. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed inside, so I don’t have any photos of the intricately designed eggs. (Most of the eggs we saw appear on this page) Again, opulence is the best word to describe this. The magnitude of the wealth of the tsars never ceases to astound me.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon walking around and taking pictures of the city. I was in a *much* better frame of mind that day, and truly began to appreciate the city. Irkutsk has a very European feel, and all of the European style architecture and wide streets reminded me heavily of St. Petersburg.

Karl Marx Street, Irkutsk, Siberia, Russia

The center of the city is full of traditional, old, wooden architecture.
What differentiates it from the norm is how close the window are to the street!

The Irkutsk History Museum is located in an incredibly interesting building.
Sadly, we didn't have time to go inside.

Random pink church.

Group hug on Karl Marx!

I have a thing for Yuri Gagarin.

J, Y, and me.
On a bench near the Angara river.

Some guidebooks say that this is the only Gothic building in Siberia.
Others disagree. I'm just telling you what they said.

Spasskaya Church

Bogoyavlensky Church

Me, M, and J

The Bogoyavlensky Church church again.

A close-up shot of the Bogoyavlensky Church.

There was a lot of environmentalist graffiti in the city, mostly pertaining to the controversial oil pipeline that had been planned to run alongside Lake Baikal. (Come on! In a seismically active region... are they nuts?) Luckily on April 26, 2006, Russia’s President Putin decreed that the pipeline must be moved a minimum distance of 40km north of the lake. (To read more about the pipeline, click here. For more on the dangers threatening the lake, click here.)

"No Pipeline!"

"And you're quiet?"

In the morning we took a cab to the Irkutsk airport for our flight back to Moscow. (We flew on Siberian Airlines, and I would definitely recommend them. Far better than Aeroflot!) While in line for passport control, an American businessman overheard us talking. Upon learning that we were Americans living and working in Russia he invited us to lunch with him in Moscow. We accepted and had a very nice lunch with him at an American-diner-style restaurant in Moscow. (The restaurant was called the Starlite Diner

http://www.starlite.ru/eng/index.shtml and seriously, if you’re an American feeling homesick, go there. I have never eaten at a restaurant overseas and felt that much like I was in the States. It was surreal. And the food was tasty too. If you’re interested, it’s located in the Aquarium Park, right behind the Tchaikovsky Theater near Metro Moscovskaya.)

After lunch, we sprinted to the train station for our 2 1/2 hour train ride back to Vladimir. Thus ends our vacation. Конец. ;-)