August 22, 2020
Arriving at Irkutsk station around 3 in the afternoon, I called the hostel I stayed at a year ago, but they were booked, so I found another one instead. The receptionist switched into English within a few moments of talking, and I took this to be a good sign. Right near the central street of Irkutsk, the hostel was in an excellent location. Once there, I met the lady with whom I had spoken, whose name was Eve. I inquired about getting to Olkhon Island, which I had heard was the best that Lake Baikal had to offer. As luck would have it, she was heading there to relax the next day.
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| Cones on Olkhon Island |
Some of what I would do in Irkutsk would be a repeat of what I did a year ago. After Eve reserved a spot for me on the bus to Olkhon the following day, I gave Dima, a guy I had met during my last time in Irkutsk, a call. He answered, and we met along the banks of the Angara River. There we caught up a bit, speaking mostly Russian this time, even though his slightly accented English is nearly perfect. He was busy but invited me to come to his dacha, to which I agreed, and we planned to make it happen in a few days time.
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| Irkutsk and the Angara River |
I was in Irkutsk almost exactly a year before this time. I remember it well; I remember the classical pastel-colored buildings lining the main street and the large open air market selling food and clothing. Irkutsk is a beautiful city, at least in some parts, but seems to have fallen from grace according to many, some saying that now it is little more than yet another industrial city. Yet it has a certain appeal, and one can imagine what it might have been like during the 1800s, a safehaven in the wild wild east, featuring hotels, theaters, and bars.
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| A Gothic-style Polish Catholic church |
Looking at photos of Siberian cities in the 1800s and American cities in the wild west, one can notice a similar resemblance. I don't know what it is, but the wooden architecture seems to stand out, and pictures with horse-drawn carriages certainly help. It would seem that Russian explorers, much like American frontiersmen, expanded and discovered new territory- and in many cases conquered- at a rate faster than they could control it, leaving the spaces in between the settlements to be 'wild,' inhabited by indigenous people and bandits.
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| Common wooden houses within the city |
In the evening, I relaxed at the hostel, playing foosball with whoever was willing to challenge me, and due to the extensive training I received from my father during my childhood and adolescence, crushed all who dared to stand up against me.
In the morning, Eve and I left the hostel and the bus showed up shortly thereafter. The bus, filled to the brim, left the city and began the four-and-a-half-hour drive northeast towards Olkhon Island, the heart of Lake Baikal. After a couple hours of driving, we stopped at a rest stop with a cafeteria, and then continued. We passed through several towns- Ust-Ordynsky, Bayanday, Yelantsy- and by heavily forested hills. The steppe opened up, its brown rolling hills interminable likes waves on the sea. The landscape changed dramatically, the proliferation of trees being replaced by short, green-brown grass and rocky outcroppings.
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| The steppe near Lake Baikal |
In Sakhayurt, the final town before Olkhon Island, there is a ferry which takes cars and shuttle buses on board. We stood on the deck during the relatively short trip on the ferry, gulls singing in the air while we passed what is called the Olkhon Gate, the small strait separating the island from the mainland. Olkhon Island looks no different from the area surrounding Sakhayurt; brown, rocky, and devoid of trees.
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| The Olkhon Gate |
Once on the island, everyone piled back into the bus and we began the drive to what is really the only town on the island, Khuzhir. The unpaved road is bumpy the entire way, and one can't help but wonder if the economic input of paving the road would be outweighed by the money spent each year on vehicle suspensions. Some paths went off the main road, as one can simply drive their vehicle on the steppe without any issue, although this destroys the grass. Zigzagging roads reuniting with the main one stripe the landscape. Yet, the relative lack of civilization is part of what makes Olkhon appealing.
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| The roads on Olkhon's steppe |
Khuzhir is like a village out of a wild west movie, what with its dusty roads, wooden houses, and animals grazing here and there. Colorful roofs and vehicles seemed to be the only things letting you know you are in the 21st centrury. Eve helped me find the guest house that I would stay in for a couple of nights, right near the main market. It was run by an elderly Buryat lady, Nina, who was very hospitable. She showed me the territory and once again there was no need to make a copy of my passport.
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| Khuzhir |
With little more than a thousand permanent residents, Khuzhir is a mere settlement, yet serves as the capital of Olkhon Island. Eve and I ate some local Buryat food; this whole region is, after all, still Buryat territory despite being in Irkutsk Oblast. Cafes, excursion offices, souvenir shops, and guest houses seem to make up the majority of the town. Stray dogs run about and children pair up and ride around on motor scooters, something they wouldn't get away with back in Moscow. But here there seem to be no rules and little need for them; there don't seem to be any police, let alone other public services.
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| Shamanka |
Eve showed me around, to the most marvelous location in the town, a place called Shamanka or Shaman Rock. Here, two stone spires rise out of the water, almost an island by themselves but for a small stony beach connecting them to Olkhon. It is in fact a cape, called Burkhan by the Buryats, the same name of the deity, owner of Olkhon, which is said to rule and inhabit Lake Baikal, living in the Shaman Rock. This site was used in ancient times for sacrifices, and was used by Buryat shamans to conduct rituals. The Buryats still revere this site but apparently are afraid of it, believing that there is great power there, and superstitious that misfortune of some sort will fall upon those who disturb Burkhan.
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| Serges near the Shaman Rock |
Nearby stood a long row of serges, colorfully decorated. Everywhere there were small coins, rubles and kopecks thrown for good luck as wishes. Many people wrote their names by gathering small rocks to spell the letters, something which Eve was not pleased with, claiming that "only Russians would do this" and that it spoiled the atmosphere. From her point of view, the thought that someone would come to this mystical place and think so highly of themselves as to write their name in stones was an insult, and I can understand where she was coming from. She also said that as a tour guide, this year had been difficult as so few foreigners had come due to travel restictions, and that for tour guides, foreigners are preferable over rowdy Russians.
From the hill next to the Shaman Rock, one can see the faint silhouette of mountains on the northern coast of Lake Baikal, blue and dark against the sky. Turn around, and one can see how the interior of Olkhon isn't a steppe, but a forest, the trees seemingly rising out of the rugged sandy terrain. Larch and spruce grow in the sand. It is a strange phenomenon, but it seems difficult to characterize what kind of landscape the whole of the island really is, as there are elements of steppe, forest, desert and tundra all jumbled together on one island. The interior rises, becoming gradually hilly, and one can't help but wonder what it is like over there.
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| Olkhon's interior |
After walking around a bit more, we went to a small cafe where we ran into the owner, a friend of Eve's. There we chit-chatted and I met a couple Russians who spoke English and were more than interested in talking to me, especially with the U.S. presidential election so close at the time. At last, we went our separate ways and I wandered around Khuzhir, did some shopping at the only market, and returned to my guest house. With Nina's help, I had reserved an excursion to explore the island, and I was very eager to go on it.
The next day, a large grey van with a high suspension showed up outside the territory of the guest house at 10 in the morning. This vehicle, called a bukhanka, can be found all over Russia, frequently in the more rugged regions where only dirt roads exist. Bukhanka actually means loaf, as the van looks like a loaf of bread. They have been in production since the 60s and are generally accepted as Russia's off-road transport.
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| A Bukhanka |
The driver, a Buryat perhaps in his mid-50s, was quiet and in an almost monk-like state. Yet, he was kind, inviting me to sit up front. At every stop we made he would tell us a little bit about the location, and then stand by the van, puffing a cigarette while our group, which consisted of about 6 people in total, walked around and took photographs.
Off we went, and it wasn't long before we were speeding down a dirt road into the forest. But this was only the beginning, and as soon as we went into the forest, we emerged from it, and were in the village of Kharantsy, little more than an extension of Khuzhir. There was a cape jutting slightly out into the lake, which provided a nice view of a couple small islands off the coast. We stopped here for about twenty minutes and then continued.
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| The coast near Kharantsy |
We drove on, and then it was back into the forest for a short time. When we exited, it looked like a desert; there, coniferous trees grew in the sandy hills, how, I do not know. After the desert the road went right along the beach, and we stopped at a tiny village, this one little more than an extension of Kharantsy. This place used to be a fishing camp during the Soviet Union. At a souvenir shop, I sent a postcard to my parents which wouldn't arrive for a couple of months.
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| Olkhon's 'forest-desert' |
We left the sandy village and went into the forest yet again. But this time, it was different. The van had to slow down, as the driving conditions in the forest were horrendous; massive gashes in the earth where a million bukhankas had driven before made the ride bumpy, to say the least. At times the ruts looked to be more than a foot deep, and one can imagine how bottoming out here would be easy; yet, our driver deftly drove over them, shifting gears with the overly long stickshift and driving as he liked with a plain look on his face.
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| Unpaved roads of Olkhon's forest |
The further we drove, the more forested the area became, and it simply didn't seem possible that these different ecosystems could all be on the same island. But Olkhon is a special place.
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| Olkhon's spruce and larch forests |
Leaving the forest, and we were greeted not by another desert, but the steppe. Here our driver sped up, powering along the flat dirt roads which wound through the grass.
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| The steppe of Olkhon |
Along a cliffside, we stopped at the three brothers, a jagged rocky spine sticking out of the ground, high into the air. From here on, the road is separated from the water by these sheer cliffs.
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| Cliffs near the three brothers |
The Buryat legend goes that they were transformed into eagles by their father, who had magical powers. The condition was that they not eat dead meat, as they were eagles which could soar high above Lake Baikal and hunt. But one day they found a dead animal and decided to eat. Their father, upon learning that they had disobeyed him, turned them into stone out of anger.
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| The three brothers |
At long last we arrived at the northernmost part of the island, Mys Khoboi, or Fang Cape in the Buryat language. Is is a cape surrounded by incredibly tall cliffs, elevated and protruding into the lake. We had to walk to the very edge, but there an incredible feeling can be felt, an incredible view seen. It feels like you are on the ocean; you can not see the other side, only eternal blue streching into the distance. Here at the edge of the island, you can look around, and are almost completely surrounded by water, with a dangerous plummet almost directly down at the edge of the cape. It was relaxing and awe-inspiring to behold Lake Baikal from its apex.
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| Mys Khoboi |
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| Lake Baikal from Mys Khoboi |
All along the cliffside were wooden observation points, put there perhaps so that people would walk there to get a safe view instead of going precariously close to the cliffside. Single serges dotted the area, their colorful ribbons flapping in the wind, as birds flew high in the sky. The cape is incredibly rocky, and the legend goes that a woman, jealous of her husband's palace, asked the gods for one of her own but was turned into stone instead. What an unfortunate fate.
Not far from the cape, our group gathered together for lunch, which consisted of fish soup and tea. We ate near the forest, enjoying the fair weather.
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| A forest by the lake |
We drove on even further, stopping at yet another magnificent rocky outcropping and yet another gorgous view. The beauty of this place is somewhat overwhelming, but not completely typical of a Russian high-quality tourist experience, the golden standard of which I consider to be the Hermitage in St. Petersburg; the first dozen rooms, full of golden items of incalculable value are so very impressive, but by the hundredth room you have become accustomed to the beauty and know what to expect; here on Olkhon, after yet another cliffside with yet another stunning view, you somewhat expect what the next one will be like. But there is a twist: Olkhon is so diverse, and you are caught off guard.
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| Cliffs near Mys Khoboi |
We went to the only settlement on the eastern bank of the island called Uzury, which serves as a weather station and laboratory for geologists. It is one of the only places in the area where the plateau descends and one can access the shoreline. It was our last stop.
We returned to Khuzhir after about an hour of driving, and that single hour of return would have been enough to make me happy, driving on the steppe and through the forest; yet this excursion had shown me so much, that it was a lot to take in. I thanked the driver and upon returning to my guest house, decided to go to the beach not far from the Shaman Rock. I brought some bottles of water to drink and then fill up with the water from Lake Baikal, which is very clear and clean, and coveted by Russians across the country.
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| The beach near Khuzhir |
At the beach, I went for a nice long swim in the purifying water of Lake Baikal, this time much more bearable than in Enkhaluk where it was much colder. Here it was not so cold, and you can see so far under the water as it is so crystal clear. Swim out a little further, and you can see far into the depths; this is the deepest lake in the world. You can also drink the water straight from the lake, while you are swimming. I did just that, and also filled up some empty bottles for friends back in Dzerzhinsky.
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| A sunset on Lake Baikal |
At 10:00 in the morning, the shuttle bus showed up and I hopped on and said goodbye to Olkhon Island. It was bittersweet, I suppose, as I had had a wonderful experience on this special island, and better understood its significance to Buryats and to Lake Baikal. Yet the saying goes that if you have been to Lake Baikal, it is only a matter of time before you return once again.
After a few hours, I was back in Irkutsk. There, I wandered around the city and grabbed a bite to eat. I always enjoy walking through the large open-air market near the city center, where you can buy everything from vegetables and spices to winter socks and slippers. There are many non-Russian people there, and it at times feels like a bazaar somewhere in Central Asia. The following day I would meet up with Dima and go to his family's dacha.
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| Irkutsk's Arbat street |
Next day, I started strong with breakfast at my favorite cafe called 'Coffee & Cake' and got the American breakfast, which in Russia includes toast, bacon, eggs, and barbeque sauce- thats right, barbeque sauce. I killed some time, and in the afternoon, Dima came and picked me up from the hostel.
How did I meet Dima? Last time I was in Irkutsk, in August of 2019, I took the train there to see Lake Baikal for the first time, and perhaps I should write about that trip some day. Dima managed the hostel where I was staying, and offered to show me around the city, to which I agreed. I kept his number, and that is how I was able to get back in contact with him. Something interesting had happened to him and his fiancée since we had last met. They had taken significant steps to immigrate to Vancouver, Canada. Dima always talked about how difficult it is to do business in Russia. With an education in marketing management, he said he was fed up with the situation in his country. While in Canada, the Coronavirus broke out, and he was unable to fly back to Russia due to border closure. So instead, they flew to Belarus, and crossed the border through the forest to reenter- his fiancée's daughter was in Irkutsk and they desperately needed to return. It was a very interesting story to hear, and I think tells much of the struggles some have to face.
We drove outside the city, and did some quick shopping before we arrived at his family's dacha, technically his fiancée's parents' dacha. They were incredibly hospitable, and his fiancée's 5-year-old daughter quickly started showing me everything under the sun and speaking all the English she could, which was adorable. There we had dinner- steak- and talked for several hours before going for a long walk by the calmly flowing Angara River. Back at their dacha we drank tea and continued to chat, and the Siberian hospitality was very nice; these people only knew that I was an acquintance of Dima's and they still hosted me and treated me very well. Dima dropped me off in the evening, and offered to take me to an interesting park the following day. This was my last full day before getting on the train and beginning the return to Moscow.
Dima picked me up once again, and took me to what was called a 'park of culture'. What it really was was a former cemetery, with more than 120,000 graves, destroyed and covered with earth. It was destroyed by the Soviets, who had no problem defiling the graves of the deceased citizens of Irkutsk. They even used some of the tombstones to pave other parts of the city. Irkutsk was an important city during the Russian Civil War; here, the admiral Alexander Kolchak, at one time the leader of the White Movement, was betrayed by French and Czech allied forces who turned him over to a leftist political group, who then turned him over to the Bolsheviks. Here in Irkutsk, he was executed by firing squad. Irkutsk, a city which used to be called 'the Paris of Siberia' had long been a place of culture. The Soviet authorities, perhaps aware of the role Irkutsk played in Siberian cultural development, erased a part of history with the destruction of this graveyard, turning it into a 'park of culture'- that is, Soviet culture, the only culture desireable in their eyes. Dima said that his fiancée likes walking in this park, but he said he thinks it is creepy, as you are literally walking on graves without it being evident. Today, there is a plaque in memorium to those who were buried there.
Dima dropped me off at a restaurant, and I thanked him for what he had done for me- he had once again shown me hospitality and welcomed me to Irkutsk. I called a taxi to the train station, and the return trip to Moscow began.
The trip would take four days, and this time I took the upper side bunk- annoying to get into, but at least I had a place of my own during the day. The days blended one into another, and the reality that this was the ride home, the end of my great trip, began to sink in.
Killing time was difficult; we normally have no issue finding what to do with sixteen hours on a non-working day, but on a train, things are different. I once again found myself in the same situation as everyone else on the train, bored out of my skull and looking for something to do, and it wasn't long before I was playing cards with an Uzbek around my age who saw me playing solitaire. We would play cards for hours every day, and two Buryat women going to Yekaterinburg joined us as well, and yet another fellowship of people who in any other situation would have nothing to do with one another was founded.
Peculiar and ofter humorous things happen on the train. The neighbor of my compartment was a respectful Russian man, perhaps fifty years old. He would offer me and the Uzbek, whose name was Sarvar, food and chat with us here and there, but mostly he slept. On the first full day of his trip he asked Sarvar if he knew how to make 1000 rubles in ten minutes, to which Sarvar answered that he had never heard of money being made so easily. The man then asked him to go to the restaurant wagon to buy a bottle of vodka under the pretense of drinking the whole thing there, and then to pour it into a plastic bottle and smuggle it out, which is strictly prohibited; Sarvar carried out the operation without a hitch, and my neighbor drank it quickly and then went into hibernation, but not before socializing with Lyokha.
Lyokha was Sarvar's nighbour, and huge brute of a man with an immense belly and a heart attack waiting to happen. He looked like a hitman, but was certainly a working man, and was perpetually drunk or in the process of doing so. We didn't see much of Lyokha except for when he was passed out on his bunk, as he spent most of his time in the restaurant wagon.
The following day at 8 in the morning I had a run-in of sorts with Lyokha, as my neighbor informed him that I was an American. He immediately started asking me to wake up and share some samogon with him, and I thought to myself, here we go again. I politely refused and feigned sleepiness, but Lyokha was insistent, going as far as to hit the bottom of my bunk, calling me Amerikos, a negative slang term for Americans, yet still asking me to imbibe with him. I wasn't giving in, and my neighbor told him to leave me be, which at long last he did. I suppose he went to the restaurant wagon. Sarvar told me that Lyokha had disturbed him as well, and when he got off the train at a city called Kirov, he wished us both good health and shook our hands, an apology of sorts. These are yet more examples of the kind of events that can happen on the train, third class.
The view from the window became yet again an endless blur of green and brown, as forests and fields went by. Countless hands of card games were played and the train passed key cities; Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, and Perm; all were cities which I wanted to visit during this trip, but I simply didn't have time to see it all. It's a big country.
Once the train arrived in the city of Yaroslavl, we were getting close. The train filled up again, as it had been pretty empty the day before. Arriving in Moscow at five in the morning, I said goodbye to my neighbor, who had never even told me his name. I said farewell to Sarvar in front of the station, called a taxi to my city, and that was then end of the longest trip of my life so far. It took 35 days, and according to Google maps, I traveled 18,032 kilometers- or 11,204 miles- by train, perhaps more.
I am proud that I made this trip, under the conditions that I chose- third class all the way. One can easily find videos on Youtube of travelers taking the trans-Siberian railway across the country, but did they take it back? Most would consider the deed done, and platzkart an unnecessary discomfort. I feel that those who would take second or first class are missing out on a major part of this great experience, the chance to connect with ordinary people. I understand that not every tourist who does this can speak Russian, and it helped that mine is fairly good; it is for this reason that I feel that my experience traveling across the world's largest country has been so unique.
It is because of this trip that I have seen so much of Russia, perhaps more than most Russians. The natural beauty of this great country is breathtaking, and the opportunity to see this beauty and its magnitude has changed the way I think of our precious world. Sadly, much of our world is threatened, and even many secluded places in Russia are not so far away from being threatened; many already are. Yet, the chance to behold the natural beauty of Russia, from the steppe to the forest and the lake to the sea, brings me a feeling of serenity and timelessness, much like what I felt wandering in the woods in my backyard in Maine. I hope that Lake Baikal's pure water, Siberia's forests, and Southern Russia's steppe will always stay the same.
For me as a traveler, this trip was my epic journey. While this trip wasn't quite up there with hitch-hiking across Afghanistan or motorbiking across Africa, I feel that what I did was not for the feint of heart, not for those who desire comfort over experience. Few have made this trip, let alone the same way as I have. It was extreme, one might say. And I would do it all again.
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