Ankara River flowing out of Lake Baikal
Lake. Baikal with the mountains in background
Lake Baikal from the village
Me with Babr, a mythical Siberian tiger that is the monument symbol of Irkutsk
Cool old log buildings with intricate trim work
Central Market fruit and vegetable Lane
Central Market Center Lane
Vendor stall at the Central Market
One of thousands of old log buildings in Irkutsk
My daily stop for a three layer chocolate layer cake and cup of earl grey
Just one counter of options at the Cake House
Door Knob to the Restaurant that I thought was both cool and welcoming
Russian Menu
Lamb Pelmeni served in clear soup
Four Pork and Beef Khinkali Dumplings with grilled potatoes, tomatoes and Shoto Bread
After three long hot, boring, tedious and painful days and nights on the Trans-Siberian Express I was glad to roll into Irkutsk before 7am. I caught a taxi to my hotel only to find I couldn’t check in and get a shower, shave and nap before 11am. Fortunately my taxi driver had hung around and offered to drive me the 78 kilometers down to Lake Baikal, show me around the sites and then drive me back to the hotel to check in around noon.
Sounded like a good plan to me so off we went. Little did I know this nut case was intent on committing suicide by car with me in the back seat. Our destination, Lake Baikal is the largest fresh water lake in the world. In fact 75 percent of all the fresh water on earth is contained in this one lake. I was told it has over one hundred rivers flowing into it from all over Siberia and just one flowing back out. The Ankara River flows out of Lake Baikal at the south end and passes thru Irkutsk.
And after Mr Commie bastard’s wild ride and a lot of Devine intervention we made it. to the Lake in one piece. The lake as well as the river were interesting but maybe not worth the life threatening drive. The settlement along the lake was worth visiting just to learn how corrupt the Russian system is. It seems that the colorful and quaint village that used to exist there and is talked about in all the guide books is a mere shadow of its old self. Apparently the village sat on prime real estate that someone thought would be better used as high priced tourist hotels.
So the Russian Mafia went door to door telling people to get out, leave their homes, and don’t look back. Those that didn’t leave had their houses burned to the ground with them in em. I asked where the hell the police were and my kamikaze driver thought I was hilarious. It was his opinion that the police worked off duty as mafia fire bugs.
While in the village I visited an open air market and bought a couple of fresh smoked lake fish. Though claiming they were smoked was a little bit of a stretch. They were more likely baked but still pretty good. But an hour lake side was plenty for me – I needed a shower and sleep.
After another hair raising drive back to Irkutsk I got myself checked in to my hotel, got my first shower and shave in over three days and a nice three hour nap before making my first exploration of Irkutsk. The most interesting thing about this Siberian City is that it must have once looked like our Old West. There are still lots of buildings from the 1800s and earlier still in use and they are constructed from logs.
I guess using logs as the prime building material made sense since to this day there are still too damn many trees in Siberia and I think I saw every one of them from my train window. This part of Siberia also shared the Old West’s economy. The early settlers were all either hunters or reindeer, cattle, sheep herders, or fishermen or gold prospectors.
Most of the photos I am posting are of the cool log buildings with all of their elaborate trimmings or houses of worship that I thought were pretty cool. However I have posted a couple of traditional Russian dishes I sampled and enjoyed. Both dishes were meat dumplings – one as part of a soup called Pelmeni the other a much larger dumpling served as.a main course and are called Khinkali. I tried both the lamb and pork versions and both were quite tasty.
I took a lot of photos in Irkutsk so I will break this into two posts. This first one will cover my first day down on the lake and second wondering around Irkutsk. The next post will cover my visit to an open air museum that has brought historic buildings from all over Siberia to be displayed in one river side setting and then tour the Karzan Cathedral and other houses of worship.