Saturday 18 October 2008

Lake Baikal and Irkutsk

Our minibus driver made a point of not overtaking. Well, that is unless it was on a blind corner or over the lip of a hill. And only ever at 90mph. I could've sworn that going to Listvyanka to visit Baikal was supposed to be a lot more stress-relieving than inducing! But, as the lake crept into sight, I slowly moved my hands away from my eyes because peering between fingers just didn't do the view justice. I could go on for hours attempting to describe the lake and I still couldn't get it right. I could tell you to go away and look at pictures of it and still you wouldn't quite get the same feeling. I don't know if it was due to the previous weeks of visual starvation of the Siberian cities, but Lake Baikal just looked like the most beautiful place on earth, and looking back at the pictures I've stored in my head rather than on my camera, I still think it is. I make no apologies for the lack of attempt to really describe it to you, because as I say it's almost futile - however, here's some astonishing facts about Lake Baikal:

- it contains 23,000 cubic km of water

- it is 31,500 square km in area

- the maximum depth is 1637m

- 20% of the world's fresh water is stored in it

- it supports 3,500 species of animals and plants, 2,600 of which are endemic

- it is 25,000,000 years old

- it is 636 km in length

- if all of the world's fresh water supply ran out tomorrow, Lake Baikal could support us for the next 50 years

But even having read all of this before coming out, you're just not prepared. I'd left Irkutsk to take the 60 minute bus journey out to the lake with a lad called Tom who is from just outside Limerick, and from the hostel I was staying in there we'd booked another one for two nights in a small village called Bolshie Koty which sat right by the lake. The only problem I was told we'd have would be that there were no boats to Bolshie Koty that day, so we'd need to take a 15km walk through the woods which would take about 4 hours... I was more than happy to do that and so was Tom, and after city hopping until that point I was prepared to get back into nature and enjoy every minute of the hike. Our first misadventure was completely down to my own stupidity and firing ahead without reading my map properly - I ended up taking us along the wrong road which led through a small shanty town and into a cul-de-sac which only had a tiny little coastal path as the route out. I vaguely remembered that the guy from the hostel had told me to not take the coastal path because it was dangerous, but I thought to myself "how dangerous can this really be?" and after a swift deliberation we decided to go for it anyway. I verified my idea with a man who was welding a huge boat nearby (it was fully 500m from the sea and I have no idea how he expected to get it back there so his welding seemed pointless, although I'm sure he knew what he was doing) and he seemed to think it was a good one so we set off along the path.

For the first half an hour or so it was quite easy going, mostly walking with a bit of scrambling every-so-often, but the views out over the lake towards the Khamar-Daban mountains, which are snowcapped all year around, were well worth the effort it took. However, the further along we got the more I realised why I was advised against taking this path as it turned into huge cliff faces which left me no option other than turning around and trying a different way up. This must've gone on for about an hour or so in the boiling hot sun and I was becoming more and more disillusioned with my idea... it was time to turn back. As we walked back past the boat-welding-man he gave me a look of disappointment, as though we'd failed some kind of test of our natural abilities as men by giving up on the path, and we trudged off back to the main road with my tail between my legs.

Once back on the main stretch in Listvyanka I realised my initial mistake and set off again with renewed enthusiasm up the actual road we should've taken in the first place. After about 15 minutes of tarmac the ground beneath your feet starts to break up and turn into very dry clay and mud, the birch and pine forest sneaks up upon you and before you know it, you're right in the middle of a Siberian forest. This was exactly what I hoped it would be! Driven on by sheer enthusiasm I hiked onward uphill with Tom in tow, following the path to our destination. Or so I thought. An hour or so on, this clearly defined forest path became a series of smaller paths which could easily have been mistaken for areas of water run-off and I was left unsure about my direction. Stupidly, I'd also left my head-torch back at the hostel in Irkutsk and as the sun was starting to set we were worried about going on too far and then being stuck without light, clothes, food and also without any idea where we was going. I again had to admit defeat and turned back on ourselves to re-tread our steps towards Listvyanka. I was gutted, absolutely gutted. Through a couple of really stupid mistakes, I had ruined both of our chances to get out to Bolshie Koty and was now going to have to spend the night somewhere in Listvyanka instead - hopefully indoors. It was easy enough to find somewhere though, and we were soon checked into a completely empty hostel for the night. The old Babushka that ran it spoke no english at all, so the customary game of charades was required by now to convey what we were after. If you're ever in need of an expert charade player to make up the numbers for a game anytime give me a call, after this month I'm now a finely tuned machine in terms of acting out what I want rather than saying it! As almost everywhere else I've stayed, this hostel was unique - I think I'm the only person who could find a hostel next to the largest freshwater lake in the world which would still have no running water. On top of this the there was only an outdoor toilet which made me long for the hygiene and smell of festival toilets. It really was that bad. I couldn't believe that I was staying here rather than in a little hut in an idyllic beach-side village, and to drown our sorrows we bought a few bottles and cans of lager from the shop a few doors down. However, we noticed a door hidden behind a curtain and decided to try it out of sheer boredom... it led out onto a balcony over-looking the lake with the sun setting behind it, the perfect place to sit playing cards and drinking beer! The sunset again left me speechless - I did take some photos, which I hope to show you all at some point soon, but not many. I'm quite conscious on this trip of taking too many photos and finding myself wholly reliant upon them for my memories. For me, it's much more important to remember everything about the place you're in, not just the image. The cold still air, the sound of the waves breaking on the beach and dogs barking in gardens, the smell of smoked fish and Baltika... it was the combination of all of these as well as the view that made that moment, and a photo just can't capture that. It can serve as a trigger, but I think it's important to not miss the whole experience through trying to capture it on camera.

The next day Tom left to make his way back to Irkutsk and then onwards to Moscow whilst I decided to stay for the day. I had previously been so long in the somewhat claustrophobic Russian cities that I wasn't yet ready to give up the lake and head back to them again. I spent the day again walking in the woods, hiking up to a hilltop look out point which gives you a fantastic view of where the Angara river flows out of the lake. When you reach the top there's a small hut in amongst the trees, all of which are decorated in brightly coloured pieces of cloth or ribbon as part of an old Siberian custom for good luck and I found a couple of pieces of ribbon to do this myself. Again the weather was fantastic with the sun was beating down, and as I was so far away from the town I was the only one about to enjoy this view so I settled down to sit there for a good hour and have some lunch before heading back to check out the Baikal museum to entertain the conservationist and scientific side of my character before deciding to sit down by the beach and read rather than head back to Irkutsk. Now I'm sure you all wonder what a Russian beach is like in October, well it's exactly any beach in the world when it's sunny, littered with tourists. Russian families come from nearby cities and towns for their weekend holidays to Baikal and bring along huge picnics consisting of bread, cheese, fish and sausages to feed their numerous mouths. However, it differs from a normal beach in one particular way - everyone still wears hats, gloves, scarves and coats, so I was completely bemused to see people heading down to sit on the sand, setting down beach towels and then sitting on them wrapped head to toe for winter weather. It's just one more thing to add to the list of surreal experiences I've had so far in this amazing country!

I headed back to Irkutsk late that night and spent the next couple of days seeing the few sights that that town has to offer. I've heard that it's previously been described as the "Paris of Siberia", but I can only imagine that any Parisians who visit take grave offence to the comparison nowadays. Like the other Siberian towns I visited, Irkutsk is in a state of transition with huge amounts of building work seemingly in progress, but with very few workers actually doing anything. Now, I have something of an obsession with abandoned buildings, the way that humans move out and nature slowly takes up residence, and it's an obsession which is fulfilled many times over in Russia. Nothing is seemingly ever knocked down, people and businesses move out and time moves on, but the buildings themselves are just left standing empty and on the verge of collapse. Instead of putting these soulless buildings out of their misery and knocking them down, building just happens around them. The result is you're left with a mosaic of old wooden huts, clay brick exoskeletons and newly built, towering concrete and glass structures... Paris this most definitely isn't. It's something that a lot of people I've met along the way have noticed about the Siberian towns, and I just don't understand why it happens. Is it that much more economically viable to just leave disused buildings to fall down on their own? That seems to be what the aim is as life around them carries on. It's very sad in a way and I think it's almost comparable to the way that people live in Russia: As the older people slowly go unnoticed about the city streets while the younger generations more openly and brashly push their way along, grabbing your attention. Everything that you see in this country just highlights how transitional a phase it's going through and despite how long it's been going on already it shows no signs of letting up.

I'm almost out of internet time here and have so much more to write, about my train journey back to Moscow as well as arriving in St Petersburg and the first few days here, so I'll write again tomorrow night. As a quick note, I read in the paper in Moscow the other day that Russia successfully tested long-range missiles and "independent Russian analysts" believe that their openess about it is entirely to antagonise America... maybe I've timed my trip here perfectly if that's the case. I see no reason why actual war would break-out between the two, neither has anything to gain from it at present, but if they both continue to posture and act in the way they have recently towards each other then I'm sure westerners will be made to feel less welcome by authorities here, if not the people of the country themselves. I really hope that's not the case, because the more time I spend here the more I realise how ridiculous some of the stereotypes I've been fed by western media about Russia are, and that this isn't a terrifying land of muggers, thieves and alcoholics that any westerner should be scared of. The people I've met have been warm, friendly, funny and prepared to go out of their way to help me and make me feel comfortable here, to make sure that I'm fit and well and enjoying their country as much as I should be. They've shown nothing but interest in me and some of the acts of kindness I've experienced have blown me away - it'd be a huge shame if that was all lost again in dirt-slinging between two sides in a conflict.

x

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I think Christopher McCandless would be very pround in light of his disasters! You're way clevereererrrr, like Ray Mears! xx