Springtime in Siberia

Country number 17 rolled into sight on Trans Sib train 2, bound for Irkutsk. A long wire fence, an austere obelisk and oppressive watchtowers marked our arrival in Russia, where officials have even bigger hats and power complexes than their neighbours. We were building up train tolerance gradually – 1 night from Beijing to Ulan Bataar, now 2 nights to Irkutsk. Lucky old Jon, favourite Irishman, was on our train again so the kids were in heaven. And in his cabin, much of the time. Alas there is no dining car on the Irkutsk train, so we became very familiar with all the varieties of Chinese pot noodle.

Irkutsk is the capital of Eastern Siberia (but hey you knew that) and we would say is that its main (if not only) attraction is its proximity to Lake Baikal. We headed straight out of the city to the tiny village of Bolshoe Goloustnoe with its 400 inhabitants – most of whom are seasonal. This isolated place, accessible only after 60 kilometres down a dirt track, is right on the shores of Baikal, with snowy mountains in the distance, a cupola-laden church and not much else! The star of the show is of course Baikal. A staggering 1/5th of the world’s fresh water is here, in the world’s deepest lake. It lies right on a major fault line, and one day it is set to split Europe from Asia and form the world’s sixth ocean. But not tomorrow … more in geological timescales.

The ice had finally melted off Baikal a couple of weeks before (it gets over a metre thick) so this was officially spring in Siberia with 4 seasons in one day – from baking hot to biting winds within an hour. This did not, however, put off intrepid Joe, who decided he just had to have a dip in the lake. Ouch! We have the video evidence to prove that he did a full-on swim, not just a quick dive and escape. He even did some leisurely backstroke. Well, according to local folklore he’s just added 25 years onto his lifespan … we did check that Chernobyl didn’t fall out quite this far south, so hopefully he wont be sprouting any extra toes or webbing to see him through his long life. Rowan and Rhys fancied a dip too, naturally, having swum above the arctic watershed. We also have a video to show that the closest either got was Rhys in his pant dipping both toes in. Still, that apparently gives him a couple more years too. I just stuck my hands in for the extra year, and can testify that it was absolutely, numbingly, heart-stoppingly freezing!

We stayed for a mere two nights in Siberia, and loved it. Our homestay with the large and motherly Tamara was great – she has six kids and bustled around like a mother hen serving up ENDLESS supplies of good hearty food, including wonderful borscht. We ate like pigs and slept long and hard (must be all the fresh air) under the wooden roof. We spent our days walking, and the kids finally proved that they are up to distances – we did 10 miles alongside the lakeside on Day 2 to some old fisherman’s cottage for some lunch, over pebbles, past meerkat type creatures all the while with the lake, crystal clear and 75 kilometres wide, to our left. Not a complaint was heard. This was probably because the kids yabbered ten to the dozen to our house mates and new-found friends – Janine and Colin. Janine and I, we believe, were actually separated at birth as the thing she missed most about home having been 11 and a half months travelling (on an almost identical path to ours!) was salad with shaved parmesan. Okay ignore the fact she is lightyears younger than me … once again we found our fellow travellers to be marvellous company. It only got weirder when, on the second night, the door opened and in walked another three people who were staying at Tamara’s – Cynthia and Kelvin, the lovely Kiwi couple from our first Trans Mongolian train, and Marina, a Greek goddess who had also been on the first train but got off for a trip in the Gobi at Sainshand! We decided it is an extremely small world of Westerners crossing from Beijing … and a very nice one.

Less delightful company were the rats that lived below your bum in the pit-type toilet. The kids adored gazing down the hole and spotting red eyes. Jenna remains convinced they were lovely furry moles, but we know better. We could write an entire book on toilet experiences, particularly in Asia, but we’ll leave some things to your imagination. It made going to the toilet a strange, frightening and somewhat sadistic experience as you tried to aim for the eyes.

Near the toilets out in the back yard however was the traditional Siberian banya, and like Siberia itself it makes you feel incredibly healthy and hearty (golly Siberia has a lot of trees!) Villages like this one have no running water, but take a vat of lake water, plonk it in a precarious boiler over a wood burning stove. In one wooden room is a sauna with the boiler making extremely alarming explosion noises, and in the other is a tap leading off from said boiler, next to a second vat of ice cold water. You strip off en famille and get very sweaty, then douse yourself with alternating blasts of boiling and freezing lake water. Or, if you are Jenna, you simply sit in a bucket of the two mixed. Our guide, Liena (like Vienna) told Joe “you know about the birch twigs and running about naked in the snow?” “Well yes I’ve heard …” he replies. “Well don’t worry” quips she, “you don’t HAVE to.” After Joe’s icy dip he did decline, much to our and the locals aesthetic relief.

All too soon we were in the bus headed back to Irkutsk with Colin and Janine, who had drawn the short straw and were on the same train as us. Janine confirmed she is my missing twin by politely turning down the city tour … we gratefully took the opportunity to also decline and head instead for the hotel and supermarket. Liena looked less crestfallen when Colin gamely volunteered to take the tour. We kind of wished we had, when we were confronted with our first (and thankfully only) example of complete Russian arrogance and rudeness. The woman behind the bar shouted at me as I reached for the ashtray. Basically, she shouted and insulted me in Russian as her colleagues laughed. The gist was that I wasn’t a customer, but then I ordered. When I asked if she spoke English, her sneer and contemptuous laugh of “Niet!” was enough to make my blood boil. I don’t think she needed to understand English to get my meaning as I told her she was one of the rudest people I had ever met. I hope she will understand even more fully as I found the hotel manager who DID speak English, and made a full and frank complaint about the first impressions this harpie gave of the hotel. But, in redemption, the hotel did also have a frighteningly authentic Bradford pub serving pasta, so we were able to refuel in surreal Siberian style before the next long train.

And so we were back on the Trans Sib for the last long push – 77 hours, 5 timezones and Colin, Jon and Janine – all the way to Moscow.