Fun and games in Irkutsk
Leona Lenin
Lake Baikal
Ohklon Island ferry stop
My friend Sergei, a Native Buryat
Huzir, the small, wooden town we stayed in on the island.
Our tour jeeps
Cape view, Ohklan Island
Shaman poles
Village of Huzir, Okhlan Island
Ice-fishing cage construction
In Irkutsk, on the way to find warmer boots!
Irkutsk aeroport
Suzdal
Cathedral in Moscow
Moscow
Fantastic Journey in Gorky Park
The mullet brigade (fashion for men in Moscow)
Kremlin/Red Square
Our Moscow guide, Iron Igor..
View of St.Basil's Cathedral, across Red Square
*The photos start here and go chronologically upwards!*
Hi Everyone!
Well, we've now got a couple of hours to spare and also found an Internet spot, where the computers are free, so i'll start to fill everyone in with what's been happening. Sorry, only English version 1.4 available (Joe's somewhat outdated version of English), so no German sorry...
Moscow, as I've briefly mentioned was a really great experience. The weather was warm, better than it has been in Berlin, and we really enjoyed strolling the streets. The first day I even managed to fit in a little technical training, at one of the quite fancy department stores, in the centre, and spent a couple of hours helping the woman there responsible for mounting and assembling the frames. Hopefully it was a help!
Afterwards, Leona and I wandered around the Kremlin, and then went inside, where there is a large square with about 4 or 5 large churches, all with amazing golden domed rooves, all built by various Tzars and the Church to honour themselves I guess. In the sunlight everything gleamed quite magnificently. From there, we exited the walls and walked over the nearest bridge and had an amazing view over the river onto the Kremlin's walls and steeples with St. Basils Cathedral in the distance. From there we walked to Red Square, to Lenins Masoleum, and the Russian History Museum, which is also a beautiful building lining the square. The next day we were at Gorky Park, a funny, eccentric place full of old Russian, German and English arcade machines and games, a vast amusement park, straight out of some weird film. Really tacky and quirky, full of bad Russian disco music and people having fun. Next to that is the sculpture park, so we wandered through there as well, with some impressive busts of Lenin to see.
We headed the next day to Suzdal, a small town about 5 hours travel east of Moscow, for an overnight trip. We first had to get a train to another town Vladimir, and then a rural bus to Suzdal. Getting tickets and communicating has been OK actually, alot of hand gestures, alot of unsure looks and laughing, but the staff at the hostels have been really helpful, writing down for us in Russian where we need to get too, which at the station always seems to work out. But we arrived in this small town, teeming with churches and monasteries, and had a really nice laid-back stay, away from teeming and car-crazy Moscow. The amount of cars there and the size of the roads is really unbelievable, mayhem really, even though the subway system is excellent (and also architectually very beautiful).
So then we were to fly to Irkutsk, the capital of Siberia. We were thinking that the weather may get a little colder there, but our flight was delayed 5 hours in Moscow, basically due to a blizzard. When we landed in Irkutsk, the tarmac was covered with loads of snow, really cold, and bascially downright horrible! We stayed one cold and waterlogged night there, in a funny homestay, with a young guy who had seemed to have inherited his grandmothers flat, and used it to occasionally host tourists. The decor was definately something to behold! The next day the weather had improved somewhat, but was still quite cold, but it had stopped raining/snowing, so we headed off to Okhlan Island, an island in the middle of Lake Baikal. There, the weather had returned to sunnier, warmer weather, although the wind chill made it a little uncomfortable at times. We arranged a jeep tour to the northernmost cape of the island, which was pretty stunning, a backdrop of snow covered hill tops behind blue water, it was really beautiful. We also had a map and did a long walking tour of the area the next day, and headed back to Irkutsk yesterday in sunny, cloudless skies, where we are now, preparing for the next weeks excitements!
Basically, we're staying here in the Lake area for a few more days until Monday morning, where we're taking the train through to Ulan Baator, in Mongolia, arriving there on Tuesday morning, where we are hoping the 'Indian Summer' continues! (if you can call 12 degrees in late September in Siberia that, maybe you can...)
Well, sorry about the overload of boring details, I think I may try it differently next time, and there are loads of photos to scroll through, but whatever..
We're fine and well, everyone has been really nice, and although it's a little late in the season, I've been suprised how many people(tourists) are out and about travelling the Trans-Siberian, either from West- East, or the other way round.
Eating out is unfortunately over priced and basically bad value for money, so we've given up maybe trying to find heathly cheap restaurant alternatives, and are sticking to self catering now. It really is all about meat and bread here, and even that's not so cheap! But ox-tongue and dumplings aside, at the lake we were able to get loads of great fish, so I've only put on 5 kg's instead of 10!
Hope all is well,
Till next time
Love
Joe and Leona
