Listvyanka and Irkutsk
Sep. 17th, 2012 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foreignerAfter our unfortunate morning in Baranchiki, confined to staying on either the grandma's porch or in our own tiny cabin, we packed our stuff and headed back to the port. We caught the 2 pm ferry back to Listvyanka, and as we were on the ferry, the weather started to clear a bit. (It wouldn't have done us any good to wait in Baranchiki, anyway, though, because we had no way of knowing if it was actually going to stop raining, and also any forest paths would be hopelessly muddy anyway.)
In the slight drizzle and surprisingly cold weather, we walked back from the ferry dock towards the centre of Listvyanka. It's a delightfully two-dimensional village, as on one side of the main road there is the lake and on the other a steep hill. Some side roads do part from the main road, up the hills, but the bulk of the village is concentrated on the main road. We had raincoats, but still, in the rainy weather, lake Baikal showed its less than paradisiacal side. Living there would be cool and damp for large parts of the year. (Not to mention the merciless Siberian winters.) We looked for accommodation that would be slightly less basic than the previous night's; if we could be outside, accommodation wouldn't matter much, but if it would rain, we'd prefer somewhere we don't mind hanging out inside.
Chilled to the bone and rather tired and hungry, we stopped in an expensive, touristy restaurant. We had coffee and smallish blinis, and felt intense envy for the multi-course feasts people were being served in tables next to ours. But we minded our budget. And we had our minds on the excellent lake Baikal omul, a fish endemic to the lake, that the village serves cold-smoked and hot-smoked and probably prepared in several other ways. After walking a bit more towards the centre, we found a charming, large log house that had a "rooms for rent" sign outside. We rang the bell and asked, and it turned out to be a regular, affordable hotel. It was very nice, so we took a room and freshened up a little.
Then, for the village. It was getting to be after 6 pm, so we didn't think we can do much else than eat and admire the lake view that night, but we were determined to find out what to do the next day. There was a small market in the centre of the village that sold arts and crafts and souvenirs to tourists (who are abundant in Listvyanka, Russian and foreign alike), but it was just closing down, so we decided to hit it the following day. I'd also been very excited to learn that there is a seal aquarium in Listvyanka! There's a seal species, the nerpa, that is endemic to lake Baikal, and I actually did a small thesis on it as part of my biology studies. (No actual research, I just read some papers and wrote based on that. My findings were that there are surprisingly little heavy metals concentrated in these mammals that are on top of the food chain, in a lake that has some major industry around it.) And indeed, there was a thing called a "nerpinarium" in Listvyanka (I didn't remember it from my last trip there). It also had just closed, but we decided to see it the first thing the following day.
Then, for some omul. We bought one whole hot-smoked fish per person, and a small white bread, and had what was probably the best dinner of the whole trip. We sat down by the lake and ate bread and fish with our bare hands, sitting under one umbrella in the light rain. I had had omul before, but I hadn't remembered it's quite this delicious; probably the best fish I've ever had.
After that, we shopped for some food for an evening snack and the next morning's breakfast, went to our hotel, rested up a bit, and then went back out to sit on the lakeshore a bit. Johanna actually went on a swim! Lake Baikal is generally cold, as it's so deep it never really warms up even in the hot Siberian summers, but maybe it was at its warmest (16°C?) then, at the end of August. Anyway, not my cup of lakewater! After that, we were exhausted, and went to our hotel to sleep.
The next morning, we walked back to the centre with our backpacks. We left them at the tiny bus station, purchased tickets back to Irkutsk for later in the afternoon, and walked to the nerpinarium. And then it was time for my worst disappointment of the whole trip: it was closed. It was Monday, and just like a regular museum, the nerpinarium wouldn't open on Mondays. Which we hadn't thought to check. Not that we could have gone there at any other time.
Oh well. We went to the market and I bought myself a plush nerpa seal as a consolation prize. Johanna also bought some souvenirs, and we ended up spending a good couple of hours looking at all the stands. Then we had an omul lunch, just like the previous day's dinner minus the rain, and just admired the lake view for a while. I tried to commit the beauty, all the shades of blue, to my memory as best I could, so that I'd remember it until the next time I get to go to Baikal. (Another eight years?) Then, we took the minibus back to Irkutsk. On the way to Listvyanka, the bus had been full but we'd been the only people with big backpacks, but now there happened to be about eight backpacks there, and not only were all the seats full, but there were always some local people riding part of the way, standing. I was actually pretty comfortable in a snug little corner behind a mountain of backpacks, and I wasn't road-sick this time, and my seat was on the shadow side of the bus. Johanna wasn't as lucky, as she was on the sunny side, and I hear it really got hot.
Back in Irkutsk, we made our way back to the hostel we'd already stayed one night, now taking the tram like old-timers. After a rest at the hostel, we went out looking for sights and food. We walked to the centre and saw the very nice view from the long bridge across river Angara, and then many an amazing palace-like building, plus a very nice Lenin statue. It was beautiful, and as Johanna pointed out, no one does capes blowing in the wind like the social realists do. I developed a genuine love of social realism on this Russian trip. Yes, it means ugly block buildings, but also magnificent palaces and impressive statues. And while the somewhat naive socialist spirit of this art and architecture is sometimes ridiculed, I don't think a political idea is inherently a worse source of inspiration for art than, say, religion or nationalism, both of which have produced some great art in their time.
After walking in the centre for a while, we happened on the strangest thing, and one that definitely didn't exist on my last trip to Irkutsk: right next to the historical centre, there was this area of very old-style Siberian buildings, all brand new and some still being built. Ornate, terribly neat, very theme-park-like in their perfection. Inside were expensive little boutiques and pricey restaurants and bars. It was... scary. And yeah, I understand this is not a real comparison between equal options, but it still made me sad that the actual old town of Irkutsk is in dire need of restoration and they're spending the big money building this soulless commercial pseudo-old town. Oh well. We visited a jewellery shop where we couldn't afford anything, and then went in search of cheap and local food.
This proved to be more of a task than we'd expected. All the cheap eateries had closed at seven or eight, and what we could find was expensive Italian food, expensive English food, expensive Japanese food and even expensive Russian food. All the grand, candy-coloured palaces in the centre of the city didn't cheer us up when we were starving. Finally, we settled for an only moderately expensive Italian joint and had some very good pasta. With nothing to drink, as even water cost a lot. After our almost-satisfactory dinner, it was dark outside, and we had a bit of excitement walking back to the hostel. The streets were emptying, all the people who were still out seemed suspicious, and the streetlights weren't that good. Looking back, we were in no danger at any point, but we still walked to the hostel quite fast.
The next day was a shopping day! After a long and relaxed breakfast, we took a tram to near the marketplace and went out looking for things to buy. We checked a few second-hand clothes stores, but they were a disappointment: the clothes weren't that cheap, and they all seemed to be imported from Europe, more like luxury items than affordable flea-market ware. Then we went to a hot, crowded bookstore and went crazy on stationery, buying a dozen fancy school notebooks. (Notable was a series of very nice notebooks with gold-rimmed pictures of famous people in on the covers. I bought Vladimir Mayakovsky and empress Ekaterina, but available were also Ivan the Terrible and, yes, Josif Stalin.) Then we got lost in a clothes-shopping hell, a centre filled with a maze of aisles lined with small clothes stores, suffocatingly hot and monotonous. We tried on a few hats but didn't buy anything. Another frustrating experience was another clothes marketplace, this one more Chinese than Russian, where the service was way too pushy for us timid FInns. This is a cultural thing I can't get over: when I shop, I want to look at things in peace, I can't make decisions if someone's talking to me all the time, trying to get me to buy stuff. If that happens, I just end up not wanting to shop at all.
After that, we rested outside for a bit, drinking some kvas and feeling exhausted. And then we went to a very long shopping round in the market hall, buying about a ton of food for our dinner and for the train. As we came out to where the trams went, it was apparent that traffic was in some sort of a chaos. A very kind man who worked for the public transport or something tried to work things out for the people, and we could make out that trams were probably not running. So we ended up taking a bus that would go approximately to the direction of our hostel. Indeed, we made it quite near to the hostel. Once there, we cooked a nice omul omelet and chatted a bit with two Swedish guys who had been driving to Ulaan Baatar in Mongolia, but their car had broken down outside of Irkutsk.
Then it was time to leave for our last stretch of train travel. The last train was by far the best! But I guess that's my next update.
In the slight drizzle and surprisingly cold weather, we walked back from the ferry dock towards the centre of Listvyanka. It's a delightfully two-dimensional village, as on one side of the main road there is the lake and on the other a steep hill. Some side roads do part from the main road, up the hills, but the bulk of the village is concentrated on the main road. We had raincoats, but still, in the rainy weather, lake Baikal showed its less than paradisiacal side. Living there would be cool and damp for large parts of the year. (Not to mention the merciless Siberian winters.) We looked for accommodation that would be slightly less basic than the previous night's; if we could be outside, accommodation wouldn't matter much, but if it would rain, we'd prefer somewhere we don't mind hanging out inside.
Chilled to the bone and rather tired and hungry, we stopped in an expensive, touristy restaurant. We had coffee and smallish blinis, and felt intense envy for the multi-course feasts people were being served in tables next to ours. But we minded our budget. And we had our minds on the excellent lake Baikal omul, a fish endemic to the lake, that the village serves cold-smoked and hot-smoked and probably prepared in several other ways. After walking a bit more towards the centre, we found a charming, large log house that had a "rooms for rent" sign outside. We rang the bell and asked, and it turned out to be a regular, affordable hotel. It was very nice, so we took a room and freshened up a little.
Then, for the village. It was getting to be after 6 pm, so we didn't think we can do much else than eat and admire the lake view that night, but we were determined to find out what to do the next day. There was a small market in the centre of the village that sold arts and crafts and souvenirs to tourists (who are abundant in Listvyanka, Russian and foreign alike), but it was just closing down, so we decided to hit it the following day. I'd also been very excited to learn that there is a seal aquarium in Listvyanka! There's a seal species, the nerpa, that is endemic to lake Baikal, and I actually did a small thesis on it as part of my biology studies. (No actual research, I just read some papers and wrote based on that. My findings were that there are surprisingly little heavy metals concentrated in these mammals that are on top of the food chain, in a lake that has some major industry around it.) And indeed, there was a thing called a "nerpinarium" in Listvyanka (I didn't remember it from my last trip there). It also had just closed, but we decided to see it the first thing the following day.
Then, for some omul. We bought one whole hot-smoked fish per person, and a small white bread, and had what was probably the best dinner of the whole trip. We sat down by the lake and ate bread and fish with our bare hands, sitting under one umbrella in the light rain. I had had omul before, but I hadn't remembered it's quite this delicious; probably the best fish I've ever had.
After that, we shopped for some food for an evening snack and the next morning's breakfast, went to our hotel, rested up a bit, and then went back out to sit on the lakeshore a bit. Johanna actually went on a swim! Lake Baikal is generally cold, as it's so deep it never really warms up even in the hot Siberian summers, but maybe it was at its warmest (16°C?) then, at the end of August. Anyway, not my cup of lakewater! After that, we were exhausted, and went to our hotel to sleep.
The next morning, we walked back to the centre with our backpacks. We left them at the tiny bus station, purchased tickets back to Irkutsk for later in the afternoon, and walked to the nerpinarium. And then it was time for my worst disappointment of the whole trip: it was closed. It was Monday, and just like a regular museum, the nerpinarium wouldn't open on Mondays. Which we hadn't thought to check. Not that we could have gone there at any other time.
Oh well. We went to the market and I bought myself a plush nerpa seal as a consolation prize. Johanna also bought some souvenirs, and we ended up spending a good couple of hours looking at all the stands. Then we had an omul lunch, just like the previous day's dinner minus the rain, and just admired the lake view for a while. I tried to commit the beauty, all the shades of blue, to my memory as best I could, so that I'd remember it until the next time I get to go to Baikal. (Another eight years?) Then, we took the minibus back to Irkutsk. On the way to Listvyanka, the bus had been full but we'd been the only people with big backpacks, but now there happened to be about eight backpacks there, and not only were all the seats full, but there were always some local people riding part of the way, standing. I was actually pretty comfortable in a snug little corner behind a mountain of backpacks, and I wasn't road-sick this time, and my seat was on the shadow side of the bus. Johanna wasn't as lucky, as she was on the sunny side, and I hear it really got hot.
Back in Irkutsk, we made our way back to the hostel we'd already stayed one night, now taking the tram like old-timers. After a rest at the hostel, we went out looking for sights and food. We walked to the centre and saw the very nice view from the long bridge across river Angara, and then many an amazing palace-like building, plus a very nice Lenin statue. It was beautiful, and as Johanna pointed out, no one does capes blowing in the wind like the social realists do. I developed a genuine love of social realism on this Russian trip. Yes, it means ugly block buildings, but also magnificent palaces and impressive statues. And while the somewhat naive socialist spirit of this art and architecture is sometimes ridiculed, I don't think a political idea is inherently a worse source of inspiration for art than, say, religion or nationalism, both of which have produced some great art in their time.
After walking in the centre for a while, we happened on the strangest thing, and one that definitely didn't exist on my last trip to Irkutsk: right next to the historical centre, there was this area of very old-style Siberian buildings, all brand new and some still being built. Ornate, terribly neat, very theme-park-like in their perfection. Inside were expensive little boutiques and pricey restaurants and bars. It was... scary. And yeah, I understand this is not a real comparison between equal options, but it still made me sad that the actual old town of Irkutsk is in dire need of restoration and they're spending the big money building this soulless commercial pseudo-old town. Oh well. We visited a jewellery shop where we couldn't afford anything, and then went in search of cheap and local food.
This proved to be more of a task than we'd expected. All the cheap eateries had closed at seven or eight, and what we could find was expensive Italian food, expensive English food, expensive Japanese food and even expensive Russian food. All the grand, candy-coloured palaces in the centre of the city didn't cheer us up when we were starving. Finally, we settled for an only moderately expensive Italian joint and had some very good pasta. With nothing to drink, as even water cost a lot. After our almost-satisfactory dinner, it was dark outside, and we had a bit of excitement walking back to the hostel. The streets were emptying, all the people who were still out seemed suspicious, and the streetlights weren't that good. Looking back, we were in no danger at any point, but we still walked to the hostel quite fast.
The next day was a shopping day! After a long and relaxed breakfast, we took a tram to near the marketplace and went out looking for things to buy. We checked a few second-hand clothes stores, but they were a disappointment: the clothes weren't that cheap, and they all seemed to be imported from Europe, more like luxury items than affordable flea-market ware. Then we went to a hot, crowded bookstore and went crazy on stationery, buying a dozen fancy school notebooks. (Notable was a series of very nice notebooks with gold-rimmed pictures of famous people in on the covers. I bought Vladimir Mayakovsky and empress Ekaterina, but available were also Ivan the Terrible and, yes, Josif Stalin.) Then we got lost in a clothes-shopping hell, a centre filled with a maze of aisles lined with small clothes stores, suffocatingly hot and monotonous. We tried on a few hats but didn't buy anything. Another frustrating experience was another clothes marketplace, this one more Chinese than Russian, where the service was way too pushy for us timid FInns. This is a cultural thing I can't get over: when I shop, I want to look at things in peace, I can't make decisions if someone's talking to me all the time, trying to get me to buy stuff. If that happens, I just end up not wanting to shop at all.
After that, we rested outside for a bit, drinking some kvas and feeling exhausted. And then we went to a very long shopping round in the market hall, buying about a ton of food for our dinner and for the train. As we came out to where the trams went, it was apparent that traffic was in some sort of a chaos. A very kind man who worked for the public transport or something tried to work things out for the people, and we could make out that trams were probably not running. So we ended up taking a bus that would go approximately to the direction of our hostel. Indeed, we made it quite near to the hostel. Once there, we cooked a nice omul omelet and chatted a bit with two Swedish guys who had been driving to Ulaan Baatar in Mongolia, but their car had broken down outside of Irkutsk.
Then it was time to leave for our last stretch of train travel. The last train was by far the best! But I guess that's my next update.