The Great Train Adventure

Lake Baikal from Olkhon Island

I had wanted to see Lake Baikal ever since 1991 when some Czech student friends showed me slides of their trip there at a time when the area was still largely closed even to Russians. Through the good auspices of a park ranger they got to see the area at its best. I knew the sights I would see would be no matched for the amazing views captured in their slides, but on the other hand, no picture can ever capture the experience of being there yourself.

The only thing I knew of the lake before going was those pictures and that Irkutsk was the nearest large town. We met various people at hostels along the way who were coming from the other direction and from them we learned what turned out to be a travelers legend that bathing in the lake adds 25 years to your life. At this time of year I wasn’t crazy about trying this, so I was delighted when Anastasia, one of our two wonderful hostesses at the Baikaler hostel, told us that she had only heard this story from Western travelers.

Though there are several options for seeing the lake- including a train ride that goes part way around- most of the people at the hostel were coming back from a stay on Olkhon Island. Since a minibus would conveniently pick us up from the hostel and take us there and back this is what we decided to do.

Nikita's Guesthouse, Olkhon Island

Anastasia suggested staying at Olga’s guesthouse, which she said was quieter and more homelike, but almost everyone coming back said that Nikita’s was better. When we arrived there after a long, jolting ride over dirt roads, however, I was immediately enchanted by Nikita’s.  Fantastic gingerboarding and carvings of figures that looked straight out of Russian fairy tales decorated every building. Seeing a whimsical drawing of a weasel driving a hedgehog- my totem animal- as I pulled my aching body out of the minibus was the clincher for me.

Drawing at the entrance of Nikita's Guesthouse

Lin took some more convincing, but she was soon charmed by a quite large room with a stone stove. As it turned out, this was just as well: one of our fellows on the mini-bus– a Thai whose clothes weren’t quite up to Siberian snuff, returned later half frozen, having found no one at home at Olga’s. We met various people who did manage to stay there, but most people seemed to prefer Nikita’s, and everyone came there to meet in the evenings in any case.

Lin by the Shaman Rocks

Nikita’s is right by the twin stones they call the Shaman rocks. They look as though they are out in the lake, but as you get closer you can see there is a small causeway that attaches them to the shore. The island is filled with shamanic posts covered mostly with the sky blue scarves of the Buryat people, natives of the area,  but also with bits of cloth and clothing items left by others hoping to invoke the shamanic powers. The island is supposed to be one of the six major points of power in shamanic belief. We were told, however, that the piles of rocks we saw everywhere were a Russian distortion of shamanic tradition, as they have come to believe that piling up rocks that match, in size and number, their sins is a way to receive absolution.

We arranged to take a minibus tour to the northern tip of the Island. Fortunately Anya, a Russian-American photo journalist was in our group, since Sergei, the driver, though delightful, spoke no English.

Up until this point I must say I had found Baikal a disappointment. Nothing I had seen came close to the photos I remembered. But as we moved away from the town the views kept getting better and better, even as the road got worse and worse. Unfortunately, just as we reached the pinnacle, the batteries in my camera gave out. I walked out on the long peninsula at the very tip of the island to look at the window rock, reminding myself of all the years I had spent without a camera because of the way a view finder seduces you into looking for the good shots instead of seeing what is around you. For some reason the farther out I went the warmer it seemed. The cold wind also seemed to have died. I was walking along the edge of a cliff on my right, and before long I could see the lake on my left as well. Just off to the left of the very point of the peninsula was the window rock– a narrow slit worn by wind and water through the rock. There was also a smaller, fist size hole next to it.

Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal

On the walk back to where Sergei had prepared lunch for us I asked Anya about the sign at the beginning of the peninsula. All I had been able to make out was something about a legend. She said that the legend among the Buryat people was that an ancient princess had married a very rich man and had begged the gods to give her a palace that was nicer than any he owned. The gods in response had turned her into a tooth to remind people not to be greedy or envious. The place was called ‘tooth’ in memory of this.

After we returned we got a chance to see the island’s little museum, which was otherwise shut for the winter. It was an odd collection of various artifacts, ranging from such things as old telephones to really interesting information on a joint scientific project with the US which indicated a very high degree of likelihood that the Buryat people of Baikal were of the same group as those that crossed the Bering Strait during the last ice age. We also learned that electricity had arrived on the island only 4 years before.

Olkhon Island on Baikal

The last day – which turned into two days as we were kicked off our mini-bus back I spent wandering around, enjoying the views, which kept getting better and better as the sky cleared. Baikal, like the sea, reflects the colors of the sky, so silvery grays gave way to azure and bright deep blues. Watching the colors made me want to come back- to see the lake through all its seasonal changes.

Lin at Lake Baikal

Wednesday, 21 October
We arrived at Lake Baikal on Monday, on a minibus from Irkutsk. The driver made several stops to add more passengers than we thought possible – just when we thought it was as full as it could get he would find a way to squeeze in more. Baikal is about 6 hours from Irkutsk, and the landscape was mostly steppes and rolling hills with cattle, horses and sheep. The last hour or two is unpaved, and a car ferry took us across to Olkhon Island, halfway up Baikal’s western shore.

Lake Baikal contains the biggest supply of fresh water in the world – more than the Great Lakes put together. It is thousands feet deep in places, and the surrounding terrain is almost totally uninhabited.

Shaman Pillar at the Northern Tip of Olkhon Island

Finding words to describe Baikal is  difficult; I feel inadequate to absorb its vastness, blueness, silence, light, and sky.

Golden Siberian Pine

Yesterday we took a trip to the northern end of the island with Anya, a Russian-American photojournalist for National Geographic, a Russian tourist, and our driver and guide Sergei. We stopped numerous times to learn about the island’s history and legends, thank to Anya’s translating for us, and every view was more magnificent than the last. We drove through golden steppes and forests almost as golden due to a Siberian pine with bright yellow autumn needles. Animals grazed in the unfenced landscape -  there are very few fences in Siberia and Sergei said each herder knews which animals are his and they all have names.

Sergei's Minivan

After a hike around the very northern tip, with the biggest vistas of lake and sky, we enjoyed a delicious lunch of fish soup that Sergei had cooked for us. Many kinds of fish are unique to Lake Baikal, and one of the reasons it is so clean is the presence of bottom-feeders that take care of any pollutants; we were told a human body would be completely eaten in two weeks.

There are two small villages on Olkhon Island, with a total of 1600 residents. The best times to visit are now, after the short tourist season and before winter, and in February, when the lake is frozen to two meters and cars drive across the pure white landscape. In July and August, however, droves of tourists descend on the island and fill all available space along with their cars and tents – there is a problem with garbage since the island still does not have plumbing or waste disposal; electricity only arrived 4 years ago. There is lots of new development but no zoning or restrictions, and some people are afraid of ecological problems ahead. Today I took a long walk along the shoreline and through forests, and everywhere, despite the villagers’ clean-up efforts after the tourists, are beer cans, food wrappers and other trash.

Nikolai Serenading us in the Evenings

There is one main guest house on the island called Nikita’s, started by a former table tennis champion. It is a hodgepodge of imaginatively carved cabins, all different, with a dining hall that also serves as the evening gathering point for travelers from other, smaller places. Our cabin has a wood-burning stove, and I did my workouts with the logs and some rocks from outside. Meals are included in the 800-ruble ($24) daily board, and they almost always include some type of fish from the lake.

We’re enjoying the marvelous comaraderie that develops among travelers leapfrogging along the same route. Most people we’ve met since St. Petersburg are going the same way we are all the way to Southeast Asia, only a few heading the other way, and everyone tends to stay at the same hostels. There are frequent joyful reunions when a familiar face turns up at mealtime and we compare experiences of the places we’ve been and get to know each other better. It is a cohort of mainly Europeans, with a few Americans and Asians. Many tourist facilities are closing already for the winter, so we are the final stragglers of the season. Because we are now close to the Mongolian border, as our friends depart we can say with assurance, “See you in Ulan Bator!”

Thursday, 22 October
Well, we thought we would be headed to Ulan Bator tonight, but this morning there was a misunderstanding at the minibus stop that was to take us back to Irkutsk. The 8:00 bus had broken down, and somehow our reservation on the 10:00 bus never get registered, so after we and 11 other people were seated and 5 more waiting the driver realized it was ovebooked and that two people must get off. At first he pointed to the two female English army captains sitting in the back, whom we had met at Nikita’s, but they stood their ground and told me not to let him bully me off. After Sarah tried her best in Russian/Czech to explain that we had all been scheduled for the earlier bus but our hostels had called to switch us to this one, the driver made a few calls but was still unconvinced. Finally, he began shouting at Sarah and me to get off, and because we were sitting next to the door he yanked at our arms and our only choices were to get off or have a physical fight. So we took our luggage and went back to Nikita’s, where it was finally discovered that the bus company had failed to make our reservation and they will give us a refund for tomorrow’s journey. There are many worse things than spending an extra day at Lake Baikal, so we enjoyed a relaxing day walking, reading, and talking with the few remaining guests.

Sarah with Kate and Marianna

Makeshift Swing in Platzkart

Having now tried second class coupe travel, I still find little to dislike about platzkart travel.  True, we had some unpleasant travel companions on the road to Irkutsk — rather unkempt and uncouth Chinese traders, but we’ve also met some fascinating people on these journeys. You see a lot of family groups traveling together 3rd class (including this delightful little girl who used the upper bunk bar as her personal jungle gym). There are old women, groups of students, young couples – and quite a few Russian women  who seem as eager for travel and travel stories as we are. It’s true that platzkart is often hot, sometimes smelly, and can be a bit uncomfortable for taller passengers, but if you want to see more of Russia than you can from a train window, platzkart is really the only way to go. The cost of the tickets allows you to make virtually unlimited stops no matter how broke you are- and going overnight saves on accommodation costs- which are often high in smaller places with fewer options.

That said, our trip to Irkutsk from Novosibirsk was one of our less delightful experiences. The Chinese traders Lin mentions were a particularly loud and uncouth group. We fared better in our particular ‘compartment’ of four berths, however. The woman across from us was a trader from Kyrgystan who lived in Tayshet.  She and her husband had two of their children with them there and one back in Kyrgystan with her husband’s parents.  I said she must miss him very much and she said yes, it was hard. Another woman was an engineer from Vladivostok.

After the Kyrgystani woman got off in Tayshet and the woman from Vladivostok went back to her own ‘cubical’ to go to bed Misha (Mikhail) and his friends showed up and we had a few drinks with them before shooing them off so we could go to bed. Meanwhile another woman, Dasha, who worked in ecology showed up. She was also getting off at Irkutsk, where she lived.

The next morning she suggested that she could have her husband drop us at our ‘hotel’, which he attempted to do, but the entrance to the Baikaler hostel, where we were staying was around back, so they ended up having to call for directions. Dasha was curious about what this ‘hostel’ thing was, so she went up the ratty-looking stairs with us and into the small reception area full of shoes. It was pretty unprepossessing in appearance, but the two girls who worked there, Masha and Anastasia were just wonderful, speaking perfect English and full of helpful information and suggestions.

At the Baikaler we ran into some of our friends from previous hostel stays and met some new ones. We had soon arranged to go stay on Olkhon Island in Lake Baikal.

Main Market Street in Irkutsk

Sunday, 18 October:
The lady across from Sarah offered to have her husband drive us to the hostel, for which we were most grateful at 6:30 in the morning! We had coffee with the early risers, got loads of information from the wonderful receptionists, did a load of laundry, and set out to explore Irkustk.

Lin and Sarah with Irene

Irkutsk is referred to as the “Paris of the east” due to its grand architecture, and is the main administrative and trading center of Eastern Siberia. Everyone seemed to be out on this sunny Sunday and after a filling meal we headed for the Chinese market, where I bought a pair of furry boots (“Alasak” brand, no doubt a cheap knockoff of Alaska) and a warm hat. Afterwards, two young women approached us on the street and asked if they could speak with us; they wondered what we were doing in Irkutsk and  were eager to practice their English. Irene was the more talkative one, but her shy friend Julia seemed to know English a little better and supplied the words Irene didn’t know. We exchanged email addresses and they were extremely grateful the Obama pins we gave them.

Hair Fashion in Irkutsk

My First Russian Borscht

Despite the ugly weather- heavy, wet snow followed by a steady cold rain on the day we really wanted to wander around and look at museums and the wooden architecture for which the town is famous, I found Tomsk an appealing place. It is partly the atmosphere of a university town- Tomsk is called the Siberian Oxford- partly the absence of Stalinist architecture and a certain cultural grace reflected in pleasant and relatively inexpensive cafes and restaurants.

There were some funny incidents during our stay that reminded me forcibly of Prague before and immediately after the Revolution. The first was when we caught a cab from the train station to the Hotel Sputnik. The name itself, of course, was a reminder of those days: it seemed like every hotel and youth hostel back then was named Sputnik. Then when we went to the rather nice reception area the woman told us they were full.  That was something we really hadn’t counted on at this time of year in a smallish Siberian city so we stood a little stunned as the woman repeated again emphatically that they had no rooms. With the awful weather and no accommodations in sight, we dug out Lin’s guide book and started asking about alternatives. With every sign of extreme irritation and reluctance the woman grudgingly called another hotel for us, but they were full too. As we clearly weren’t going away without the prospect of a place for the night the woman finally recalled that there was a new hotel not far away which she thought might not be booked because so few people knew about it yet.

This exact scenario played out over and over again in my early years in Prague when people would do everything in their power to convince you that they couldn’t or wouldn’t help you, but if you simply and pleasantly persist they will eventually find a solution for you that is often far better than what you had originally tried to arrange.

The next morning there were further reminders of Prague when we tried to find a place that was open for breakfast. After wandering around fruitlessly for some time we finally asked some students. The only place they could think of was a little cafe in the main university building. It seemed that though there were places enough to go out for lunch or dinner, breakfast was not a meal that people go out for in Tomsk.

Another incident played out on the street later when we were looking for a supermarket to replenish our supplies for the train. Lin’s guidebook listed the biggest supermarket in Tomsk right near where we were walking,  but we couldn’t seem to find it. We stopped an older couple and the man immediately indicated that he knew some English but our accents were difficult for him. He said that his spoken English was extremely ‘pure’ (which I later understood was his mispronunciation of ‘poor’) and that he was used to reading scientific documents in English. As soon as he began to talk to us his wife said something with a clearly contemptuous edge to it in Russian and walked off quickly with her nose in the air. I understood by this that the man was a professor at the University and that this carried the same minor celebrity status that it had (and still has to a certain degree) in Prague. I thought that most likely his wife, as so many Czech wives at that time, felt that we were not of sufficient social importance to be bothered with.

I am just as glad that academics are not so high on the social scale in the US. I had a small taste of being from “OH! A VERY good family,” on Taiwan. I can’t imagine that growing up with such a high degree of unearned respect would have any very good effect on me.

Sarah in front of Wooden Building in Tomsk

Saturday, 17 Oct

We encountered our first snow in Tomsk and it is increasing as we travel eastward; the ground has a steady covering and matches the dull white sky.

Our Favorite Restaurant in Tomsk

Tomsk is an old university town and despite the rain and snow we walked through the streets for hours and admired the many wooden buildings. Fortunately, we also found a few pleasant cafes to while away some dark slushy hours with good food and drink. The first two hotels we tried were full due to a conference in town, but one of them sent us to a new hotel that she said people didn’t yet know about; we spent our two nights there at a comfortable place still under construction. Olga, our receptionist, was most helpful and even paid for our taxi back to the bus station yesterday, where we “expertly” negotiated with the minibus drivers and insisted on paying 600 rubles back to Novosibirsk, the same price as Wednesday, not the 800 they were asking. Only later did we realize the 800 was for BOTH of us, so I’m sure they were amused at our insistence on overpaying!

Provodnitsas on the Train

We’re on a number 134 train from Tomsk to Irkutsk, and it’s not our favorite. We boarded the train last night around 8:00 and it was a virtual steambath! We can’t figure out why they keep the trains so hot in general, but this one took the cake. The mattresses are noticeably thinner than the 118 we took from Kazan, the toilets a little dirtier, the uniforms of the provodnitsas (car attendants) a little sloppier. We soon realized we were surrounded by a group of noisy Chinese traders who point and laugh at people and play their own music to drown out the Russian music from the train’s speakers. This morning the provodnitsa hollered at them for smoking in the car. They always seems to be munching on a pile of chicken feet. When I brought out my word processor, one of them excitedly alerted all his fellows as if to say “NOW look what she’s up to!” and they all stared.

During the afternoon, as Sarah and I were chatting on her lower bunk, we were startled by a sandy-colored man with piercing blue eyes loming over us. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, which made us think he might be drunk or strange, but then he haltingly said he had studied English many years ago and would like to practice, so we invited him to sit across from us and learned that he was in the timber industry, going to Krasnoyarsk on business. He was very sweet and shy and after a while politely bade us farewell. Later, he came to say goodbye when his stop neared and asked for our email addresses.

We went to have coffee in the restaurant car to while away a few hours, much to the dismay of the waiter who practically rolled his eyes with annoyance that we were making him work. He served us some bad, lukewarm coffee but we took our time and enjoyed being out of our bunks.

It’s a little hard for us to figure out the current time here: all train schedules and tickets are printed according to Moscow time, some of Russia’s 10 time zones change to daylight saving and some not, and we’re never sure when we’ve crossed the line into a new zone. Luckily, Irkutsk is a big stop and others will be getting off early tomorrow morning with us.

Mikhail

As we were getting ready for bed, our second and last night on this train, a group of young men who’d been drinking in the next alcove were getting louder and funnier, and just as I was about to climb into my top bunk one of them came around the corner with a bottle of vodka and three glasses! He insisted we join him in a drink, and he was so charming we couldn’t refuse. We downed the shots in one gulp (any other way is unacceptable to the Russians) and soon his friends gathered around too. Mikhail was his name, but he used the English Michael and the others ribbed him about it. We had two more rounds of shots and much delightful laughter before Michael’s friends (as well as the provodnitsa) convinced him to wind things down for the night.

Statue in front of Kazan Kremlin: Musa Dzhalil, Tatar poet executed by the Nazis

Tuesday, 13 Oct

The Russian trains are numbered according to their level of services and comfort: our first one, from St. Petersburg to Moscow, was a 29; the one from Vladimir to Nizny Novgorod an 829 (which explains why “first class” was anything but); and now we’ve been sitting 32 hours on a 118 from Nizhny to Novosibirsk.

We enjoyed a few wonderful days in Kazan, the capital of Taterstan, especially the kremlin, markets, and national museum. The city is about 60% Russian and 40% Tatar, but they get along peacefully and it is considered a sort of Istanbul where Europe meets Asia.

Market in Kazan

Today we boarded our onward train at 2:30 in the morning and made our way to our upper berths through the sleeping passengers who’d begun their journey in Moscow or another earlier stop. The man below me helped get me settled and then asked me to have tea with him; as tired as I was, I figured I would get plently of sleep on the train. The other people in our 6-bed alcove soon joined in, the older lady in the leopard pajamas giving me cookies and chocolate while drinking the leftover vodka in the bottle I found on my bunk. The man who’d helped me, Stanislav, is a patent attorney from Izhevsk and translates English in his work, so we communicated quite well and he was able to answer the others’ curious questions about us. Unfortunately, he got off the train a few hours later.

We whiled yesterday away sitting around and talking with our neighbors, napping, reading, and watching the Urals pass by. I was nursing a head cold and there couldn’t have been a better setting; by 7:30 pm most people were already getting ready to sleep.

At 4:00 the train stopped for 20 minutes at a station and I saw one old woman selling chicken dinners with potatoes that looked delicious, but after perusing the other ladies’ offerings and going back she was already gone and I bought some of the ubiquitous fried dough pockets filled with meat or vegetables.

Lin in her train pants.

Most people change into pajamas or sweatsuits for the long-haul trains, and Sarah assured me that I shouldn’t feel silly wandering around in my clown-yellow pants (the only cotton ones in the Kazan market) in view of the lady in the bright pink panda pajamas and striped socks.

Upper berth in platzkart

Although climbing into the upper bunks can be a challenge, I prefer it because the lower ones are considered communal property during the day and it’s hard to lay down or be by yourself.

Sarah with Lidia and Elena on the train to Novosibirsk

We just had coffee in the dining car with Sarah’s neighbors; many Russians on the trains are very convivial and treat each other like family;  people we thought were traveling together had just met. We’re grateful that our companions for this long stretch are not the raucous, vodka-drinking variety. When Sarah and I left the train in Novosibirsk we gave them Barack Obama pins, which even the old babushka seemed to love. They in turn gave us jewelry and some holy oil from Sergiev Posad, the town of Russia’s patron saint St. Sergius of Radonezh.

Mural in the Train Station of Nizhni Novgorod

Thursday, 8 Oct

Today we made our way back to Vladminir, and as we tried to make sure we were getting on the right bus a woman said, “Tell me what you want to know.” She spoke limited but elegantly phrased English, and said she has a nephew in Pittsburg but he has no contact with his poor relatives in the village. She said she was 58 but looked much older;  she couldn’t afford an apartment in Vladimir, so lived in a tiny village outside of Suzdal.

Later, at the train station trying to decipher the schedules, an angel-faced young woman approached us and helped buy our tickets to Nizny Novgorod. When it was time to go to the track, we were told to go to number 3, which turned out to be a wooden plank reached after walking over piles of stones. This “platform” was empty, however, and several people shouted to us that the train was at the neighboring makeshift platform. We were learning to ask again and again to make sure we were in the right place.

Platform 3?

After taking our seats the car attendant handed us a plastic box filled with a roll, some salami, peanuts, fruit juice, and a cookie.

Friday, 9 Oct
We arrived in Nizhny Novgorod around 7:30 and hoped to get an overnight train immediately to Kazan, so we located the ticket office and saw that a train would be leaving at 9:15. We got in one of the long ticket lines and prepared how to ask for what we wanted. I asked the pleasant-looking young man behind us if he spoke English, but he smiled no.  After a few minutes, however, he handed me his cell phone and a friend who spoke some English tried to help, then said “Please give the phone back to Yuri.” Yuri was soon joined by an older man who had been to New York and spoke some English and took it upon himself to help the poor tourists. Sarah heard him tell Yuri that we must be very naive and not realize the dangers of traveling this way. When our turn came he handled the entire transaction with the clerk for us, and even offered to tell the police to be on the lookout for us in the morning to be sure we were safe.

We had read that right next to the station was a building with “resting rooms” for train passengers, so against our benefactor’s warnings that this area is unsafe, we thanked him and approached the receptionist. She examined our tickets, passports, and other official documents and said something was not in order, but we couldn’t understand what. We stood there looking helpless, and she tried and tried to explain with an air of bemused appreciation for the absurdity of the situation. She finally handed us long forms to be filled out in Cyrillic and we made a valiant effort but could get no further than our names. She finally took pity on us and filled out the forms herself, made copies of all our documents, and collected 264 rubles (less than $9 each) for the room.

It was a shabby, very cheaply constructed building and we were led to the 7th floor, room 75. There were 3 beds, 3 chairs, a few dressers and a wardrobe, and a bathroom down the hall with the merest trickle of water from one faucet; the other had a plastic bag over it. The floor attendant was pleasant and brought us tea and linens.

By now it was 9:30 and we would have to get up at 4 am. Sarah decided to stay in but I needed some exercise and fresh air and went for a walk. When I bought a snack at a kiosk, the young people nearby gathered around and watched me closely.

Sarah and I are learning to never take chances – we both set our alarms for 4 and sure enough the floor attendant failed to knock as she had indicated. With no water we just dressed and went back to the station, and discovered that our protector from last night had booked us in first class, even though we had told him we wanted platzcart (3rd class). But the ticket for this 8-hour ride to Kazan was only $15 and change, and we have nice large seats and a table.

The first-class bathroom, however, is another story. It’s a filthy squatter, an old plastic bottle serving as a toilet paper holder, and the bar of soap on the sink is better left untouched.

But the car attendant brought us hot water for tea and we’re enduring two (oops – make that 3!) loud, dubbed Steven Seagal movies.