Editor’s note: Travel writer George Dunford is sending us the occasional trip report from the road as he makes his way from Beijing to St Petersburg on the Trans-Mongolian train. This is his third trip report; catch up on his first post and second post.
Irkutsk is the jumping off point for Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest and weirdest lake. Water gushed into the space between two tectonic plates and created a huge crescent-shaped water that runs over 600km. It’s apparently more than a fifth of the world’s fresh unfrozen water. The tectonic plates are slowing moving away from each other and may one day split so that this could be the world’s fifth sea. Isolated within these depths is a unique ecosystem that serves as a sanctuary for nerpa (freshwater seals) and the omul fish.
Lake Baikal, Siberia
You get omul thrust at you by fishmongers as you get off the train at Slyuyanka, but the nerpa are hiding out under the ice. The frozen water lives up to its “Pearl of Siberia” nickname. As we walk along the lakefront there’s a curl of ice jutting out where the ice has shifted.
Because spring sun is coming in you can hear the ice tingling and cracking around the curl. It’s still possible to walk out on the ice though as it’s more than a metre deep. Locals drive their cars out there and there’s regular traffic of hovercrafts and skidoos. Guidebooks are snooty about locals getting holiday snaps in front of the curious ice formations so we ‘fight the cold with cold’ by eating ice cream and posing for even cornier shots.
Trans-Mongolia: Old school dog school
We shy away from the lake to find some old-school dog sledding. Our trainer Alexander introduces us to each of the dogs – Winston (named not for Churchill but for a favourite cigarette brand) is the leader. Mishka is a blue-eyed girl. And then there’s a white dog that, Alexander explains, is a “crazy dog we usually don’t take him out with the others. He is trouble.”
That crazy dog, on the Trans-Mongolia
Bundled up in a neck-to-toe camouflage ski suit, I hop into the sled. It’s a slower pull than I thought, but still whistles through the snowy birch forest at speed. The snows are melting so the trails are getting muddy and Alexander yells the dogs on.
The crazy dog does a good job of crapping as he runs, his legs scattering around the faeces as he scrambles on. Alexander cuts across some little peaks and the sled does short jarring jumps. We swap drivers and the dogs wolf down snow to cool off. On the way back I take Alexander over a couple of jumps and he laughs “Okay, okay” as we slide back home.
Over a post-mushing cup of tea, we look at other dog sports like Canine-cross that harnesses a human behind a fleet-footed pup in an example of dog walking that won’t make your osteopath very happy. There’s also the story of Nicholas Vanier {www.odysseesiberienne.com} a modern day adventurer who took a team of dogs from Baikal all the way to Moscow and almost froze to death several times in Siberia. WE prefer the train.
Trans-Mongolia: Overnight trainspotting
To get to Tomsk we have to make a connection that means 6 hours in the middle of the night in Taiga, an unimpressive industrial town. After some phrasebook fumbling and dodging a couple of Russians passed out from the national drink, we find the resting rooms. Above the station they’re like a mini-hotel where it’s possible to crash for a couple of hours if you don’t mind the whistles and toots of trains coming and going. Many of the trains out of here are bearing minerals and logs from Siberia and if you can’t sleep it’s easy to count trains. We’re out in about five minutes.
The matron of the resting rooms wakes us an hour before our train is due to depart. We’re in the notorious platskart, an open sleeper that has bunks crammed into every possible space – up to three lining each wall. There’s always someone walking by and security is nonexistent. It’s a short hop of a couple of hours so we grab a couple more hours sleep and keep our bags close by. Temperature-wise it’s actually more pleasant than the banya (Russian sauna) heat of our kupeyny (compartment class) of the earlier ride, making it easier to sleep. The thermometer in the kupeyny was over thirty degrees which made an odd disconnection from snowy Siberia sliding past outside.
Trans-Mongolia: Small town Tomsk
Just off the Tran-Siberian line proper, we arrive in Tomsk, a buzzing university town known for its wooden houses. Today they range from almost derelict to magnificently restored to slanting into derelict. We walk down ulitsa Krasnoarmeyskaya to admire the elaborately carved Peacock House, with doilies of lattice and slender woodwork birds crowning the building.
By contrast there’s the ugliness of former NKVD buildings that’s variously known as the Oppression Museum or Memorial. The NKVD were the forerunners for/of the KGB and were responsible for some of the most horrific acts of Stalin’s purges. There’s no English explanations at the museum, but you can easily work out the stories of priests, poets and intellectuals who were imprisoned and interrogated here.
Kazansky Church
Elsewhere in the town there’s Christianity, but not as we know it. At Kazansky Church there is/are icons and bearded priests reminiscent of Greek Orthodox, because this is the faith that was linked to the Constantine Empire which split from European Christianity during the dark ages.
The most obvious difference is the Eastern cross, that includes another cross bar at the base where Jesus’ feet would have rested.
Our final chore in Tomsk is to get out visas registered. This should be a simple process where your paperwork is stamped to stay that you have arrived in the country, but our hotel takes almost 12 hours. It’s boring but important stuff because in Moscow police reportedly work the train stations to fine passengers as they hop off trains. The visa is returned just as we head to bed in marvel of Russian service.
On the trains we’d already seen that our food would cool while a waiter finished a chapter of their Mills & Boon novel. In Russia the customer isn’t always right, they’re just always an irritation for staff.
Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s China tours & things to do (including tips on things to do in Beijing) and things to do in Russia.
April 8th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
I’ve always wanted to visit Lake Baikal. George is it really as weird as it sounds? It’s a long way to travel, so please, be honest, is it really worth seeing in person?
April 10th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Yep, it’s even weirder than it seems. The ice is more than a metre thick in winter so you’ll be limited in what you can see - mostly just on the ice fun such as dog sledding, hovercrafts and some drives. Summer is better if you’re interested in the ecology with nerpa seals visble and good scuba diving (haven’t done this but apparently impressive). Dog sledding company we went with are a good start. Head further along to Olkhon Island if you want a wilderness escape. Well worth it but I think you should see a few spots on the way.