Irkutsk- capital of Siberia

After an excellent breakfast and with my feet now clad in Val’s spare boots and clutching Val’s spare hat (!), we arrive in the foyer to find our new guide awaiting us. Her name is Ellie, her English is excellent and she is taking us to see the Museum of Wooden Architecture. Unpromising as this may sound, it turned out to be a fascinating tour round a replica village as lived in by the early Cossack pioneers and the native people of the area, fully equipped with the makeshift furniture, the domestic equipment they had used, and the tools they used to build the houses etc. Thank goodness for lVal’s boots, we trudged from building to building through more than a foot of snow and by the time we’d seen it all, including the prison, more than two hours had passed. My boots would have been soaked through and my feet frozen. We were allowed a cup of coffee in the cafe before getting back into the four by four and setting off for Lake Baikal which is apparently the deepest lake in the world – the depth in its centre being more than a mile. It is also vast in breadth and we had seen it from the train on our journey to Irkutsk for most of the second day.

The sky and the lake were grey and the mist prevented us from seeing the wonderful views that would have been on offer but we went to the local market and walked round the stalls of fresh and dried fish and other local produce and bought our first souvenirs of the trip from the craft stalls. Our driver was anxious for us to walk across the jetty and plunge our hands into the sea which would have brought good health and a special blessing to us from one of many entities which inhabit this Lake of legends, but with the temperature at 9 degrees below freezing and an icy wind blowing, we couldn’t be persuaded – I fear we disappointed him.
So we turned for home and were driven carefully back, in slightly worsening conditions as the sky darkened and light snow continued to fall. Out hotel was a welcome sight and we fell into our lovely warm room and treated ourselves to tea, whiskey, dinner and bed.

Monday, 24th October – Today’s excursion was especially interesting to me as it was to the Decembrist Museum and recorded the story of the members of the St. Petersburg aristocracy whose failed revolt against the Tsar in 1825 lead them to be exiled to Siberia, including Princess Maria Volkonsky whose biography (mentioned earlier) outlines the 4,000 mile journey she had to make in a troika with only a driver and her maid in order to join her husband. The first part of her journey was to Irktusk which was considered the point of no return and where she waited for permission from the Tsar before she was allowed to continue. Despite us being their only visitors today, the museum staff were quite the most sullen we’ve encountered, handing over our entrance tickets with much reluctance and our best efforts failed to charm them. The young Russians are almost always friendly and smiley and the staff in the hotel excellent but the older generation both in shops and in the street are much more reserved and it is hard to get a warm response from them. It will be interesting to see if Moscow is the same. Our next stop was a quick tour of the city stopping at various sights and the inevitable churches, often with magnificently gilded interiors. There are more on the agenda in Moscow but if I’m honest it’s a bit like temples, one does tend to start feeling a bit over churched after three or four!

We are being woken at 4.45a.m tomorrow and a packed breakfast is being provided – we are to board the trans-Siberian express at 6a.m and we won’t arrive in Moscow until Friday 28th at 6.45am. Let’s hope our rations, our paper knickers and most of all our friendship survive this test. Wish us luck!