Сибирь (Siberia)

Siberia in March. It was the element of the trip that I'd been trying to mentally prepare myself for since I noticed that it was -40 when I happened to check the weather in January while on the beach in Thailand. It had warmed up a bit since then but when we arrived in Irkutsk at 12:30pm Moscow time* it was still a brisk -12.

x

Temperature aside, crossing into Russia after two months in East Asia was most notable for its culture shock. Russia considers itself part of Europe. Irkutsk itself has the nickname "Paris of the East" and the architecture and infrastructure have a notably more european flavour (especially compared to Ulan Batar). When you consider though that Irkutsk is further east than Nepal, Burma, Singapore and even Bangkok and has shared borders and interacted with China and Mongolia for thousands of years it would seem natural that there be some eastern influence.

x

So probably the biggest surprise is Siberia's lack of ethnic diversity. Everyone there are Russians and they look like it. So while we still stood out from the crowd due to the wide eyed, camera toting, general touristy behaviour, we were no longer noticeable solely because of the colour of or eyes or skin or hair (especially with my regrown beard, which was rapidly becoming awesome again, I could have easily passed for a Russian). This was a stark contrast to China and Mongolia where I would look like an outsider no matter how well I knew the language customs or culture.**

x

I didn't really care about fitting in but I was more intrigued by how instantaneous the change was. In my many travels between adjoining countries I've found that the change between them usually seems more subtle due mostly to language, tradititon and politics than overt ethnic differences. So in this way our first stop after Mongolia was unique.

Geographically, Siberia is also unique especially when compared to the steepes and Gobi Desert from where we had just come. To be honest though I thought it looked a lot like Canada, with an abundance of rocky hills, lakes and forrests as far as the eye can see. Even the types of trees are similar to Canada and provided a nice air of the familiar.***

Did I mention lakes? I did. Excellent. Because the most of the non-travel time spent in Eastern Russia was around the village of Listvyanka on the shore of Lake Baikal. Baikal is notable for being the world's largest freshwater lake by volume*** - home to more water than all of the Canada's Great Lakes combined - and in the winter (in Siberia winter includes March and April and sometimes even May) it is frozen over.

Not the frozen over that you might associate with a world in tumultuous climate change which might mean a small bit of ice on the surface for a few days a year. No. It freezes over properly.

Estimated ice thickness exceeding 1m****being sufficiently stable that you would trust it to keep your Mercedes from falling through:

and a thickness that would take you a good hour or more to cut out a small triangle even with the proper tools.

Why would you want to spend an hour cutting a triangular opening in the ice on freezing cold March morning? Some ice fishing perhaps? Nope. Guess again.

Ice diving was never something I would go out of my way to do but as it was right under my nose I became quite excited when I thought I might be able to try it. After all I even had a mask, snorkel and underwater camera housing that I was still carrying around in my backpack (don't get me started on the Mongolian post office related reason why i was unsuccessful in mailing them home to lighten my load) so getting underneath the ice would have been a real and unexpected thrill.

Unfortunately I never even considered that the opportunity to go ice diving would ever come up in the first place so I didn't book far enough in advance****. I guess the nature and amount of the dive equipment required to say nothing of the crew and tools necessary to cut the hole (triangle) and tend the safety lines, limits the number of divers they can accomodate in a day.

Compounding the issue was the fact that it was a long weekend in honour of Women's Day (which is apparently celebrated worldwide but is an actual holiday in Russia in a manner similar to Mother's Day which I'm unure if they also celebrate) so all the dive shops were completely booked up with long-weekend holiday maker types. So after getting my hopes up and coming to terms with the price (about USD 75- not bad when you think about it) I was pretty disappointed to then be denied the opportunity.

In lieu of diving though, we did get to spend lots of time exploring the the surface of the ice.

The lake was nice and smooth (although with a few cracks) for skating and considering how cold it was there were a surprising number of people enjoying the oudoors, the holiday weekend creating a friendly, family atmoshpere.

x

I guess when faced with a harsh climate you can either embrace it and get out and enjoy the winter or sit inside and wait it out. If you live in Russia and you chose the later you wouldn't get out much. So there are a lot of activities and though we couldn't do everything we did get a bit of a taste of dog sledding.

I wouldn't say 8 minutes is much more than a taste, but it was enough to get a feel for it, get the GPS up to 28kmph and take some cool photos. It was also just long enough for me because my my feet were starting to get cold and after Argentina I was under strict doctor's orders (and mom's) to keep my feet warm.

Speaking of keeping warm, we got to learn first hand one of the ways Siberians keep warm in the depths of winter. One word: sauna.

This was an authentic Russian sauna, so in addition to sitting in the sauna working up a good sweat and then cooling down with some icy water or a roll in the snow, there was the added element of a "massage" with pine bows.

x

Massage is a term used loosely in this context because it basicaly consists of being thrashed with sticks. The trick is that the pine needles soak up some ice cold water first to soften up and the result, while not really to my liking, is an interesting sensation - sweating in a sauna, being smacked with sticks by a nearly naked Russian dude with prickly needles which are actually soft on the skin accompanied by the aroma of pine and then needle bits that find there way into your shorts. Like I say, it was good to try once, and I do like a good sauna, but the whole pine bow massage element is not really my thing.

x

Besides sauna there are other ways that Russians keep warm:

but for method number two I had to settle for just looking at the sign so ended up opting for the third way of staying warm during the depths of Siberian winter:

After an hour or so out on the ice testing out the new tripod (obtained from the silk market of course!) and experimenting with photographic settings to try and make a frozen over lake more interesting, nothing quite warms you up like a shot or two of Russia's finest.

Then, in the spirit of the holiday weekend, we went out for a night on the town (the very very small town) where, although not much was happening, it occurred to us that we might have to make our own fun so when someone obeserved that"hey, it's cheaper if we get our vodka by the bottle." We did. And good times were had by all. Just about everyone slipped at least once on the ice on the way home. At least one glove was lost. Trevor may or may not be married to a Russian bride. And more than one person said "I'm never drinking vodka again" the next day.

Photos: 1) A lone figure sets out on a journey to cross the lake in a time when the world was in black and white. It is unknown what became of him but he may have waited 10 seconds and returned to look at the camera screen to check if the shot was in focus and make sure the tripod didn't blow over in the wind. 2) Overlooking the spot where the flowing river meets the frozen lake. 3) Frozen lake as far as the eye can see 4) Close up of ice 5) Where I'm from we take our boats out of the water in winter but whatever 6-7) I had my hood on and didn't hear him coming 2nd shot is on full zoom out. A bit scary at first but not so much that I couldn't take a cool photo. This guy and a pickup truck were doing donuts for about 20 mins. Got some decent video footage as well. 8-9) The tools of the trade used by divers to gain access to freezing cold, crystal clear water 10) A Siberian couple go for a nice romantic walk to the middle of the lake 11) Ice skating 12-13) the howling dogsled team. They went absolutely crazy when a horse drawn carriage passed by. They are somewhat high strung, Siberian Huskies. 14) Entrance to sauna. Note the pine bows hung up by the side. 15) I'm surprised there aren't more traffic accidents near the lake with signs like that. 16-17) Warming up Siberian style 18) It's cheaper by the bottle which really says all you need to know about Siberian nightlife.

x

*Trains run on Moscow time which kind of makes sense since the long distance trains all head towards/away from Moscow anyway but is pretty confusing when you are 5hours time difference from Moscow and getting off the train in Siberia. - More to come in future blog on the train journey itself.

**It would be a fascinating study to see if this lack of ethnic diversity is a result of political choices in Russia (I get the impression that Siberia was not the most desireable place to go even if you were Russian during Soviet times ) or if maybe Russians and asians don't mix (pretty unlikely - I mean have you seen Miss Mongolia or Miss China - That's what I'm talkin' about).

***Familiar to me but not to my Aussie and Kiwi travel companions who rarely even see snow nevermind pine and birch forrests and frozen lakes.

****It's 5th by surface area - Lake Superior is 1st! - but 1st by a longshot by depth 1,642m maximum depth and as a result by volume.

*****Estimated by me from observation without precise measuring tools

******The same day that you find out about it not being really in advance anyway never mind far enough in advance