Irkutsk
Leaving Listvyanka
So my last day in Listvyanka was simply hanging out in the hotel waiting for my ride to arrive at 11 a.m. Not enough time to go walk around, and it’s cold and I’m tired and really looking forward to sleeping as much as possible on the train. Nikolai makes me another delicious breakfast, this time with an omelette that is somehow fluffy *and* delicious, though I usually hate egg yolks. I take everything out of my bags, and re-pack, trying to take as little space as possible. Getting on and off of the train is a huge task, and the backpack straps catch on every doorknob in the corridor, so I put some extra time into organizing today. And I get to spend almost half an hour talking to Joe on the phone, which is only the second time this trip we’ve spoken in person, not via text.
Taltsy Museum
The guide picks me up promptly at 11 and we go visit the Taltsy museum. There was once a village named Taltsy, made of wooden houses and buildings. It was a town created by the first Russian settlers in this area, who hunted sables. But eventually the land in this area was needed for a reservoir and a hydropwer plant. So the people were forced to leave the village, all of the wooden houses were burned down, and the area is now underwater. Now, there is an outdoor museum, similar to Constitution Village or Colonial Williamsburg, where they re-built different buildings in the style of the ones that were destroyed. There are tons of buildings in different styles from different eras. Houses where the wealthy sable hunters lived, houses where the poor homesteaders lived, forts and churches taverns and shops. They are all wooden buildings and right now they are all covered in snow. It’s like walking into a postcard. The snow has been falling heavily all night, so it’s light, fluffy powder, perfectly untouched. In the summer, there are signs for pottery and blacksmithing demonstrations. It looks like an awesome place to visit. Now, in the winter, there are ice slides. I took the opportunity to go down one, sliding down a hill and across an icy patch on a slice of linoleum. We explored the museum, had lunch, then drive to Irkutsk for the city tour.
Irkutsk City Tour
The city tour was ok, kind of a quick run around through the old parts of town, but mostly just looking at buildings from the car. We drove through the old neighborhoods where the oldest wooden houses still exist, in various levels of disrepair and renovation. Irkutsk was famous for its wooden architecture until several fires destroyed parts of the town. Wood was replaced with brick in the main streets to create fire walls. We stopped and walked around a small square with a memorial to the Russian soldiers who died in WWII, or the Great Patriotic War, as it is known here. We looked at a few old churches. The first was solid white, meant to be the largest Russian Orthodox church in the region, it was destroyed in the communist revolution, but a smaller, less ornate version was rebuilt. Then we visited a slightly newer church, also Russian Orthodox. This one was brightly colored and painted. It was designed in the (1700’s?) to have colors and patterns that were similar to those used by the nearby Mongolian tribes and the Shamans. It was to entice them to join the Christian religion. The colors are well preserved and the church is beautiful. We went inside each of them and, without any particular knowledge of Russian orthodoxy, I just looked around and headed out. In each, there was a main room with murals and paintings on every inch of the walls, with golden halos on many of the saints. There are ornate chandeliers, and all of the wood trim and bannisters are carved and covered in gold. There are man large candle tables, where you can light a candle and place it in a little cup. Then there’s a second room with a painting or statue of (Jesus?). I didn’t want to disturb the people praying, so I didn’t go close enough to find out what the statue was. There are, again, ornate paintings and carvings and gold everywhere. I can’t figure out how these types of religions function, with the ostentatious display being contradictory to so much of what I know about Christian ideology. Anyway, it was interesting. Finally we stopped at a statue to Alexander II(?), the tsar who is knows as the father of the trans-Siberian railroad. He is the person who commanded it to happen and put the plans into place. I took a couple of photos with him and then we drove to the train station.
Boarding the train – and a surprise!
Finally at 4:30 p.m., I board the train for my longest travel leg of the trip. I will spend over 48 hours on the train, and now I am officially on the trans-Siberian railroad. The railroad that goes from Beijing to Irkutsk is technically the trans-Mongolian railroad. As we arrived at the train station, my guide gives me 3 tickets to the train. I’m not sure exactly how this worked out, but the train cabins have 4 beds. In order to get a ‘first class’ cabin, the tour company just bought 3 of the beds in one room for me. Ok. Super weird. Maybe the actual 2-person cabins were sold out? I dunno, but I can immediately tell that this is not the normal procedure. The carriage attendant laughs as she is checking my tickets. My guide confirms with her that each ticket comes with a free meal…so I will have 3 meals provided over the next 2 days. Which means less time to hang out in the dining car and meet people. We’ll see. The beds are hard, nothing like the Mongolia-Irktutsk train. I decide to leave the bottom bunk as a sofa and sleep on the top bunk.
