Lake Baikal is the oldest (over 25 million years old), deepest (average 2442 feet) and largest lake in the world. Amazingly it contains one fifth of the world's fresh water, and 70% of the 1700 plants and animals in the lake cannot be found anywhere else.
The two days at the village of Listvyanka where we stayed could not have been more different from the four days we had spent on the train. There was more open space and fresh air than our eyes and lungs could take in. It was wonderful. We took a lovely walk along the lake where we saw this delightful local collecting water, we went up to the viewpoint, we ate fish that we will never eat again and we watched the sunset while drinking beer and hooch in a gazebo.
We were sad to say goodbye to Lake Baikal, and the city of Irkutsk where we stayed for a further night, was pretty miserable. One cheerful thing about Irkutsk was the wedding tradition that we observed. Across all of Russia, when a couple marries they have to cross seven bridges together and on one bridge they lock a padlock with their names on it, to signify their unity.
Love locks
Following a very early wake up in Irkutsk, we headed to the station once again to board the trans-Mongolian train, safe in the knowledge that we knew everything there was to know about the trains, how wrong could we be! The Mongolian train had a few surprises in store for us...
If we are completely honest, we were not sad to leave Russia behind, for every nice person we met, we encountered about twenty miserable ones who seemed intent on making our stay difficult. Saying that, they may have reason to be unhappy and if you are interested to read our thoughts on the Russian pysche and where it may have come from, take a look at the blog entry.
Bye bye Russia, cheer up it might never happen!
Christian and Fiona
Location:Lake Baikal, Siberia
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