The Lake

Lake Baikal

Another one of the highlights of the trip was staying at Olga's Guesthouse in Listvyanka. We stayed there for two nights and toured around the little town along the Lake. Staying at Olga's was kind of like staying at your grandmothers cottage where she makes sure that you are nice and cozy and feeds you amazingly delicious comfort foods. 

You have to try the smoked fish from the market!

View of the Lake

Anybody home?

Off-season sled dogs

Irkutsk, A whole lot of nothing

No matter which way you go on the Trans-Siberian you are going to end up going through Irkutsk and possibly stopping here if you want to head to Lake Baikal. I think that you only really need about 2 hours  to feel satisfied, my suggestion is to catch the bus as soon as you come in to Listvyanka to gaze at the largest lake in the world. 

I think Mikes face shows everyone's feeling about Irkutsk

After we got our Mongolian Visa (which was very easy to do) Leah and I, out of complete and utter boredom went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 4, dubbed in Russia, in 3D.

Now that's DAM beautiful!

As water resource engineers, Owen and I couldn't very well travel half way around the world without taking at least a look at this 124 meter concrete gravity dam. The whole thing was a little anti-climatic since this is the closest we could get due to security reasons. Nevertheless the Krasnoyarsk Dam is a sight to see. 

Look at those smiles

The dam is also featured on the 10 ruble bill

I wouldn't cross Lenin

Stolby Park

Through a friend we met in Moscow, we were connected with very hospitable woman in Krasnoyarsk who, not only picked us up from the train station but made us breakfast and dinner and let the 5 of us stay in her living room for the night. We spent the majority of the day hiking and exploring the sites of Stolby National Park.

We didnt know it until we arrived but the park is actually world renowned for its rock climbers. People from all ages come here on the weekends to take on the challenges of the 4 major climbing sites in the area. It is not for the faint of heart however since no ropes or harnesses are used!

Grandfather rock

The challenge is to do it head first!

For the whole family

Yekaterinburg

We chose Yekaterinburg as a destination to break up our trip a little bit. It is not the most interesting town I have ever been to but it was a good rest from the train. Not to mention a definite difference compared to Moscow in the cost of food and accommodation. 

Church on the Blood
Maybe one of the more depressing churches I have been to. 

Opps

Some excellent graffiti

Trans-Siberian Train Travel

Since I heard about the Trans-Siberian, the train that runs east to west through Russia with a possible deviation in to Mongolia and China I knew that it was a trip I wanted to try. When we started looking into it I was a little nervous, 5-7 days on a train, in third class, with little to no English once we passed through Moscow. The result was a very easy, interesting and stress free train trip. We used an online website to purchase our tickets so that we could stop in several places and not have to worry about speaking Russian to the ticket ladies. Travelling third class was great, clean and had much more space than I predicted. Besides Nick, whose tallness made it hard to fit into the sleep bed without his feet hanging over the edge, we all had fairly good sleeps and didn't worry about our stuff being stolen or unfriendly passengers. We also met some really nice people who we share our snacks, stories and games of UNO with! 

Train food, vodka, caviar, crackers and chips!

Platform 4

 We broke the trip down so that that our longest train ride was only 30 hours and we traveled from West to East through St.Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Ulan Ude and then traveled by bus to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. We took the bus at the end since it was about 1/5 of the price of the train and took half the time.

Have your ticket ready!

tanks and tanks and tanks of oil

When I pictured Siberia, I thought that it would be vast flat land of nothingness. I happily admit that I was very wrong and there are plenty of villages, forests (mainly birch trees), and farm land to watch as the hours pass by.

Victory Day

One of the main dates in  we based our trip around was the May 9th celebrations for Victory Day in Moscow. This was great plan but it had its cons. First I have never seen so many officers in one area who looked at you like they were about to take your passport away at the slightest wrong move or glance. Second it meant that the Red Square and consequently the Kremlin were also closed for the weekend due to preparations and dress rehearsals. We planned to be in Moscow so that we could witness the parade from the infamous Red Square. Little did we know that's almost an impossible feat and most people simple watch it from their televisions sets at home in order to get a decent view. After several days of planning we carefully plucked ourselves on the opposite side of a river and hour and half before the parade started. We didn't have the best view but we got to see the tanks and helicopters go by as well as be part of a crowd of enormous patriotism. 

Helicopter fly over

 Victory day turned out to be one of the best days we had on the trip. After the parade was over we rented bikes and rode along the river visiting statue park and of course stopping for ice cream!

The race is on

 Before heading back to the hostel we stopped for a quick nap in front of the Kremlin walls. No one even told us to get off the grass.

Remaining crowd

 The final part of the night was to watch the firework celebration. Kilometers of street were block off to pile in the thousands of people watching. Apart from the fireworks the crowd was a sight to see.

When were weren't wandering the streets or shifting through museums, we were relaxing in cafes with coffee, tea, beer and even soviet champagne!  

A little third story cafe my friend Maggie suggested

 St. Petersburg may not be the most expensive city in Europe but it's definitely not cheap. Lucky for us student backpackers there are many road side food stands and cafeteria style eateries. This one was located just outside our fantastic hostel "Soul Kitchen".

All around St. Peterburgs

After an night sleeping in a Latvian airport and surprisingly no troubles going through the border or passport control we were ready to venture out into the land of Mother Russia. If there is one thing that St. Petes knows how to do it is culture. Full of museums and historic buildings, it is gives a more European feel than a Soviet standard. 

You know your in Russia when...

 Think museums are boring, the St. Petersburg museum was tucked away and virtually empty when we went through. It had English to explain all the exhibits and Russian women young, old (and some asleep) watching you pass through the rooms. Occasionally we would get a very excited lady who with her little English would explain the events taking place in her section with the greatest enthusiasm.

A perfect pose

You need three things before you enter the Hermitage, a good nights sleep, an empty mind and a case of red bull. I think that it might be the largest building I have ever been in and each section is complete with its own style of art from various parts of the world. We just hit most of the highlights and we were still there for over 3 hours.

Hermitage