Monday, September 8, 2014

September 8 Irkutsk City of Resurrection and Rebirth


Irkutsk, Siberia – September 8  -

 
The Irkutsk riverfront- the Angara river at sunset.
 
Local dancing on the riverfront on a Sunday evening in Irkutsk.

A City of Resurrection and Re-Birth – Irkutsk was founded by Cossacks in the 17th century and became a transportation and trade center and the unofficial capital of Siberia.  Sometimes known as the “Paris of Siberia” – the city grew up on the money generated by the fur and tea trade and later as a transportation hub for Lake Baikal – and then for the Trans-Siberian Railway.  Most everything passes or passed through Irkutsk.  Bounded by the Angara River – the huge river flowing out of Lake Baikal, it has a really lovely location and these days exudes confidence and optimism.
 
One of the many Russian Orthodox churches restored since the
collapse of the Soviet Union.  These are living, breathing churches,
and when we entered this one, we were greeted with the musical liturgy
for which Orthodox churches are famous.  The interior of this church (photographs
were not allowed) is resplendent with icons, frescoes and gold.
The Stalin Sword-Cut – the Purges – aka the Terror – Though the subject is not in the forefront of our guide’s pre-recorded presentations, there hovers over the history here – as it does in Ulan Ude and Mongolia, the purges against religion and culture orchestrated by Joseph Stalin.  Before the 1917 Revolution, the city of Irkutsk was a monument to a rich a varied history – culturally representing just about everybody – Buryats, Evenks, Cossaks, Russians, Poles, Jews, Mongols – everybody played a part in the development of this “Paris” – and Stalin tore it down – literally.  When we were here in 1986, there were a few Orthodox churches in operation, but most churches were still shuttered – or just museums.
 
 
Church of the Kazan Icon, one of the most impressive
Orthodox churches in Irkutsk.

Doing a bit of ecclesiastical business in the Church of the Kazan Icon.
Resurrection and Re-birth – Irkutsk, like the rest of the Soviet Union, staggered out of the gate when the government collapsed and all that brutal brutish industrial underpinning just walked away.  The 1990s were terrible for most in Irkutsk, but slowly the city has regained its feet, and today the skyline is resplendent with shining and restored steeples, bell towers and those distinctive round Orthodox domes. 

This is a lovely city – clean, busy but not too crowded – which just celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2011. 

The Znemansky Monastery and the Alaska-California Connection
One of the themes of this trip has been the trans-Pacific fur trade -- "soft gold" that impacted the southern sea otters in the Monterey Bay Area.  Grigory Shelikhov was one of the men responsible for pushing Russian interests far enough east to spur the Spanish into setting up the colony of Alta California.  And, the Russians pursued otter hunting down into the Monterey Bay Region.  Shelikhov died while in Irkutsk and is buried at the Znemansky Monastery.  There is a monument to him outside the church.  The church also contains the intact remains of St. Inokent, the patron saint of Siberia.

The Znamensky Monastery, Irkutsk

The Monument commemorating Grigory
Shelikhov, the "Russian Columbus"
 
 
We are coming Home!  In about 5 hours we'll be starting our very long September 9th trip.  Some of your friends, relatives have been transformed!
Commissar Mary Lynn Donnelly

Comrade Admiral General
Joe Jedrychowski


Commissaristo Mike Donnelly

 

 

 

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Sunday, September 7 - Irkutsk - Cold

Irkutsk, Russian Federation, Siberia - September 7

Irkutsk, Siberia, September 7, 2014 - A chilly fog hovers over the city. 
And that's why they call it Siberia...OK, like most people, you associate the word "Siberia" with isolation, Gulags, exile, cold and more cold...Most of your preconceptions are incorrect.  It is a vibrant, exciting, culturally diverse place.  The one thing you got right is "cold."  Winter hovers over this place.  Never far away.  The stories are about Lake Baikal that freezes damned near solid, railroad workers who stopped working at -40 degrees Celsius because their tools would shatter, and those same workers being buried in the tunnels they were working on, their bodies stuffed between the supporting cribbing and the tunnel walls.  Every house has a mountain of firewood in the yard.  We scheduled this trip to slide it between the mosquito season (and tourist season) and winter.  It worked as we've not seen or heard or felt a mosquito (what are we going to do with all that repellant?) but winter's knocking at our calendar.

Yesterday it was cold out on the lake as we motored along the shore -- and yes, we spied one of those Lake Baikal seals.  This morning it is foggy here in Irkutsk, and my handy-dandy thermometer reads 38 degrees F.

Coming to Siberia?  (And you should...) Bring long underwear.

Temperature outside our window at 7:30 AM, September 7.

 
Temperature inside the hotel room refrigerator.
Today we're off to see an outdoor ethnological museum.  Gloves, long underwear, hats, hoods will be the order of the day.

We're home soon.



Saturday, September 6 - Lake Baikal Day


 
 
Lake Baikal Day – Our itinerary today was designed to provide an introduction to Lake Baikal, from the Baikal Museum (Limnological Institute) to a boat excursion on the lake later in the afternoon. Listvyanka is about 50 minutes from Irkutsk.
 

On the road to Listvyanka.  Mongolia's not the only place that has
straight roads.  Russians drive with considerable vigor. 
 Beneath it - The Limnological Institute is located near the resort town of Listvyanka, and with the help of our guide, Helen, we got a very thorough grounding in the intricacies of idiosyncracies of this remarkable lake – a whole list of “ests” – biggest, deepest, etc.  It is the place where two tectonic plates came together creating a rift that eventually filled with water.  This completed our downstream journey from Lake Khovsgol in Mongolia.
 
Helen, our tour guide, explaining the geological wonder that is Lake Baikal.

 
An image that a geologist like Gary Griggs would LOVE.  This is
earthquakes recorded in the Lake Baikal area between 1950 and 2009.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Above it

We then had a chance to see the lake from high above thanks to a ski lift that doubles as a gondola in the off-season.  The lift hoisted us to the top of the ridge just above and west of the museum. 
The Group High Above Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal viewed through a local version of the ovoo that one finds
all over Mongolia.  This marking of special spots can be traced back to
local shamanism.

 
Eat Some of it
Dried omul and other Baikal delicacies at an open air market.
Then we repaired to a lovely nearby and ate a lunch with two omul dishes.  Omul are indigenous fish living in the lake, and are part of the commercial basis for the lake economy.

Our omul lunch, and it was yummy.
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
Ride on Top of it
In mid-afternoon we then had a chance to venture out on the lake in a 60 or so foot long charter boat – an intimate boat ride as Helen described the Circumbaikal Railroad project despite a howling cold wind.

Faces – The group members on the boat.

Lud and Barbara McCrary contemplating
 
Helen our Guide

 


 

 



Janet Jones and Barbara Canfield
Pat Loughlin and
Joe Jedrychowski


The Donnellys deep in thought

 
The Babushka Queens - We stumbled on this local group of lovelies as they were headed of to a party.  Aren't they just
the prettiest things you've ever seen?



Friday, September 5, 2014

Saturday, September 6, Irkutsk


The Angara River flows out of Lake Baikal and through Irkutsk.
 Irkutsk!  We are in Irkutsk, snuggled into a really lovely hotel – the Marriott in Irkutsk – nicely-located near the Angara River, center of town.  Temperature is 40 degrees this morning and it is cloudy.  Winter is near. (always capitalized here in Siberia).

Trans-Siberian Railroad and Baikal – Yesterday we experienced a bucket-list two-fer.  Haven’t you always wanted to ride the Trans-Siberian Railroad?  And see Lake Baikal?  Sure you have.  We set it up so the group could do both.  Ulan Ude and Irkutsk are only 150 miles or so apart, but the southern part of Lake Baikal is a lumpy obstacle, and it took the train about 7 hours to make it from one city to the other.

 
Lake Baikal as seen from the Trans-Siberian Railroad.  Yes, it
is electric but those locomotives are incredibly powerful, pulling
the train up some incredibly-steep grades.  Kind of looks like Monterey
Bay, yes?  Someone in the group said she was expecting to see
a whale jump...

The nice thing about this stretch of the Trans-Siberian is that is affords interesting view and landscape its entire 150 mile length.  No endless birch trees or taiga.  This is the best stretch of the entire Trans-Siberian RR in my humble opinion.  And it includes our first look at Lake Baikal.

OK, I’ll be honest.  My first viewing of Lake Baikal in 1986 and this one in 2014 were both a bit of a let-down.  If you didn’t know better, for those of us living on Monterey Bay, it looks like, well, Monterey Bay – there is even a “Monterey Peninsula” thrown into the view on the far shore.  Some Russians refer to Baikal as a sea because it really looks like one.  There’s little for the eye or mind to provide a rest – a huge expanse of water – all of it fresh.  By contrast, Lake Hovsgol in Mongolia where we spent some idyllic days last week, is much more human scaled.  You can hike up a hill behind it and see most of it.  Baikal is huge. 
 
Our car attendant Tatyana in her souvenir selling persona.  She was
all business and tough when acting as a conductor, but laughing and
giggling when she came around with her souvenir array.  Here she holds
a coffee mug with Lake Baikal on it.  If someone in the group tries to tell you
that they went to a lot of trouble to buy that mug, well....
 
We’re going out on it today.  Gonna eat some Baikal fish and hell, maybe somebody in the group will jump in like happened in 1986!

All’s well here and despite some pretty rigorous travel and suitcase schlepping, the group is fine.

 

Thursday, September 4, 2014

The Trans-Mongolian Express to Siberia


Trans-Mongolian Railroad – Overnight Sept. 2 – 3

The train trip from UB to Ulan Ude was one of the highlights of the itinerary, and we were sad to be leaving Chimgee, Khurlee and Mongolia, but expectant about the train.  It was a hot sweaty tough five minutes to board, but we settled in, said good-bye and began exploring our respective compartments, two to a compartment.  The train labored for awhile, switch-backing uphill north out of UB before hitting the straights, pausing to pass freights headed south (lumber, oil, coal, and tree trunks headed for China), stopping occasionally but heading steadily north.

They won't be smiling later on when they meet the Immigration
and Customs folks at the border....
 
Group members getting ready to board.


Khurlee, our van driver, and Chimgee our guide, saying a sad
good-bye in UB.  They are the best!
Immigration and Customs – A Knock in the Night
The Russian car-lady came around with three sets of forms that we puzzled over a bit before filling them out – departure card and immigration forms.  We would depart Mongolia later in the night, and around midnight, we would enter Russia.

We had gone through this before in 1986 when, on the Trans-Manchurian line we passed from China to Russia at Manzhouli.  But, we didn’t know what to expect.

 
A picture taken of the corridor during a happier moment on the
Trans-Mongolian Express.  Sorry we didn't take any photos when
the Russian officials filled it.  What?  You think were crazy?
So, around 11:00 PM, the train slowed and stopped.  Creaking and sighing.  It is very quiet, and then we could hear voices out in the corridor and knocking and voices and finally a knock on our door, a woman dressed in a uniform and with one of those hand-held computers such as those folks doing inventories in supermarkets carry – she took our passports, scanned them, conferred with another person in the hall, asked if we had anything to declare, we said no.  She gave us back our passports and left.  We closed our door, saying “that was easy.”  And went back to sleep.

Around midnight, the train had not yet started to move, when there was a loud commotion in the hall, voices, boots clumping in the corridor, and a loud knock at the door.  We switched on the light, and slid open the door and a woman came in – very officious looking, uniform – and asked for our passports.  There was a young, very tall and serious-looking man standing in the corridor and he motion for us to get out of bed and into the hall.  Annie was dressed in her underwear, and clutching the sheet to her she shook her head and said “no!  I’m no dressed!”  With a smirk he repeated his command motioning us up and out in the hall.  She continued to refuse and after staring him down he motioned that we close the door so she could put on some clothing – which she did and then we both went out and stood in the hall.  We could see lots of commotion further down in the car and what appeared to be about a dozen uniformed folks, rousting our group out into the hall.  The tall guy then went into our compartment, lifting up the bunk, climbing up above our bunks and checking each of the cubby-holes and places in the car – he obviously knew the lay-out of a railroad compartment. 
 
Finally he emerged and motioned us back into our compartment.  The noise continued further down the car and we learned later that the McCrarys had a particularly rough time of it before they were satisfied that we had the proper documents and that we weren’t smugglers.  They marched a German Shepherd through the car for one last sweep, and then quiet descended on the train before it slowly moved north. 

Welcome to Russia.  We’ve been discussing that experience a lot this past two days, and we all agreed that the Russian immigration and Customs officials were clearly enjoying themselves, though they never broke those stern faces.  I have to admit to wondering what the international political issues between the US and Russia might have had to do with it – but, I think they were just enjoying jerking some Americans around in the middle of the night. 
 
But, for a moment, we all admit that we had felt a bit of fear during the encounter.  Though we had no reason to be afraid.  Right?

 An Hour Lost – I woke before dawn and began typing up my notes from the day before, and just at dawn I realized that there was a time change between Mongolia and Russia – an hour.  And here’s what I wrote: “.  I know the time zone here is an hour different from UB, but can’t remember which way – either I’ve got about an hour before arrival, or two.  Annie woke up, it got lighter and she looked out the door in preparation to going down to the samovar (there’s a samovar in every Russian passenger car) to get hot water for coffee.  She popped her head back in and said that there were folks in the car with luggage in the corridor, appearing to get ready to get off.  The train was passing through an industrial area – obviously a large city –Yikes!  Was it Ulan Ude?  I quickly went down and asked the couple with the suitcases if they were planning to get off in Ulan Ude, and they said they were and that they would be doing so in 15 minutes.

    It was like an emergency fire notification – I went down the hall, knocking on our group’s compartment doors – 15 minutes to Ulan Ude!  We gotta get off this thing in 15 minutes! It was a mad scramble, but by the time the train finally slowed to a stop, we had our luggage in the hall and muscled it to the exit door, down the stairs and stood panting on the train platform. Disheveled and out of breath in the brisk morning air.  Welcome to Russia.  Again.
 
Not over yet.
As we trundled our bags up and over a concrete bridge – stairs – separating the track we came in on from the terminal – we were meet by our local guide who helped us to get our stuff on board the van and on our way –at 7:00 AM – to our hotel.  We seemed to have weathered that last minute scramble, but then discovered we hadn’t.  One of our group members (I’ll let them identify themselves if they wish – you’ll have to ask them) had left a bag – computer bag with iPad and electronic gear – on the bunk of the train.  We went through the luggage, and the bag was indeed gone.  So, our tour guide agreed to accompany the bag owner to the police office in the railway station, and we then were driven, one person down, to the hotel.

  Update:  Here a day and half later we have learned that the bag was recovered intact and returned this evening. A damned miracle, we all agreed.  Apparently I had gotten mixed up in the bed linens on the bunk.  Whatever happened, the bag is back safe and sound.  Welcome to Russia. 
 
Ulan Ude, Republic of Buryatia, Russia.  The city of  420,000 is the capital of the
Republic and was founded at the intersection of the Ude River coming in on the left
of this photo and the mighty Selenge flowing toward us in the upper part of the
picture.  We've been following the Selenge during this adventure.
 

 

 

 

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Sept 4 Thursday, Ulan Ude, Buryatia (Siberia)

Ulan Ude, Buryatia

We've been in Ulan Ude for 24 hours, and the group is doing well.  We have some adventures since I last was able to post, perhaps the most exciting coming during and at the end of our overnight journey on the Trans-Mongolian Express.  I'm still interviewing group members to get their versions of their experiences with the Russian Immigration and Customs folks, so that story might take another day or two.

But, just to be sure you understand, preconceptions about Siberia are all falling away.  Ulan Ude is a lovely city of 420,000, a place of diverse peoples and of sometimes startling visions. 

I'll tease you with one image that ought to suffice for any place on the globe--Lenin's Head.  There's a beautiful square right across from the hotel, with flowers and benches and walkways.  Soviet Square.  And at the east end of it -- looming and staring west is a monster hollow bronze sculpture of Lenin's head.  And, yes, he does appear to be slightly cross-eyed.  More about this and other wonderful things as time allows.  Stay tuned!
Lenin's Head, Soviet Square. Ulan Ude, Buryatia, Russian Federation (Siberia)

Monday, September 1, 2014

Monday, Sept 1 - UlaanBaatar - Report from the countryside


Lydon Mongoli-Siberia Adventure Update – August 31, 2014

UlaanBaator – Sept 1 Day 11 - 4:00 PM - Best Western Premium Tuushin Hotel -- best hotel in town.

We are staying in this fancy hotel for one night before heading to Siberia.

The view from the Best WesternTuushin hotel - that's Genghis Khan Square - the heart of Mongolia.
  This is being posted after our three-night stay at Lake Khovsgol where we were off the Internet.  I will provide a brief summary of where we’ve been and what we’ve done – but, let me begin by saying that the weather has been wonderful, the group’s health has been good, and the adventures keep coming one right after the other.  I’ll do this in reverse chronology to get us all caught up.

Our window to the heart of Mongolia – Chimgee, our guide, has arranged so many wonderful things for us, it’s hard to list them all. Some of the most touching moments have occurred on our van as she told us of her childhood, living about 12 hours drive from UB to the east.  She is uniquely qualified to explain Mongolia to a group of Americans as her English is wonderful (and idiomatic from spending a year in the US) and she also has a long and treasured early life growing up in the nomadic Mongolian culture and then in urban UB.   One of our favorite stories – and hers – revolved around her childhood chores of gathering dung for the family.
 
 Taking Other People’s Dung –

Our van driver, Khurlee, Chimgeee and Annie Lydon, on the
trail at the Uvgun Temple near Bayangobi.  Khurlee has been
so special to us that we insisted - INSISTED - that he take care
of us these last two days in UB.  He is.  Amazing man, big heart,
but can be a tough driver on the streets of UB.
She and her sister had the daily chore of gathering dried dung off the countryside for fueling the family stove in the ger.  She said that one day she and her sister found a pile of already-gathered dung that they added to their own pile, and then spent the free time available goofing off and playing in the grass.  When they arrived back at the ger, her grandfather approached them asking why they had been playing around when they should have been working.  He then told them that he had seen them take the dung that did not belong to them and told them to take it back out where they had found it.  He had been watching them through binoculars.  His lesson for that day was that you should not take from the work of others.  A lesson that Chimgee now appreciates, though found at the time embarrassing.

 Lake Khovsgol – Aug. 29-31 Toilogt Ger Camp

 We timed this itinerary to take advantage of the short weather window before winter slams it shut, and also avoiding the mid-summer crowds.  School starts Monday, September 2, and we seen a steady flow of trucks carrying the ger gear, headed toward the towns and UB.  Not everyone will move off the land yet, but many of those with kids will move closer to schools.  It also means that the tourist season is nearing a close, and we’ve reaped the benefits of that at the Toilogt Ger Camp on the shore of Lake Khovsgol – we’re just about the only residents at this sprawling camp.  And the weather has been sublime – I’m writing this in our tepee ger, the sun streaming through the open doorway, the lake sparkling about 50 yards away and the sky that famed Mongolian blue.
We stayed in tepees, the style of gers used by the reindeer people
of Mongolia.  Yes, there's a connection with American tepees.

Toilogt Ger Camp, Lake Khovsgol

 

 







This is ranked as the best ger camp here at Lake Khovsgol, and has several levels of accommodations, ranging from tepees, rounded gers, to log cabin-like fancy cabins around the edge.  It rests on a hillside overlooking the lake, and there are communal showers and toilets, and a huge dining room and even a game ger.  They also have their own boat that took us on a lovely tour of the central part of the lake.  Horses, and there’s a resident herd of yaks and cattle that continually come through the gate and a shushed out. 

All of the gers at Toilogt ger camp have a view of Lake Khovsgol.
The lake temperature is a balmy 56 degrees, while the air temperature ranges from 70 daytime to 30s at night.  It can get chilly up here – we’re over 5,000 feet in elevation and almost to Siberia in latitude.  The lakes waters are crystal clear – drinkable they say, though I’m resisting it.

At this moment most of the group is out taking a horseback tour – I stayed behind to get our journals caught up.

  Khovsgol Highlights include the place itself, the meals, the boat ride, a visit to a family that keeps yaks and makes yak stuff. 

The charging station at Toilogt Ger Camp - powered by a
sophisticated solar system with plenty of power strips to go
around.

 

 

The meals at Toilogt ger camp were well
beyond your traditional fare - this is beef
with vegetables, mashed potatoes and stuff.












The Flight from UB to Moron – August 29 -Look Ma! Propellers!

Distances and roads being what they are in Mongolia, sometimes it’s just easier to fly – we flew the short 90minutes from UB to Moron (pronounced “Moo Roan”)  in a Huunu Airlines Fokker 50 – two jet powered propeller engines – two rows of seats with an aisle – and mostly locals – there was the 10 of us and  group of 6 Russian fishermen with a mountain of gear. 

The Takhi Horses – August 28  - Hustai National Park

We flipped the itinerary so that we would be passing Hustai in the evening, in hopes that we might see the famous Mongolian wild horses that were once extinct in Mongolia.  With stock from European zoos, the animals have been brought back and turned loose in this huge national park.  In mornings and evenings they come down out of the mountains for water, and we got our takhi fix that evening – beautiful animals, and a feel-good story where, not unlike what has been done with the condors in California, members of a species only living in zoos were put back.  And are thriving.

Viewing the Takhi - left to right, Mary Lynne Donnelly, Pat Loughlin
and Janet Jones.  It was a wonderful moment being able to see these
magnificent horses.


Annie photographing the Takhi
 














Karakorum – August 26 – 27

The iconic centerpiece of this once-capital of Mongolia is the Buddhist temple complex at Erdene Zhuu.  We visited late in the afternoon, and saw the place against a dark, broody sky.  Very photogenic.  This was also the location where we had our own personal mini-naadam – demonstrations of archery, wrestling, and horse racing.  Barbara McCrary had won the archery contest at our naadam in 2007, but this time they gave her a very strong re-curve bow, and thought she did skid an arrow into the target, she was disappointed that she didn’t do better.  She needn’t have been as it took great courage to even attempt it.  She’s still the champion as far as we’concerned.

Barbara McCrary following the flight
of her arrows.
 





Our post-naadam conversation with the neighbors -- they were
very interested in what we had to say.















Bayangobi – Khurlee's Family

Some tours in Mongolia promise some up-close-and-personal time and even a visit to a ger.  In our case, our van driver noted that we would be passing close to his family ger camp, and suggested that we might stop and meet his mother and some of the family members still living there.  This was not a staged visit – it was as natural as perhaps most ger visits are in Mongolia.  We met Khurlee’s mother, several of his brothers, and nieces and nephews.  But it was his 88 year old mother, Sandag, who was the star of the visit – she had born 11 children (10 still living), and her fecundity recognized by the \Mongolian government.  It was  magical morning with the family swirling around as we sat in the gear sampling hard cheeses, soft cheeses, yogurt, salt milk tea, and the Mongolian staple – airing – fermented mare’s milk. Sandag was a bit hard of hearing, but she never stopped working the entire time we were there – stirring the milk, feeding the stove horse turds and keeping the fire going.  She even made – from scratch – a marvelous noodle soup. 
Kurhlee's mother, Sandag, mixing all kinds
of milk-based goodies.  We were invited to sample
them all.

Otganbayar, Kurlhee's brother with child. He
is a famous Mongolian horse breeder and
trainer.