Irkutsk and Lake Baikal

Part three
Reading time: 7 minutes

Lake Baikal

According to the handbook I have if you make only one stop on the Trans-Siberian it should be Irkutsk,so I did that! Irkutsk was established in 1652 on the banks of Angara river. It was once known as the 'Paris of Siberia'.Today the population is about half a million and the city offers some interesting places to visit.

Irkutsk

I checked in the hostel Dobrii Kot-The good cat. It was very close to the train station, but a bit far from the center. The hostel was very nice though and they even washed my laundry free of charge. As it was off season the price was low and the hostel almost empty. I dropped my bag and went out to explore the city.
The three Russians I traveled with warned me about the city and its inhabitants and even in the book I had were saying that it used to be a rather criminal city but when I walked around it felt fine. Maybe if you walk drunk in the middle of the night you might get in trouble. I think that there is a bigger chance you might get run over on crossing as people were driving like idiots and had no respect for pedestrians whatsoever.

Cool wooden houses on the streets in Irkutsk

Angara river

It was a nice sunny day and I went to some of the places suggested in my travel book. I found a tourist information center on Ulitsa Dekabr'skikh Sobytiy 77A . A really nice girl who spoke good English gave me a lot of information about the city and Lake Baikal. She suggested I should do the Circumbaikal Railway tour they have  the next day. It was 5000 rubles which was very expensive price but I just decided to go for it.It included all the tickets:bus from Irkutsk to Lake Baikal near Listvyanka, then a boat across the lake to Port Baikal and a train. I was very impressed as we were moved along the Lake with a Steam Locomotive which
was stopping like a taxi in the middle of the rail tracks so we could jump off walk and  take some pictures .
Me and two Australians waded in the lake and filled some water bottles which I, later on, sent back home.

The tourist information center in Irkutsk

The boat to Port Baikal

Lake Baikal

The train is coming

We could jump off the train along the track and take some photos

Sludianka

It was a great tour after all. Unfortunately our guide could not speak English fluently so all the talking was in Russian. I bought some hot smoked Omul (Омуль Горячего Копчения) which is a local delicacy.

Lake Baikal is so beautiful and I think is a must visit. The water is super clear.

I really wanted to go  and spend some time in Listvyanka  and camp on the shore of the lake and go for a swim, but since it was my first
ever trip in Russia,  I wanted to have all the registrations from hostels Also a lot of people suggested that Olkhon island is even more beautiful but that would have taken a few more days.
Of course a lot of places I could not see, but it is such a big country so 17 days in Russia was nothing . I hope one day I'll go there again and visit what I've missed.
On the next day, I felt it was time to move on so I went to the train station and bought my ticket to Vladivostok.