Listvyanka: The 3-mile-long village along the shore of Lake Baikal was very nice. I had heard it referred to as touristy but it did not seem excessively so to me. Only the bright yellow 7-storey hotel (the only place with working WiFi) fit the description. There was a definite contrast in the lakefront properties versus the ones that were along the dirt roads back into the hills, from the purposely extravagant pink mansion to the ramshackle fence-falling-down wooden houses in need of repair. But nothing devastating. Notably, the elementary school and post office (as well as a bank and a few general stores) were along the lake as well, so this town is not all about the tourist dollars. Many dogs and the occasional cow or horse roamed the area, following traffic rules for the most part. There was not a beach but many places had pebbly areas for people to hang out on.
Irkutsk: Look, I'm on the Risk board! On the whole, I found Irkutsk to be very similar to (but more run-down than) Yekaterinburg. The smaller city was less cosmopolitan, but had some Asian influence especially on the market streets, which I found exciting.

Here were the only two places I drank the tap water in Russia. The tasty tap water comes directly from Lake Baikal, which appearently cleans itself!

We were met by a woman at the Irkutsk train station with a sign (whom we needed to prove our identity to before joining her - fair enough) who led us to a car with a male driver already inside. Observation: so far, all of our guides have been women (in their twenties, usually) with near-perfect English and all of our drivers have been older men with little English. I'm not sure what my conclusions are from that. Anyway, we drove along a highway through the forest for about forty-five minutes until we reached the banks of Lake Baikal and the village called Listvyanka, where the road eventually ended. Upon arrival at our hotel, the receptionist who spoke almost no English took our passports. While we waited for our room to be ready, the three of us had a declicious hotel breakfast and our guide admitted that she "had eaten this omelet many times."

Besides that it is shaped like a banana and can be found easily on a map of Russia (or the world), this is a body of water with many superlatives. Facts according to this display in the entrance of the museum (units converted):

• Baikal is the deepest lake in the world at 5,370 feet (over one mile!)
• Width is 16 - 50 miles wide
• Length is almost 400 miles long
• Volume is about 5,510 cubic miles (Equal to 20% of the world's fresh water!)
• Age: 25 million years. Yes, million.
• Endemic species (found only in Lake Baikal) number 2,600

The lake is surrounded by mountains and thought to have been originally created by a fault. There are 330 inlets to the lake, but only one outlet, Angara River, which flows by Irkutsk. The museum where we learned this information is also home to two of the cutest, fattest seals I have ever seen! We watched them swim back and forth playfully for a while, but all my photos turned out blurry (fast little fellas.)

We found out from our guide that the fires we saw while on the train were indeed intentional. They are to burn volatile dry grass for the purpose of encouraging new grass growth and to prevent larger wildfires. Apparently, the trees are so wet, they do not really burn, just their bottoms get blackened.

She told us that the lake had only recently unfrozen and that today was one of the first warm days. After walking up the dirt roads, through the neighborhoods, and stopping by the Orthodox Church, donning a headscarf and wondering (again) what was hidden on the traditionally preist-only section behind the wall of icons, we walked along the stream and saw hints of winter!

We ate lunch at a cafe where they were playing all western music - mostly awful 90s ballads - but we got to try the delicious traditional berry drink called mors.

Our guide, Sasha, was a little shocked at the lack of raingear we were wearing. Indeed, the temperature had dramatically cooled since the previous day, and was perhaps in the mid-40s. We were layered, but not nearly as much as our guide. The walk to the beginning of the path was so chilly, we almost turned back to get more clothing / do a different walk, but then we decided just to go for it.

We turned off the dirt road between two houses and up a wooded trail full of purple flowers. Despite Sasha's gentle pace, I was already breathing hard. We kept passing little stashes of broken beer bottles and cigarette butts and I was surprised just how high up the trail we came upon the stashes (I'm clearly not in shape!) before they eventually disappeared. Sasha pulled tree branches out of the path for us and occassionally stopped to tell us about a flower or a tree (mainly larch, birch, and pine up here) but we were so cold in the wind, we did not want to stop walking, so we usually cut the talks short. I had put on my raincoat by then and the guide had lent Rachel his outer layer to keep warm.

We reached a place where we started going downhill again. Our guide stopped us and said, "We are entering a tick area, so please check for ticks every ten minutes or so."

I do not need much encouragement to be paranoid. I tucked my pant legs into my socks as instructed and proceeded to walk exceedingly carefully along the path, trying not to brush up against anything. In the meantime, I wondered how could check for ticks since they are so tiny. Honestly, it did not look like tick territory to me.

About thirty minutes later, when I had started to relax about the ticks a little bit, he said, "Well, there aren't that many ticks in the higher elevations, there are more near the lake, like around here." And the paranoia was back! Moments later, Sasha came upon a tick and showed it to us. Much larger than I was expecting. Black with flecks of red, it looked like a tiny spider. (I was actually glad it was bigger; easier to spot!) Then I looked down and there was a tick on my pant leg! My guide removed it.

We walked a little further and Sasha told us to wait while he left the trail. (Leave the trail? Where there are so many places ticks could be?) I saw him pick some stalky green things right out of the ground. What was that all about? Not long later, we descended far enough where we were back at the shore of the lake. Being out of the protection of the trees was windy, but we had built up a good amount of body heat by then.

Our guide set out a mat for us to sit on at a nice spot near the lake (the remnants of a campfire indicated that we were not the only ones to visit this spot) then, with the treasures in his backpack, prepared a lovely picnic lunch for us. Bread, cheese, and a bowl full of rice and sausages. And a tomato for good measure (which he assured us was washed before he sliced into wedges.) He had provided each of us with a big spoon. I had just plunged my spoon into my rice, about to take a mouthful, when...

There was a tick on my hand!

I may have shrieked. Either way, Sasha skillfully and quickly removed the tick. Luckily, it was still crawling (where my index finger meets my thumb) so had not attached itself to me yet.

Those green stalks that our guide had picked out in the woods turned out to be wild garlic. He rinsed them in the river and offered us some. When I saw him munch the whole thing down, I hesitantly took a stalk with the white coloring on the tip (but not bulbous at all) and took a bite, trying not to remind myself that I was eating something this guy just picked out of the ground in the woods. Sure enough, garlicy! (And tasty!)

After lunch, I enjoyed a hot mate tea, which warmed me right up while I gazed out to the lake. He had little powdered sugar cakes to go with it. Our path back was different and offered some amazing views (and fairly steep dropoffs) toward the lake. Our guide was sure to say "be careful" for the muddy parts, but not the stretch of path where one slip on the pine needles would make for an ugly fall. Maybe it was understood. Luckily, we hiked safely back (randomly passing an observatory along the way) to the far side of the village, where a trio of dogs welcomed us. The long walk back along the road was cold, with wind carrying chilly droplets to our faces, and we searched in vain for hot chocolate. (The only place that had it on the menu - the big hotel - did not have any available.)

Just as we made it back to our hotel (where we did a final tick check) it started snowing!

We had dinner at the restaurant our guide had told us had the best local fish, but slow service. Indeed, the omul (a fish only found in Lake Baikal) was delicious, but we had no complaints about the waitress, who was quick and courteous. We noticed a pool table downstairs and, after dinner, rented it for 30 minutes . We opened the box where the only writing said "Russian Pyramid" and took out the fifteen large, white balls. Already a little confused, we used the sole red ball as the cue ball, racked them, and tried to play. After a few failed attempts at getting any ball into any hole, we looked a little closer. The balls were bigger, but the pockets were the same size. Clearly, we were playing this wrong! Eventually, we just shot the balls directly into the pockets. That was a little too easy. (Later, observing some players in Irkutsk, Rachel saw that they were using any ball as a cue ball, which makes sense and, as I confirmed on Wiki later, is one proper way to play.)
We did not even use our 30 minutes.

We had a final hotel breakfast (a buffet this time) while SpongeBob in Russian played on the television. Right on time, our same driver arrived at the gates and took us along the river forty miles back to the city. He pulled up in front of a large business hotel. We were not staying at the hotel, but they let us use their luggage room. (They've thought of everything!) A man inside who looked one step up from a transient greeted us friendlily, gave us our train tickets to Mongolia, and showed us three necessities: the location of the toilets, restaurant, and internet cafe. After making use of two of the three and posting some photos using a computer with an unfamiliar operating system which froze when my time ran out (I had to beg for a couple extra minutes to close everything out), I headed out onto the streets of Irkutsk.

Rachel and I split up to explore the city, half the size of Yekaterinburg. I wandered to the park across the street which was quite lively, it being Saturday afternoon, and came upon a very pro-Soviet-looking stage being set up with a small crowd in front of it. An unusually large number of people were in fatigues, even young women who were wearing twin french braids with big white bows. (The cute military look?) I did not linger long.

Our guide had earlier given us each a map to Irkutsk and pointed out "recommended streets." I vaguely followed her directions, but mostly turned onto streets at random. Irkutsk did not feel quite as... optimistic as Yekaterinburg. Could have been the dreary cloudy weather.

I sensed this city did not have the wealth as those further west. Although I did not feel quite as safe, I also felt somewhat underdressed. Russians everywhere take pride in their appearance.

Like other Russian cities, I saw the juxtaposition of old and new buildings, but here, many more were of the "old " variety. Many were completely abandoned and dilapidated (some burnt down) right in the middle of town. One phenomenon I saw often were wooden tilting buildings. Perhaps the ground is mushy? I lost count of how many buildings I passed where the windows were waist high at one side of the building then knee-high at the far end. I thought these were abandoned too (they did not look safe!) but more than once, I heard voices from within. I wanted to give the inhabitants some comforting right angles.

Despite the struggling architecture, however, I saw significantly less graffiti here than in any other city I have visited so far in Russia.

As I walked the streets, I experienced three different kinds of shopping paradigms. First was a pleasant pedestrian street (left) reminiscent of Arbat in Moscow. Background music included a techno remix of the milkshake song. After that followed a more Chinese experience at Shanghai City Things Market. On the way, I passed people with crates of vegetables laid on tables out in the open, one after another. Then I wandered into a tighter indoor grid more like a flea market with colorful clothing, shoes, hats, and trinkets on display. It was not claustrophobically crowded, but I could not imaging buying clothes in a place where there appeared to be no room to try anything on (there was barely room to browse the goods stuffed close and high in each vendor's area.)

I felt a little lost in the mini city of commerce since it covered the area of a city block, it seemed, but I eventually came out onto a main street again.

Finally, I spent some time in the several-story Trading Center (right) which, for lack of a better word, was a mall. Instead of stores, though, most vendors had a small glass booth (narrower than the smallest shops in a Western mall) within which to display and sell their wares. A surprisingly spacious supermarket was also contained within the building. I was able to buy a notepad here at one of the larger stores since my journal was running out of pages. Here was also home to the Irk Cafe.