Irkutsk is around 70km away from Lake Baikal. I wasn’t really aware of that fact because I expected to come to Irkutsk and walk to Lake Baikal from there. This was not possible. On the first day I haven’t felt like doing some sightseeing in the city so I stayed at the Baikaler Hostel to do some travel planning. I was very happy to find out that the Baikaler Hostel has an Eco-Hostel in Listvyanka, which is the town closest to Lake Baikal. I was able to arrange to go to that hostel the next day. I had to take a Minibus to Listvyanka and paid 100руб for an hour drive. The Baikaler Eco-Hostel is located at the very end on one of these dirt roads that go up to the hills. It is roughly 1.5km to walk from the lake.
I went to the Lake Baikal after I got assigned a room. At first I wasn’t sure where to go in the ice and whether it is safe or not to walk on it. But as soon as I have seen cars driving across it I knew it would definitely be thick enough to hold me. It is a truly unique experience to walk on 70cm of ice. Later that day I came back to the lake with the German guy I have met in the hostel. We went to see the sunset at something past eight. It was very windy but stunning. See for yourself in the video below.
For our second day near the Lake Baikal we have arranged a tour that included ice-fishing, walking on the Circum-Baikal-Railway and hiking up a hill. We had a great day and again I have enjoyed beeing outside of the city very much. We met our guide at 11am and set off to cross the lake from Listvyanka to Port Baikal. Some parts where quite scary as the ice was very thing and cracked underneath our feet. Our guide reassured us that there is a thick layer of ice and then there is a small layer of water inbetween the last thin layer of ice. So it would not be a problem to break in (…). We walked for about 5km on the ice in this very windy condition and got to the Circum-Baikal-Railway where we walked along the tracks. We crossed one of the 38 tunnels and soon after had some lunch.
After lunch we have tried our luck at ice fishing. But as we could have already guessed there was a very limited chance to catch a fish. Our guide showed us how to fish, which was not very difficult but just a matter of how long you can wait without getting bored. We didn’t catch a fish but at least I have seen a small fish.
Our tour continued and lead us up to a viewing point above Port Baikal. From there we have enjoyed the views and made our way down to the train station where we went to see a small museum about the Circum-Baikal-Railway. Nowadays the railway is only used for touristic purposes.
The German guy and I have decided to go to Ulaanbaatar together so I went to buy my train ticket at the station in Irkutsk one day before we left. I was lucky to get a ticket as the travel agency was about to close when I arrived there. I managed to buy a ticket for the same carriage so we could travel together.
On my last day I decided to spend some time sightseeing in Irkutsk. I started quite late as we went out to bars the night before with people from the hostel. Irkutsk is a small and boring city as some locals told us. Also they didn’t want to speak about their jobs and the only real excitment was seeing some tourists – us. Nevertheless Irkutsk has still a lot of old wooden houses that are worth seeing.
One thing that is pervasive in every Russian city are statues.
Leave a Reply