Listvyanka, Russia

Another twenty hour journey on the Trans-Siberian passed without particular interest or incident. The novelty of taking long train journeys every other day or so was wearing off a little, and despite trying the whole range of brands and flavours of instant noodles on offer in Russian supermarkets, they were also growing a little tiresome.

At Irkutsk I wandered out of the station and over the bridge spanning the river to the main part of the city. I stopped at a pleasing find, a French-style cafe, to refuel on caffeine and a croissant and pressed on through the streets making a beeline for the local bus station, where I deciphered the timetable to check out buses running to a little settlement on Lake Baikal called Listvyanka.

I queued up at the ticket window with a slip of paper in hand, and on reaching the front despite providing my best pronunciation of Listvyanka I was still corrected my a local trying her best to push in line in front of me, even though, er, I was already being served. The lady behind the plexiglass correctly inferred my pronunciation anyway, and collecting the ticket I wandered off to play a game of “match the Cyrillic” with the departure boards of the buses.

The hour-or-so journey out from Irkutsk through luscious woodland saw us finally hit Lake Baikal, and snarled up in a traffic jam caused by affulent Russians making their way back from the weekend getaway village, I had plenty of time to take in its wonder.

As far as the eye could see,  Lake Baikal was frozen, and covered in a layer of snow; a breathtaking sight. Incredibly, the lake was being used by vehicles. A temporary road was visible across the side of the lake, with 4×4’s tearing along it, hovercrafts were zipping across the surface and the aforementioned rich Russians were pulling doughnuts on the ice in their Japanese motors.

Finally arriving at the port – at which the  boats were not going anywhere any time soon – I grabbed a smoked fish being cooked up by the locals and headed down to the frozen lake to walk along it parallel to the choking line of traffic back to the previous settlement in which my alotted accommodation was located.

I had decided to treat myself and go for a  fairly nice hotel with a  warm and comfy room, the best part being by far the fact I had my own balcony with a wonderful  view of the valley, and with the Russian weekend-trippers thinning out, I sat outside, the quiet punctuated only by the odd dog bark, and watched the sun disappear from the valley.

Normally I enthusiastically embrace the food of the countries I visit, but that hadn’t been wholly possible on the trains in Russia. There was a dining car on most trains, but it was pricey and, well, tasted like food cooked on a train, which is never the best. I had dined in canteen-style restaurants in Moscow where you help yourself, and had eaten my fair share of pelmeni (Russian dumplings) and borscht (beetroot soup) as a result, but I had been dissuaded from visiting too many proper sit-down restaurants as a result of the language barrier. Adding to that had been the undercurrent of mild culture shock I had been experiencing. I find familiar food to be the best antidote to culture shock, so a pizza or steaming bowl of ramen which I might have overlooked in a more comfortable state of mind were now gratefully received when found.

So I was pleased to read that Listvyanka had a Russian restaurant along the main road which apparently offered an English menu, and I wandered on to it after dark that evening. The service was authentic Russian – you had to all but grab a member of the waiting staff by the arm to place your order – but I enjoyed a great evening of hearty food alongside Siberia’s nouveau riche.

Emerging into the cool night air, I was presented with a velvety-black sky above hanging above the dark lake laden with thousands upon thousands of stars; in my thirty years I had never seen such a beautiful sky. In our Green and Pleasant Land the light pollution obscures just how beautiful the heavens are above us, but here, out in the middle of the vast expanse of Russia, the Milky Way was crystal clear.

For that brief moment at least, all the hassles and troubles I had experienced along the way all seemed worth it.