Download - The First Week
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Irkutsk, Tallin, Baikal, Zhemchuk, Arshan, and somwhere really close
to Mongolia…
The First Week
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My bedroom
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The view from my window
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Looking out at the Angara from my window
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Our first day, we went to Baikal. On the way, we stopped at a museum that has taken old wooden-architecture peasant village houses from all over Siberia and moved them (all the original wood) into a mock-up village. It reminds me of an ornate old-western-looking town.
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The ribbons on the tree here are everywhere near the rivers and the lake. They are prayers to the god of the river or lake (usually Burchan (sp?)).
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Just what I came to Siberia for -- Mexican food!
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Looking out over Baikal from the top of a trail we hiked up...
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In the Baikal Museum: funny-looking fish from the Lake (for lunch, we ate Sig (pronounced seek, and quite delicious) - apparently unique to Baikal. We've also had Omul, another endemic species.
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The Baikal Seal. They're really cute.
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Lake Baikal
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Our "Rocket boat"
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Atop of the rocket boat, travelling down the Angara back to Irkutsk
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On the way to Arshan, the next day, we passed a town on the lakefront that had been hit by a serious earthquake a couple years ago. There’s a lot of minor seismic activity here still – the lake isn’t finished forming.
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Our driver, Yura (left), Marina (middle), and Nina Nikolaevna (right). Nina Nikolaevna is the person running the show here in Irkutsk, and she and Marina are our professors.
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On the way, we stopped in Zhemchuk, a town built up around natural hot springs.
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...public restroom...this is the only option available for standing and sitting...(it’s okay, he’s one of my classmates =P)
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Pozi! We ate lunch in Zhemchuk. This is a traditional Buryat food (one is called a poza). I am becoming convinced of the universality of meat dumplings...
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I’m not the only one taking hundreds of photos of all the pretty scenery we pass. (Charles (left), and Michael (right)
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Our hotel in Arshan. An awesome place owned by a friend of Nina Nikolaevna. We spent two nights here.
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Most of us (left to right: Michael, Charles, Thomas, Nina Nikolaevna, Marc, Nick) gathered around a place that apparently some monks came to and believed to be holy. They built a cairn, around which you're supposed to walk twice in a circle, then clap once.
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Arshan...
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I went walking in the forest for some ways, when all of a sudden, before me was hovering this guy -
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With a web that stretched 8 ft. in diameter across the trail.
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In the evenings, we built a campfire to sit around.
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And sing around, of course. What follows are some video recordings of traditional songs sung by our hostess, Zoya Yulievna and Nina Nikolaevna.
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Breakfast! (oh man...the food...dear god it's good) Here's the remains of Wheat Kasha (think sweet liquid cornbread) sausage and cheese, deliciously strong caffeinated tea (which I can't transport past customs, sorry; I bought some here and it's amazing), and pancake-like things - thicker, and more like a doughnut.
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The six of us squished into the back of a van (driven by someone we didn't know - presumably a friend or employee of the owner...) to ride around behind our professors to the Mongolian border zone.
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Said unknown driver pulled up to the gas station, left the car running, started pumping gas, then walked away, leaving us to contemplate our potential future as a fireball...
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This is a shrine along the way, where you leave cigarettes, money, or sprinkle vodka on the pipe of Ghengis Khan.
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Pretty mountains (more of those coming up).
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Michael, Charles, Bern, Thomas, Nick (l-r)
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These grow by the road, near the river. I have no idea what they are...
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Much less if they're any good for you...
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But they were delicious! (Not dead yet.)
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Of course, with so many big rocks nearby, I had to climb some...
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The lot of us. Left-right: Me, Marc, Nick, Marina, Nina Nikolaevna, Sasha (Zoya, our hostess' husband/employee), Michael, Thomas, Charles, Bern.
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These mountains are rich in raw marble
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When in Russia...
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At the end of our stay, I dug a hole, and we planted a tree together.
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