Ian Rambles
I would love to have spent longer at Lake Baikal and to have explored futher around its shores. Listvyanka village is suffering from being developed as a tourist destination with Disneyesque hotels and lakeside properties disfiguring its attractions. I suspect that there are some disillusioned investors however - there was little evidence that the larger hotels had guests while the B&B we stayed in, with ten bedrooms, had a continuous turn over of budget concious European travellers.

Irkutsk sent all the wrong signals. The buildings, after decades of Soviet non-maintainance, looked like the most run down of council estates. In the UK I'd expect drug dealers round every corner and certainly wouldn't want to be in the area as it got dark. It was only as you looked more carefully that you could see the new double glazing units and other investment in improvements.

Fiona's Journal
Listvyanka
We spent three nights in Listvyanka village, staying in a lovely little guest house on the shore of Lake Baikal. The family were very welcoming and the daughter spoke a little English.
On our arrival, grimy and travel-worn after three days on the train, we were offered the use of the banya which we gratefully accepted. We traipsed down the garden with our towels to a cedar wood shed in which a mighty wood stove heats a small inner room to fantastic temperatures. You strip off and sweat out all the grime in here and then soap and sluish yourself clean in the adjacent warm room, using big bowls of the water heated by the wood stove, mixed with cold water from a milk churn. The shed smelled wonderfully of hot cedar sap and the whole experience was heavenly! Then we had a delicious supper of the local speciality, smoked omul (a fish found only in Lake Baikal) with buttery boiled potatoes and retired to bed.
At breakfast the next morning we were amazed to discover the dining room full of a trekking group, at least ten people, when we had thought we were the only guests last night. This wooden cabin guest house is bigger than it appears! Breakfasts were generous and delicious and fattening, either bannock (a deep-fried dough which we have met in Scotland and in Canada's First Nations Territory and now in Russia), or pancakes, with jam and cheese and fruit.
Katia, our excellent guide provided by “The Russia Experience” tour company (and speaker of English English or American English as required), took us round the local Baikal Museum which was fascinating.
The lake is a mile deep at its deepest point and holds 20% of the world's fresh water reserves. If all other sources of fresh water dried up Baikal could supply the world population with drinking water for 40 years. It is fantastically clear and clean and has exceptionally high oxygen levels, which has allowed the survival of many species here that are extinct everywhere else. This includes a strange little fish, the golomyanka, that is 35% oil and was once dried and used as a sort of ready-fuelled torch!
In the small aquarium in the basement we met three of the world's only fresh water seal species, which also lives only in Lake Baikal. They are so fat (to withstand the extreme cold) that they look like little submarine Zeppelins and have charming, cat-like faces.
Katia also led us up to the best local viewpoint, partly on foot and partly by ski-lift, from where we had marvellous views across the lake and the surrounding, snow-covered mountains. Then we returned to our guest house for a stupendous three-course lunch and Katia departed back to Irkutsk taking our passports with her. She assured us they would be returned to us before we re-boarded the Trans-Siberian in two days time. Just another puzzling bit of Russian bureaucracy.
We amused ourselves for the rest of our stay in Listvyanka. Arthur and I swam in the lake, which felt pretty cold at 15 degrees C but is supposed to give us twenty years extra life. We inspected the little local market and bought postcards and drank coffee and hot chocolate in lakeside cafes and continued to enjoy three splendid meals a day at our guest house. I think I could gain weight here as fast as I did in the USA!

Irkutsk
We had a day and a bit back in Irkutsk before we had to catch the Trans-Siberian train again and we were driven the 70km from Listvyanka to our next abode by minibus taxi – again, all part of the tour company package.
I am very glad we didn't have to find this place by ourselves because we would still be looking now! Our driver turned round the back of a five storey brick building and pulled up outside a large, battered, black metal door covered in graffiti – the sort of door you might expect to reveal a lock-up garage full of stolen goods. He made a quick phone call on his mobile and a couple of minutes later the door swung open and our hostess stepped out to greet us. She beckoned us in and lead us up an unlit and damp-smelling concrete staircase to the third floor where she opened the door to her apartment. We stepped from the stairwell of a slum tower block into a small but stylish city home. Olga herself was immaculately dressed and made-up and fitted the interior perfectly and she made us extremely welcome. It is just so difficult to understand why the exterior appearance is so at odds with the interior. Another example of nothing in Russia being quite as it seems. Oh, and Olga gave us our passports back! I have no idea how they reached her or what they had been up to in the interim.
We had all caught Ian's snotty cold and cough by this time (so much for Lake Baikal's health-giving properties) and so we were a bit half-hearted about our exploration of this town but we did find an internet cafe for the boys and investigate the big indoor market. This had permanent stalls over three large floors with fresh food on the ground floor, clothes and shoes on the first floor and electrical goods and hardware and other things on the top floor. There must have been twenty or thirty shoe stalls all packed together in one area. They mostly had a very similar range of stock at very similar prices and very few customers. Refreshingly, in a way, the stall-holders did not seem particularly bothered about whether they sold anything or not and largely ignored potential shoppers, preferring to huddle together in small groups and chat. I cannot imagine how they all stay in business. In the 45 minutes I spent browsing I did not see anyone buy anything. Ian bought an electrical extension lead from a girl on the top floor (again one of twenty or so electrical stalls) – she was talking on the phone and ignored him completely for 5 minutes then, when he didn't go away, finally served him wordlessly, by means of pointing and nodding, while never faltering in her continued phone conversation. I have to say, irritating though it can be, I find this kind of indifference more restful than the desperate, pressure selling tactics that we have fended off in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Beijing.
We had an excellent breakfast of omelette and pancakes with Olga and her husband Sergei who is a physiotherapist for the police force. We chatted about our travels and they were very keen to get our impressions of Russia, compared with England and with other places we have visited. We actually found that rather difficult to answer since we spent most of our time here being puzzled by things and not understanding what is going on!
Before leaving Irkutsk we visited The London Pub thinking we should check it for authenticity. Once there, we ordered pizza and Russian Coffee (with large slug of vodka and cream on top) so that wasn't much of a test really. Then we stocked up at the supermarket with interesting provisions for our next three days on the train.

Arthur's Log:
It was nice to be picked up at the station, Katia led us out to our minibus and saw us off to our guest house 79 km away in Listvyanka. I love listening to the Russian family talk, and how their tone differs from guest to family. We ate 'omal', a fish only found in Lake Baikal (oh! we're right on the lake side...)
We had drop-scones for breakfast which were mannicaly good. Katia arrived and took us to the lake research center. The water in the lake is so pure and clear that they warn of getting vertigo when swimming with goggles because you can see 40 metres straight down!
There is a fish that lives in its depths that is 35% oil. Have you ever heard of such a oily fish? In fact, if you see a dead one floating on the water, come back in half an hour and it will just be a puddle of oil.
The lake is home to a fish that creates black caviar, but it is almost extinct. We took a ski lift up to the top of the hill to get a good view of the lake. Katia left us after lunch (the meals are so big that we have a 2 hour break after each one.) We wandered into town and had a look around, wrote up some log and killed the rest of the day slowly.
We have no tour booked today, so I decided that we would like to go for a swim! It was cold! Veeeeeery cold! I have only once been in colder water but I was wearing a wetsuit so this tops it. Apparently me and mum (the only people who went for a swim) have an extra 15-20 years on our life now! We and mum walked into town to get some coffee and warm up.
I have just started a 1127 page book called 'Shogun', which is about the time of the Spanish empire and discovering Japan! Its gripping but very hard to follow all the Japanese names.
We are moving to a guest house in Irkutsk so that we are close to the station for leaving tomorow. Huge numbers of guests arrived while we were waiting. I'd syy over 20 in three parties.
In the spare time we had, dad started counting the cars and if they're left hand drive or right. It turns out that 66% are right hand drive in a country were you drive on the right!