The beauty of the Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is a special place indeed. It is not just the deepest lake in the world, but also the oldest one with the biggest volume of water. Its depth is more than 1600 m. It contains almost 20% of all unfrozen fresh water of the planet, which is more than all the 5 Great Lakes of North America together. And the water is still potable! The length of the lake is around 650 km (pretty much size of the Vancouver Island). It fully freezes in winter and is used as a highway as well.

The vastness of the Lake Baikal, one can't see the other side.

"Maloe More" (Little Sea), one of the 2 warmest parts of the lake. Generally water of Baikal is cold all year long.

The northern cliffs of the magical Olkhon Island.

Evening fishing on the calm Lake Baikal. It is not always that calm and you can easily feel like by the sea.

It's not just the lake's beautiful islands and peninsulas that make this area so special, but also the mountain ranges and pristine forests. Here are some of the places that impressed me.

 Easter Sayan Mountains in Tunka Valley and the very popular spa spot Arshan.  By the Mongolian border are these mountains over 3,400 m high.

Tunka valley is a beautiful place in Buryatia, which leads directly to the Mongolian border. There are hot springs in the valley, unfortunately not natural anymore. The valley lies between Khammar-Dhaban Mountains and Easter Sayans Mountains.

Holy Nose Peninsula is part of the Zabaikalsky Nature Reserve with high mountains rising over 1400 m right from the water surface. Close by are the Ushkhany Islands, a very popular spot for "nerpas" - Baikal endemic freshwater seal.

 Barguzin valley and the Zabaikalsky National Park. Another still quite traditional valley, where one can see the Buryat culture.

Khammar-Dhaban mountains, a mountain range on the south-east of the Lake Baikal. The nature reserve, where I work belongs to this mountain range as well. The valley in the picture is called Mammai, very popular for free ride skiing in winter.

 The dense forest of our Baikal Nature Reserve. Together with other 7 protected areas around Lake Baikal, it is certified as a World Heritage Site.

Another interesting aspect of this area is that 4 different religions meet here: the Christian based Russian Orthodox and Old Believers, in additional to, the Buryat's Shamanism and Buddhism. Buryat people are Mongolian descendents. The western Buryats in Irkutsk Region are more into shamanism and the easter from Buryat Republic are buddhists.

Buryats have a tradition to leave a strip of cloth on places, where they want to return one day.

Buryat traditional clothes. They used to be nomads and lived in yurts. Later on, when they settled down on one place they change their yurt into a wooden one.

My life in Siberia

So you're probably thinking, “What's it like living in Siberia?” I live in small village called Tankhoi, which is situated in Buryat Republic, in the midway between Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude, the two biggest cities in this area. My current home is an old apartment close to my work, quite luxurious for this village standard.

View from our street of Lake Baikal

Our old wooden apartment building

Baikal Nature Reserve Headquarters with the nature reserve behind

I have running water (only cold in summer and hot in winter), and central heating. None of these things are that common in the houses here. However, the tap water is not potable. Instead, twice or once a week a big water truck with the sign “ВОДА” (which means water) comes to our apartment building. Everybody goes out with empty buckets to fill them up for the rest of the week. This water is from the Lake Baikal. Supposedly, it went through a filter, but apparently the filter is quite old, because you can see some algae and little fish swimming in it once in a while.

Water towers containing potable water from the lake

The water truck

I even have a "shower" (quite rare in this village), a black house coming directly from the radiator, which means sometimes it gets too hot. For washing, I instead use the Banya, a Russian traditional bathhouse. I love it! It is definitely my favourite thing in Russia. Pretty much it is a sauna, where you warm up and relax, get hit with the birch branches and right after it you jump outside in the snow. This is repeated a few times until you get tired. At the end, you mix cold and hot water in a bucket and somehow wash yourself. Before everyone can enjoy the Banya though, we first need to fill 2 big barrels with water and heat up the house with wood (this might take 4 hours or more).

Furthermore, our place can’t be locked, neither from inside, nor from outside. That’s why if I am leaving for few days, I either bring my valuables to my neighbours or hide them somewhere around our place. 

Some things that surprised me about Russia were that every day the students are formally dressed in school. Males, from the age of 7, wear nice black pants, shirt and many of them even a tie, while girls wear high heels, which are generally very popular in Russia.

Traditional Russian wooden house with decorated windows. There are still plenty of them in our village.

Here in Siberia, the work between men and women is still quite divided in kind of old school manners. Women have to do all the housework, but then they expect man to pay for everything. Some of my friends still do hand washing of their clothes. 

I have to admit that I had a bit of cultural shock at the beginning. It wasn't the rudeness of the ladies in the shops and trains. I was expecting this, but once you get to know a Russian person a bit better, they are very helpful, friendly and hospitable. What surprised me was the fact that Russians have difficulty to be on time. Moreover, if you ask them to do something, they will always say "Yes, yes, yes", whether they plan to do it or not. Here in Russia, the best answer for everything that doesn’t work is: “That’s Russia!” Then they continue with: “Don’t be bothered! You’re not in Moscow, but Siberia and the time passes slower here.

Volunteering in Russia

Recently, I started to feel more and more that I should do a long-term volunteering. Not only because it is a great way to learn the language, understand the culture and visit a new country, but also because we should be more socially responsible. 

My project is a part of the European Volunteering Service, which is funded by the European Commission. It is a long-term volunteering for young Europeans from 2 to 12 months. I work in the Baikal Nature Reserve to gain more experience in my field of studies. My tasks are oriented around ecotourism, environmental education, coordinating short-term volunteers, as well as teaching English at the local school.

Leading a group of volunteers during the excursion in the Baikal Nature Reserve.

One of my main tasks was to coordinate an international volunteer work camp. The topic of the camp was to clean the Baikal shore and to promote garbage recycling among the local inhabitants. A year ago, some active employees of the reserve initiated garbage separation (only hard plastic, glass and aluminum). These are mostly just the materials in which alcohol products are being sold. Of course, this means a lot of garbage, because drinking is a popular leisure time activity in Russia. It was an interesting, but difficult job. Cleaning the shore was the easiest part. We also interviewed people and found out what they do with their garbage. Most of the times, they just burn everything in their ovens, bring it in the forest behind the village or just throw it away in the village. Places, full of garbage, are a big problem all around Lake Baikal.

Making a sign to keep Baikal clean, later located on a local beach.

Cleaning the Baikal shore and separating garbage for recycling.

During the camp we worked with students from Summer Ecological School. We wanted to show them that recycling is one option how to deal with garbage, but even more important is to not produce that much garbage. We should behave according to the rule.

Reduce!

Reuse!

Recycle!

Making recycling paper from old newspaper

Our products from the garbage. Reusing old newspaper, Tetra Pak, aluminium can and plastic bottle. We made a can holder, a wallet, a box, a basket and few different bowls.

Way to Russia

Many people asked me; “Why Russia?” Well, I wanted to see its vast nature, to learn Russian, to understand its history a bit better, and also to see the face of multicultural Russia. It is a country with over 100 different languages and many nationalities. As many of you might know, Slovakia, at that time part of Czechoslovakia, was heavily influenced by Russia during communism. Therefore, since I was a child I have heard quite a bit about this country (bad and good), and that’s why I wanted to visit and make my own opinion.

I boarded a train heading to Russia. It took me 2 nights to get to Moscow, where I had a quick look around, and then jumped on another train all the way to Siberia, to the magic Lake Baikal, which was my home for next half a year. The ride took around 90 hours (4 nights). Almost all my friends were telling me that I was crazy. But it passed quite quickly. I wasn’t bored at all and didn’t even start knitting the socks I had planned to make. 

In total, to cross the country from Moscow to Vladivostok is just a bit under 10,000 km, only around 7 days on the train. The trains are still a lot cheaper than flying and also probably the safest way of transportation in Russia, that's why they are quite full and you have to get your ticket ahead of time. 

I took the 3^rd class, where there are no coupes. The whole wagon is divided with sidewalls in sections (kind of like a coupe), but no doors with 6 people per section. The main activities on the train are eating, and if you are a Russian guy, drinking lots of vodka, beer, and playing cards. For me it was lots of reading, learning Russian, and doing different crossword puzzles.

"Platzkart" 3rd class wagon

"Samovar" - very popular thing, a machine that keeps boiling water. It is quite convenient, you can make your tea or even a noodle soup during a few days ride.

There are 2 toilets per wagon, which are closed half an hour before and after each of the longer stops (usually in the bigger cities). These stops lasted up to 50 minutes. This is time to get out, get some fresh air and buy some food from “babushkas” (old ladies), who are selling dried and smoked fish, “piroshky” (Russian pastry with filling) and lots of other things.

Busy platform in every bigger town, ladies trying to sell whatever they got.

Smoked "omul" endimic fish for the Lake Baikal

Of course some alcohol, very important part of Russian culture.

Someone might need even toys on the train. One week can feel pretty long.