To accompany a previous post, The Sounds and Songs of Moscow, I have compiled a collection of the sounds I heard in Siberia. These sounds portray the peaceful, magical atmosphere found on Lake Baikal, the light solitude of the woods, and the rickety chugging of a train on an old railway. More than that, however, these sounds […]
I first read about nerpas in the book “Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal” by Peter Thomson. It was a book we read for class in preparation for traveling to Baikal, about Peter’s own travels through Siberia and around Baikal. He described the seals, with their big eyes and soft fur coats, zooming around […]
I have to admit that the first time I saw Lake Baikal, I wasn’t as overwhelmed as I expected. We got off the bus after a few days traveling through steppe and walked down from the road to a rocky shore. I was very happy to be there, but my first thought was surprise at the […]
During our week and a half in Siberia, we got to experience a very different part of Russia from the metropolis of Moscow. We traveled throughout Buryatia and to Irkutsk in a bus, visiting as many places of interest as we could. With this different setting came a very different routine and diet for us. […]
Construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway began at the turn of the 20th century. Today, the map is quite extensive, carrying passengers and supplies across Russia, central Mongolia, and Manchuria. Constructing a railway was no easy task, and at first the map did not look like this. Lake Baikal, covered in ice for six months of […]
I love to run. Most people I interact with find this out quickly because I don’t shut up about it. This is why, when we arrived in the small village of Ust-Barguzin on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal, and more specifically the Barguzin Bay, I wasted no time donning my running clothes and shooting […]
On the southern and eastern shores of Lake Baikal is the Republic of Buryatia, one of the subjects of the Russian Federation. The Buryat people are closely related to Mongolians, so much so that Mongolians refer to Buryats as Russian-Mongolians. Buryatia has its own distinct language, culture, and history, distinct from other nearby tribes and […]
Our first view of Novoselenginsk, a small, dusty settlement flanked by the Selenga River and the road from Ulan-Ude to Kyakhta, came from a rocky outcrop to which our Buryat driver, Ruslan, expertly navigated our seemingly indestructible bus. We turned east off of the pothole-filled highway onto two dirt strips and bumbled onward, putting our […]