Wandering Around Looking Up Cameron Hummels' Notes on Science and Travel

A Taste of Siberia

We’re currently in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk), a Russian city that is in the middle of the Ural mountains dividing Europe from Asia. It doesn’t quite count as Siberia anymore, as that is generally considered to be Asian Russia, but we had a great time in Siberia in the Lake Baikal region and around Krasnoyarsk.

It has taken a lot of research, but we’ve found the party responsible for the death of Russian communism: Adidas. Seemingly every Russian person owns several ensembles of Adidas sporting clothes. At least as far as our experience has gone, one in three people in Russia is currently wearing Adidas clothing–it’s really amazing. We had heard that track suits were the thing to wear on the train, but we had no idea how wide-spread the phenomenon would be! Of course, we had to follow the trend in order to blend in…

Irkutsk is the capital of Eastern Siberia and a pretty quiet town. In its hayday, it was the center of control of all of Siberia (including Alaska!). We spent a couple of nights in Irkutsk, visiting the market, several museums, and getting situated in Russia. One of the museums we visited was one of the former houses of one of the Decembrists. The Decembrists were a group of Russian Aristocrats who attempted to stage a revolutions in the early 19th century, but ultimately failed and were either killed or exiled to Siberia. Many of them found their home in Irkutsk, the capital of Siberia at that time. The museum wasn’t too thrilling, but it was interesting to see how the aristocracy of Russia lived out their lives in exile in the backwoods of the world.

The traditional architecture of this region is wooden houses, cabin-like in nature. The whole region is covered in coniferous forests (taiga), so there is an abundance of natural resources for homes. The houses are all very sturdy in order to put up with the cold Siberian winters.

Irkutsk is only about an hour drive from Lake Baikal, the largest and deepest fresh-water lake in the world. It has 20% of the world’s supply of fresh water, more than all 5 of the great lakes combined! There are all sorts of animals that don’t live anywhere else in the world that live in or near the lake, including fresh-water seals, fresh-water sponges, and lots and lots of fish! It is also the only place in Russia where you can drink the water out of the taps without fearing for your health, since the sponges keep the water so clearn.

It is claimed that Lake Baikal has significant healing powers, such that if you go swimming in it, you’ll add years to your life. Of course, this is no small feat, since due to its depth, it remains very cold all year round. I managed to jump in and swim around a bit when it wasn’t quite so cold!

After Irkutsk, I coaxed Erika into hiking an 18 kilometer trail (~12 miles) from Listvyanka to Bolshie Koty (literally “Big Cats”) a town of about 100 people with no roads (you have to hike or take a boat there). The trail was along the lake side, so it was a great way to get some exercise, see the environment of the lake and get to an otherwise hard-to-reach destination. It proved quite a hike, taking 7 hours and 600 meters of ups and downs as we climbed the steep hills along the lakeshore, but in the end we survived. Erika wasn’t too happy for much of it, but she stuck it out and did really well in rainy conditions!

After Lake Baikal and Irkutsk, we traveled to Krasnoyarsk in Central Siberia. We went there largely because of the recommendations of our friend, Josh Schroeder, who upon stepping out of the trans-siberian train 8 years ago exclaimed that he “really liked this town.” Unfortunately for him, he was only there for a 10-minute stop on the train, whereas we got a whole 2 days there, which we used to explore the city, the Yenisey River (sort of like the Mississippi River of Russia) and the hillside around the town.

I’ll have more to say on this front on my next update, but we’ve got to go. We’re going to the train station to catch a train to Kazan, the capital of the Tatarstan Republic within Russia. Update soon!