01.03.2018
This morning driver Igor came to pick me up in Listvyanka for Irkutsk. The drive took a little more than 1 hr.
Irkutsk is one of the largest cities in Siberia and has approx. 580 000 inhabitants. The city proper lies on the Angara River 70 km below its outflow from Lake Baikal. As Eastern Siberia’s trading and administrative center Irkutsk was also the springboard for 18th-century expeditions to the far north and east. The major train station of the Trans-Siberian Railway opened in 1898. The first train arrived in Irkutsk on August 16 of that year. By 1900, the city had earned the nickname of “The Paris of Siberia”. Today it is by far the most popular stop at the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Jules Verne, who never visited Russia and knew the country only second hand, described it in his 1876 novel “Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar” as a “giant storehouse of goods of all kinds that are traded in China, Central Asia and Europe”. His words are true – Irkutsk is a city which politically lies within Asia, but is culturally much more influenced by Europe – you come to realize what the word “Eurasian” means. As a Russian colonial settlement the city is an outpost of Europe within Asia.
I was booked into the fine boutique Hotel Marussia in the new 130 Kvartal, an entire neighborhood of traditional Siberian timber buildings that house new restaurants, bars, cafés and museums. Check in was quick and I dropped of my stuff, because my guide Lena was already waiting for me to take me on a short city tour.
Being back in a big city after all those exciting days en route far away from civilization was a bit like an anticlimax. The center of Irkutsk is compact and walkable, but we took the car. Our first stop was Kirov Square and the bank of the Angara River with a statue Yakov Pokhabov who in 1661 built a first small fort nearby and is considered the founder of the settlement. Here the Angara River was not frozen, because of the Irkutsk Hydroelectric Power Station and dam which is situated some 6 km southeast of the city center.
Close by was the WW II Memorial with the Eternal Flame. We were lucky to watch the guard change. The eternal flame was guarded by students – girls and boys. They changed every 20 min due to the cold. Especially the girls’ uniforms were very traditionally soviet with those braid scrunchies.
We also took a walk though the historic center of town. There are still many timber houses here for which Irkutsk is famous. Those picturesque, elaborately decorated wooden houses from the 19th century, which survived the great fire of 1879, were originally proud city villas, but today these crumbling houses are home mainly to the poor. However, It is a unique architectural feature that is a testament to the region’s glorious past – beautiful wood-carved window frames and roofs covered in Siberian “lace”. Unfortunately more and more of those fell into disrepair over the years or got taken down. A few were renovated and are now used as offices or cafés.
Walking along the half frozen Angara River we visited the Gagarin monument as well as the statue of Tsar Alexander III, the only tsar who ever visited Siberia and who supposedly decided to built the Trans Siberian Railroad.
After the city tour Lena brought me back to the hotel and said good bye. I went for a walk and visited the Raising of the Cross Church opposite the hotel. It was a beautiful baroque church and they had painted ice sculptures in the front yard. Inside it had the usual interior of gilt-edged icons and murals covered the ceilings. The murals were getting washed at the moment, probably spring cleaning.
Walking around the historic center I found not only Lenin again, but also more wooden houses and followed the Karl-Marx-Street through the center.
Eventually I came to the local market. The weather was good with only -11°C, so even on the outdoor market it was fairly busy. Next to the usual clothes and household stuff, there were also souvenir stalls and many babushkas selling their homemade jams and syrups. I made one of them happy by buying a glass of raspberry jam for RUB 100 from her.
I then walked back to 130 Kvartal. Some of the wooden buildings have been transported from other locations throughout the county, and others were constructed to blend in with the original structures in the area. At the entrance to the area is a monster bronze babr, the mythical beast featured on the Irkutsk municipal coat of arms.
I skipped the various small museums and many souvenir shops there and visited instead Eastern Siberia’s first real 21st-century and very impressive shopping mall. It is very much like any other shopping mall in Europe, but it was indeed the first one I saw on my voyage through Russia so far. There was a large supermarket in the basement and I got some provisions for the next train ride.
I had a nice siesta in my hotel and went later for an early dinner. Close to my hotel was a highly recommended Restaurant Rassolnik. Since I am a sucker for retro and soviet – you might have noticed by now – I had do go there. The fancy restaurant was in the basement and of course they had a cloakroom for all the winter coats. I got seated in the great room with plush sofas and nostalgia decoration. The table was set with a bowl of sushki bread rings and kis kis caramel candy. On the walls there were huge frames with old style music cassettes, antique cameras and reading glasses. They had a retro screen were old Russian fairy tales movies were played and displays of tea pots and Lenin statues.
There were 2 menus – one the nostalgic Soviet-era menus with upmarket versions of many traditional Russian dishes and a Chef’s Choice Russian menu. The menus were in English and had beautiful photos – and whatever I ordered looked exactly like on the photos! Since I had eaten very traditionally Russian in the last weeks I stuck to the drinks on the traditional menu. I took a cocktail as aperitif – Borodinski. It was with kvas, rowan tincture and martini and came in an enamel cup with a piece of rye bread with bacon on top. It tasted a bit like Negroni and was very good!
For main course I decided on fried quails with buckwheat porridge and porcini mushrooms form the Chef’s Choice menu. It came on a tree ring with paper as plate. It was absolutely delicious! The quail had a lot of bones, but it was really good! Lip smacking yummy!
I would not be me if I did not taste the local schnaps as well! Off course I found just the thing on the traditional menu – Batteria – A bench of Baikal Stones. It was a tray with 5 different stone goblets of 50 cl each. Mine were filled with tinctures of cranberry, black currant, cedar nut, horseradish and pepper. The horseradish was very strong and spicy and …. well, it needed getting used to…. not my favourite! Pepper was strong and spicy as well, but not as much. The others were all not as strong and a bit sweet, very nice. I lingered over the shots and enjoyed the ambience.
It was snowing when I walked back to my hotel.
02.03.2018
Around 09:00 I went for breakfast to the downstairs café. I had to pre-order breakfast already yesterday. I took blinis with sour cream and my raspberry jam was excellent with those!
I had to check out in the morning and deposited my luggage at reception. My train was in the afternoon. This morning it was snowing a little bit. I decided to take the public bus to see the Znamensky Monastery which is a little outside of the center. Google said to take bus #3 to the monastery. RUB 15 was the ticket to pay with the bus driver. Stupidly I took the wrong #3! This one was going past Kirov Square over the river to the left back towards the trains station and airport. Oops! I got off on the other side of the river and found the opposite bus station. From here I had to take bus #8 to the monastery. It was running only every 15 min, so I had to wait a while. It was a wet cold today with -14°C and some snow fall. This time I had caught the right bus and got off near the Monastery, from there it was only a few minutes’ walk.
The Znamensky Monastery was founded in 1689 on the right bank of the Angara River. The first buildings were made of wood and in 1762 it was rebuilt into a stone building. White Russian commander Admiral Kolchak was executed by Bolsheviks near the monastery and a statue was erected on that spot at the entrance of the monastery.
The Church of the Holy Sign Painter is beautiful with its muralled vaulting and a towering iconostasis. Her was also spring cleaning in progress and the murals got washed, therefore there were scaffoldings everywhere.
Back to the city I took trolley bus #3 to Kirov Square and visited the Bogoyavlensky Cathedral which dates from 1693 and was originally built of wood, but a devastating fire destroyed it. In the early 18th century a great stone Orthodox Cathedral was built. The exterior of the cathedral was impressive, a fairytale ensemble of domes atop restored salmon and white towers. It survived large earthquakes, a horrible fire of 1879 and the destruction of churches during the Soviet times — though the Soviet Union still turned this building into a bakery. The church was reopened in 1995. Inside the church was beautiful, all walls and ceilings were painted with murals of saints.
I took a bus back to 130 Kvartal and after another visit to the shopping mall and the mandatory photo of the I love Irkutsk sign, I went for a late lunch.
I picked the restaurant Misha. It again had old-world, turn-of-the-century elegance. I dropped my jacket at the cloakroom and got seated at a nice table. I was the only guest at this time. The restaurant was elegantly decorated and I started with a white mulled wine which was very good.
For starter I decided on herring-under-a-fur-coat which is a very traditional Russian dish. It is a layered pickled herring salad that gets its name from the grated vegetables and eggs that top it. A friend of mine actually mentioned, that my herring is not under the fur coat, but more inside the fur coat – because it is not on the bottom of the pile….. Usually the herring would be more like relaxing on the bottom, while mine is probably inside because it is very cold in Irkutsk …. It was very delicious, anyway!
Of course, I had to have Baikal fish again …. musksun white fish with fiddlehead fern, tomatoes and cedar pine nuts was my choice. That too, was very good! Not the first time I ate fiddlehead fern, but the first time in a warm dish. I was drinking homemade cranberry mors (juice) which is always very good.
Once more I opted for a liquid dessert – I tasted a herbal honey tincture called bear tincture. And with my bill came another one – a complimentary ginger lemony tincture – I liked them all.
It was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for the train. I had to do some rearranging in the luggage and just before 16:00 my driver Igor came to pick me up. He took the long way around to the station because we were early. It was still snowing. We came past another shopping complex called Komsomoll – which I believe is an interesting name because it is a funny word game, I think.
Well, now I am westbound again – off to Krasnoyarsk!
