Olkhon Island on Lake Baikal, Russia – 09/17

(Michelle) We left early in the morning on a van to Olkhon island. This bus ride was interesting. The drive was beautiful as the leaves were starting to change here. The area was rather remote, we nearly ran into cows several times. There are a lot of Buryat villages along the way. The Buryats are the largest indigenous group living in Russia. When there wasn’t something to look at on the drive, we could easily amuse ourselves with the music selection for the van ride. We had no idea there were so many techno versions of songs we knew. Did you know that “Take These Broken Wings” had a techno version? I didn’t. I most enjoyed the X-files techno jam, which seemed rather fitting seeing as how we were in Siberia.

You know those crosses you see on the side of the road back home which marks where somebody died in a car accident? Apparently they do that here in Siberia as well. We have seen so many on this road to the island that TJ has taken to counting them. I’m guess that half the accidents are caused by cows crossing the road.

There is only one “town” on the island, which is maybe 1,000 people, but probably less. The island only got electricity 2 years ago and it still doesn’t have running water. There are no paved roads in this town and cows roam freely throughout it. We booked a “tour” with the guy who runs Admiral Hostel in Irkutsk, so instead of staying at the Nikita’s Guesthouse (where 95% of the tourists stay here) we were in a more “personal” guesthouse. The first night, we were the only guests and they owners of the house don’t speak any English.

When it was time to eat dinner, our hosts walked us to the dining area and then left us alone with loads of food. The food was decent, not awesome like our host mom in Tomsk, but definitely edible. What it lacked in flavor was made up for in quantity. I felt bad because we could never finish all the food they served.

(TJ) What I remember on the drive out to Olkhon Island was how abruptly the landscape changed. It went from having lots of trees with leaves changing color and then all of the sudden you went into the next valley and there was no trees just open land with scrub grasses for as far as the horizon. Once we finally got to the lake and were waiting for the ferry the wind was whipping, I can only imagine how cold this place gets in winter. The other thing that I remember is Russian techno-pop, we probably heard the same CD 5-6 times. Thank god I’ve killed off many brain cells since and can now not recall any memories of how the songs go.

Olkon Island itself is a sandy island that sits in the middle of the lake Baikal. Part of the island is dunes, part forest and part of it has some rocky outcroppings on the northern tip. As Michelle said there is currently one main village and I think there are also some smaller villages of 100 people or less at 2-3 other places on the island. The village was something that I would imagine seeing in Alaska, its street are sandy roads mined with cow pies (see picture of me sneaking up on some cows in town), all the buildings are log cabin structures with the exception being a school building. Apparently there has been a lot of growth lately due to a tourist influx, which is now the islands biggest industry. The village originally had a boat factory that was closed down in the late 80’s or early 90’s. We saw what looked like were some pretty nice cabins that were up or were going to be put up that looked pretty nice. I think its only a matter of time until you see your first full blown resort with running water etc. I kept thinking as I toured the island how cool it would be if there was a golf course on the island, a links course would be perfect for this island and there is plenty of empty grazing land.

The place were we stayed was ok, we would get a little cold at night since they would fill the furnace up with wood at night and that was all you got for the whole night. So in the morning getting up was something you really dreaded. The food I would say was ok, they have a species of fish that only exists in lake Baikal and they serve it with every meal. So it was fish balls, fish soup, fried fish, a little variety would have been nice. We also made the mistake of booking a package with our hostel back in Irkutsk since I think that we were worried about transport. Which was a mistake since all of the tours that we wanted to go on would have been cheaper had we booked once we were on the island and it also probably would have been more fun to stay at Nikita’s. The lesson is don’t trust a package tour if you can avoid it.