Circumbaikal Railway

The informative narrative

A railway stretching around a 100 kilometers along the south western coast of the lake Baikal. It has been a part of the Transiberian until a new modern two-lane track was build across the mountains between Irkutsk and the Baikal leaving this very scenic section as a tourist attraction only.

It starts in Port Baikal - a somewhat an industrial looking village. It is the new start of the Circumbaikal railway after the part from Irkutsk has been flooded due to a damn build on the river Angara. It is accessible via ferry from the touristy Listvianka.

The track is quite old but it has actually been updated since the times the tsar had it built. It is still very slow and the 100 kilometers take about 4 hours to do on a train - not counting the stops for the tourists to stretch their legs and 'breath in' the scenery. Some of the trains use the old still functioning steam engines.

The adventure

I have set out yet again by myself since my 'date' was stuck at the hostel waiting for another staff member to come and replace her. He got drunk the night before so obviously had a little sleep in.

So I stock up on food - I didn't particularly want to repeat the scenario of Bolshoie Koty, where I ran out of food the first evening, so I bought about 3 kilos worth of stuff just in case. Putting my rucksack on made me instantly regret it but, being a Dittel, I munched through about half a kilo before even laying foot in Port Baikal and done similarily throughout the first 4 hours of the hike so it wasn't that bad in the end - and took a marshrutka (minibus) to Listvianka, a ferry to Port Baikal and off we go.

It was a bright sunny cloudless day and after hiking for couple of hours in the heat and passing some really lovely deserted beaches I ended up skinny dipping and chilling out as god made me on the pebbles admiring the blue of the sky. There are advantages to going by yourself.

I finished the day after 27 kilometers tired from the lack of sleep of three previous nights and the 35 kilometer hike to Bolshoie Koty two days ago in a little 'party' village where the fancy steam train from the pictures above stopped with a load of by-the-time-I-got-there very merry Russians barbecuing, drinking and dancing to some god-awful Russian folk-pop (nieco ako Senzus na Slovensku). I had a chat with a couple of them and been invited to join in but ended up asleep within minutes after setting up the tent and admiring the sunset for a bit.

The next day I was joined with Oksana and we took a train for some 50 kilometers. It was rather a different experience then the day before. The whole first class was full with Japanese tourists with their flashing Nikons and Canons. I couldn't feel a slight resentment when the train stopped at some random spot and whole of it's content poured out to take a picture or have picture taken of. It honestly does make a difference how you appreciate it when you put your own muscles to work.

Try to find one oddity on one of these four pictures.

We got out before our destination to have hike another 15 kilometers. And slept in an impromptu camp with a gorgeous view.

The art of kitsch - lesson 101

And a final picture to wrap it all up. To make it even prettier I cannot resist centering in on the page. So dig in, art lovers!