Ulan Ude

A nice city, home to the world's largest Lenin head, 7.7m. To me he looks both squinty and cross-eyed.



Also this fantastic 1930's Opera house:



Baikal

Out of the numerous spots you can go to on Baikal, we chose to spend 3 days on Olkhon Island. It was quite a nice spot; at the first stage of becoming touristy, where you can get a hot shower but are not beset by cafes and souvenir stalls everywhere. It hasn't gotten unpleasant yet. Here are some views of Baikal from the island:








About Bailkal – it is certainly beautiful, but it's hard to take in and appreciate it's true vastness. How does a brain compute that it holds 1/5 of the world's fresh water? It's like trying to look at Australia all at once. I can only appreciate the beauty of the shores and cliffs we've seen.

I should mention that we had our first (and probably last) banya experience on Olkhon. The first room, which is considered to be the cool room where you actually wash, was hotter than any sauna I've been to. As for as the steam room, neither of us ventured in there. I would consider the temperature in there to be dangerous to all normal human beings, and didn't want to risk a heart attack.

We also went to Listvyanka, a popular tourist village on Baikal's shores for a day trip. We only went there because I wanted to see the Nerpa seals, which are endemic to Bailkal, and the outdoor museum of Siberian buildings. Both were great, but Listvyanka itself is development at its worst. Check out this monstrosity of a hotel:



The seals look like little tubs of fat and fur, which I guess they need to be in the winter when the entire lake freezes up!



The museum is a collection of buildings from the Irkutsk region, taken from their villages and fully restored. They look much better than the villages themselves:



Irkutsk

Even through we are not out of Siberia yet, this city feels more European than anything we've seen so far. Street names are in English as well as Russian, fashion is far better, just feels very cosmopolitan. But it's also home to the world's fugliest church, check it out:



I find it interesting that we have yet to see a single MacDonalds, Starbucks, KFC or any other American chain store in the country. I wonder when they will start to appear...

Car

Unfortunately, our car problems have not yet disappeared. On the way back from the island, on a bad unsealed road, we broke a part of our suspension on the driver side. We've gotten it fixed now, but it cost us time and money, as always. Parts for Japanese cars are definitely getting more expensive the further you get away from Vladivostok. While searching for car parts, we discovered yet another puzzling piece of Russian bureaucracy. We wanted to buy a Russian sim card, so we could call up wreckers and ask them if they had the part we wanted. This is how the conversation went (twice, in two different cities):

Me: Can we buy a SIM card please
Salesperson: No problem, can I have your passport
Me: Yes, but it's a foreign passport
Salesperson: Oh, then I need your registration
Me: But we don't need to be registered unless we spend more than 3 days in a city
Salesperson: I still need it
Me: But we just drove into town, and we are driving out tonight. How can we get registered when we are not staying more than 3 days?
Salesperson: Can't sell you the SIM card without one

So basically we can buy a car, and drive it, but we can't operate a mobile phone! Go figure...

PS: I paid my first police bribe (yes, Polina was right, they do take bribes). Basically, our transit number plates have expired. We cannot get permanent number plates because we are not residents. We also cannot extent our current transit plates, for the same reason (that's contrary to the advice we got in Vladivostok, but anyway. You can see what I mean about Russian bureaucracy). So we get stopped by the police, which is not an infrequent occurrence, but the first time since our transit plates have expired. I own up to the fact, and tell them that we are between a rock and a hard place – what can we do? The officer seems to understand our problem, but invites me over to his police car anyway. There we have a general chat about life and tourists etc, frequently interrupted with his musings “so what shall I do with you... shall I write up a protocol or not?'. At first I thought it was a rhetorical question, but about 10 min later it occurred to me what maybe he was waiting for me to say something? I cautiously ventured: “um, if you are are asking me, I think you shouldn't?'. Instantly I knew I said the right thing – he gave me a broad smile, and said “ok then, pay an on the spot fine”. Now I know that on the spot fines DO NOT exist in Russia; all fines must be paid through the central bank. But it was a chance to amicably settle the problem (and the fine is only $4). A minute later we were on our way :)