Most of the group is arriving sometime today, so I have the
morning free to explore Irkutsk. Cool! I started around 6 am, walking in
wonderment about the funny Cyrillic script I see in every sign around me; it
will take a while to learn to decode it, and I regret that in the meantime I
didn’t put a bit more attention to the name of the streets. As it turns out,
you can get almost anywhere following the Lenin, Karl Marx, and Yuri Gagarin
Boulevards. The helpful Siberians have also painted a green stripe down the
sidewalk, which if followed will take you to the main sights and parks.
The old part of Irkutsk was built on an inner meander of the
Angara River, which is another wonderful landmark for the lost tourist. It was
in 1661 that a group of Cossacks (tough hombres who constituted the only law in
the vast territory of Siberia) established a camp at the confluence of the
Irkut and Angara Rivers (the city celebrated its 350th anniversary
in 2011), which by the ealy1700’s had become the capital of Russian Siberia,
having oversight of a territory that extended from the Urals to the Pacific,
easily twice as large as the whole of Europe. The city saw bitter fighting
between The Red and White armies during the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 (and
provided its fair share of heroes to the Russian-Japan war, World War I, and
World War II).
The Angara River is the pride of Irkutsk. It is the only
outlet of Lake Baikal, so coming out of the largest lake on Earth it is a fast
flowing river that collects all the water of southern Siberia to convey to the
Arctic Sea. Lake Baikal freezes over during winter, but the Angara flows so
fast that it never freezes, providing year-round water to half of Siberia. You
may wonder about my vast knowledge of Siberian geography. Truth is that I am
cheating; I found a small lending “library” built around a public phone, and
from it I borrowed an 8th grade atlas of Russian geography. It is in
Russian, of course, but a maps are maps and I know how to read one.
My walk took me through several parks and monuments to the
shores of the Angara, where I found an interesting exhibition: A series of
about 20 large displays, at eye level, where photographs of children waiting to
be adopted are shown, as a public service to match them with the couples that
are considering adoption as a way to build their families. Cute kids!
Being at the crossroads of all commerce between Asia and
Europe, the city was the hub of all religions, and includes churches, mosques,
temples and synagogues of every imaginable denomination. Most of them were
abandoned during the Soviet era, but after Perestroika several of them have
been restored to their former glory. I was particularly impressed by the
Orthodox Cathedral, the inner walls of which are, in very Orthodox manner,
covered by sacred scenes that occupy every available square centimeter.
I got a little lost because I saw and followed a sign
pointing to the monument of Admiral Alexander Koltschak, a name I recognized as
that of a well-known Polar explorer and oceanographer, who in 1900-1902 was a
member of the Russian Polar Expedition. He wrote a treatise on Polar ice and
polynyas, which for years was held as the most authoritative word on the
subject. I am sorry to say that after a mile wandering through the inner city I
gave up, only to find out that I was a bit lost. Perfect, there is noting I
like more than an orienteering challenge!
On my way back, I went through the main shopping area of the
city (barely waking up at 8 am). There I found a cool “open” sculpture to honor
movie director Leonid Gaidai; although unbeknownst to me, this is a famous
Russian director, and in this “open” sculpture you get to walk through a scene
of one of its most famous movies, where the Russian Three Stooges are trying to
stop a moving car, while the director is poised at the edge of his chair, ready
to send the famous movie dog into the scene, with a life dynamite stick in his
mouth. I also walked past the statue of Lenin and Maxim Gorky, after which I
finally recognized a landmark and in five minutes was back at home, precisely
at the time that Christine and Lara were getting there back from the airport.
My poor Chrissy had missed her connection in Moscow due to delays at the
immigration and customs control, and was arriving four hours late.
An hour later we got together for breakfast at the house of
Madam Galina, who made some delicious crepes (Blinzes) for us, met some
additional members of the group, and planned to get together for a city walk in
the early afternoon. Afterward most everybody went back to bed, while I went
out for a second walk, to visit the Ethnographic Museum and the river front
along the Yuri Gagarin Boulevard (where I found a bust of the famous, smiling
Russian astronaut).
We did meet later that day and exchanged names (but I don’t
remember most of them). There will be 11 members to our party, including Lara,
with varied ages and interests. Raymond wants to collect scenes for a
documentary, so he had his movie camera out; I hope he will prove to be a good
historian. After the planning we were offered a city tour by a nice Russian
lady who is a German teacher at one of the local schools. She was wonderfully
patient and very generous with her knowledge of the city but, alas, we went
over the same ground I had covered early that morning. At least I got to
reinforce my knowledge of the geography of this handsome city.
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