From HM Hostel 1905 in Moscow:

After our first days in Irkutsk, we spent three days on Olkhon Island in Lake Baikal at Solnetchnaya Guest House. We stayed in a cozy 3 bed cabin room and were fed three hearty Russian country meals a day. It was really nice and relaxing and the food was delicious. We managed a few dips into the cold lake (+25 years for us!), but it really wasn’t as bad as we had expected it to be. The water was clear and fresh, the sky was sunny and the air was clean and beautiful. I wish we could have hiked to the other side of the island to see the real vastness of the lake, but it was 20 kilometers one way, which we couldn’t really manage on a day hike (and we didn’t want to miss too much of the food). We also had wanted to take a ferry from the island to the north end of the lake and take the train on to Moscow from there, but the summer ferry had stopped running the previous week. I guess that’s one of the downsides of coming after the tourist season.

So we had no choice but to return to Irkutsk, which wasn’t a very pleasant idea since when we had been buying our bus tickets a really sketchy guy had come up and tried to grab stuff out of Bevin’s bag. When she knocked his hand away, we ran across the street and went into a restaurant, only for him to follow us and try it again. It left us with a pretty creepy, unsettled feeling about Irkutsk in general, especially since we had been warned by several people about the apparent dangers of being a tourist in Irkutsk. But we made it back (in a super crowded death trap minibus) and stayed another night without incident, enjoying the benefits of running water and hot showers for another day before our long train trip.

We thought we bought way too much food for the train ride, but when we ran out of decent things to eat after the first 24 hours, it got pretty tedious. The train technically had a dining car, but the guy who ran it acted like any customers trying to buy food were unseemly intruders on his personal universe. So we survived on the kiosk peroshkis, hotdogs and soda for several meals. Not a good diet for a healthy intestinal tract. But we made it to Moscow, where we’ve graduated to street shwarma and microwave street calzones (budget minded as always). We did have a nice pricey meal to commemorate our last travel day with Bevin though.

We had a nice death themed day today, starting with a visit to Lenin’s tomb (much more lifelike, or rather deathlike, than Mao). It was pretty creepy descending into the chilly tomb down a dark black staircase, hushed into silence by humorless guards, greeted by Lenin’s eerily lit face and curiously curled, decrepit hands. After walking by the line of buried Russian leaders (including Stalin) by the Kremlin wall, we took the metro out to Novodevichy Convent and Necropolis. The convent was impressive with its onion domes, intricate murals and old tombs. Then we walked over to the cemetery, which holds some of the most famous Russians in history, including Tolstoy, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Gogol, and many others, as indicated by the rows upon rows of towering, self-important statues and busts.

If you’re wondering where we stand in relation to the original itinerary, basically we’ve decided to take it slower across Scandinavia, so we’re not planning to meet up with Kimmie until the weekend of the 21st in Paris or thereabouts. Also our plans fell through with Nora because her mom is sick, although we may still stay a night in Hilvarenbeek. Tomorrow night we’re taking a sleeper to St. Petersberg, where we’ll be staying at Cuba Hostel for two nights, then off to Helsinki.

By Katie