DAY 164 WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 5 FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

The maid knocked on our cabin door half an hour before out alarm was set to go off so that she could take our sheets, pillowslips and towels ready for the next occupants.  We had to set our clocks three hours ahead to catch up with  local time so that it was a 6.30 wake up for a 7.30 arrival in Irkutsk. Waiting for us at the station was a young man named Ivan who spoke beautiful English as he had spent time in the U.S. He drove us in his Toyota Surf (Japanese secondhand import) to Listvyanka along the "Eisenhower Road" which was built for the US President to visit Lake Baikal, but he never came because of the Gary Powers spy incident which intervened.  We checked in at the Chalet "Devyaty Val" and had a Siberian breakfast at 9am.  Quite a big meal designed for hard work in cold weather.  Today the sun is out and people are sunbaking on the pebble beaches of Lake Baikal.  We were allowed to shower and take a nap before 11am when Ivan returned and drove us half an hour away to the open air Wooden Architectural Museum.  This was similar to the one in Helsinki but there was more activity here as new structures were being built.  Most of the buildings we looked at had been removed from the edge of the Angara River and Lake Baikal when a new dam was built and the land permanently flooded.  Ivan explained how they used the tools we saw to build log houses, which was most interesting to us.  Our house would look perfectly at home anywhere in the Irkutsk region, although we saw no cordwood walls.  They preferred to use irregular stones for walls of that type.  We saw how they survived the winters in their houses, went to school where young female teachers took 2 months to come from Moscow to fulfill a 6 year contract, and worshipped in Orthodox Churches built with local skills.  The sauna house was an important part of their lives. There were some Jewish people here so it was a mixture of Fiddler on the Roof and Little House on the Prairie.  A harsh life but quite romantic.

CHAPEL

CHURCH

GRASS ROOF

 We went to the on site restaurant where a huge 3 course meal was included in our tour. After lunch we saw a wooden slide.

And a Cemetery.

  We wondered whether we would cope with another 2 course meal they planned for us at 7pm, but they served us freshwater fish called Omul and it was so delightful and the meal looked so delightful that we had no trouble.  In between time we had gone for a walk along the waterfront of the lake where market stalls were busy.  There was smoked fish for sale everywhere but we were warned it was risky for us to try it.  The weather was perfect all day and the lake looked superb.  The size of it is hard to comprehend.  We looked at the local houses and saw houses of different kinds.

 Before dinner we were scheduled for a sauna in a wooden room with hot timber coals that felt like 40C (no steam).  After 12 minutes of that we bathed in a pool of cool water for another ten minutes.  We were naturally asked a couple of times whether we enjoyed it but Lyn succeeded in avoiding giving a direct answer.  We were neutral. After the fish and a nice dessert of chocolate cake and white soft ice cream we walked back to the lake and watched the sun set.

A lovely finish to a great day.