After a very leisurely start, Damian stated that he would pick us up from our hotel at 10:30, breakfast was at a comfortable pace. John found that he was once again able to request a specially prepared omelette (this after he had already knocked off a cooked breakfast) and I managed to find some blinis (Russian pancakes). We were continually served by the Siberian waitresses, all of whom were extremely attractive.
Damian gave us a fairly quick walking tour of the original townsite of Irkutsk, it’s positioning alongside the Angara River, where the original orthodox churches of the city were built, as well as a fairly impressive Catholic Church, built for those intelligent dissidents sent out to Siberia who were not of the traditional religion. It is also interesting to note here that Damian had a somewhat ‘different’ view on life than for the average westerner. For example, when we were standing by the memorial for the unknown soldier, with its everlasting flame brought here from Moscow, the comment was made that Russia had lost the most out of all nations when fighting the ‘Great Patriotic War’ (WW2), of which I fully sympathise, after all, they lost over 27million lives in the war, both civilian and military, but then seemed completely at a loss how certain countries, such as Poland, had torn down those statues raised by Russia after liberating them from the Nazis. There seems to be nothing in their history of the fact that the Russian general stayed encamped for 3 day’s while Warsaw burned, on the orders of STAVKA, in order to prevent Poland from having a functional army. We did see eye-to-eye however, when he mentioned that the Moscow region gets 2/3 of the money raised by the provinces, with only 1/3 to be shared amongst the rest. Given the carve-up Of Australia’s GST, we sympathised. We walked past a group of high school Young Pioneers dressed and marching around the State Government building, a job that every school in the city gets rostered for. This main building was built on the grounds of what used to be Russia’s 4th biggest Orthodox Church, but was burned down in the 30s by communists and replaced. In the 90s, in order to show this, a small shrine was built by way of acknowledgement of the past.
From here we went and saw a statue to both Yuri Gregarin (not sure why as he has nothing to do with Irkutsk) and one of Alexander III (who was instrumental in getting the Trans Siberian built), and then walked to the History Museum Of Irkutsk, receiving many odd looks for the fact that 3 of us were only wearing shirts. John, of course, continued to wear his ‘Stasi’ outfit; long black leather jacket, fedora style hat and dark sunglasses. This museum showed the progression of people through the region, paying attention to the local aboriginal tribes such as the Boryat, and then onto the time of the Cossack settlements and rise of the railway. It packed a little t into such a small area.
Lunch was on the cards, and Damian took us to a local buffet style cafe where he ensured that we had all chosen enough for lunch, and were satisfied, before he disappeared. We finished our lunch and waited about 5 minutes, and then looked around for Damian. No sign. We walked out to the front of the restaurant. No sign. Todd and John walked down to where we had parked our vehicle, that was still there but of our guide? No sign. About 15 minutes after we had left the restaurant, Damian came rushing out of the cafe, and there was a serious look of relief on his face when he saw us!
We picked up a Japanese tourist who was catching the same train as us, and dropped into a supermarket to pick up supplies for the train ride and then drove to the train station. We were still too early, as being Russia they don’t advertise which platform the train is arriving on until only 20 minutes before it arrives. The Japanese got quite concerned as to why we were just sitting there, and it required much use of the translation app to pacify him. Our train arrived on time and we were, for once, not in Carriage 5. We were in 7. The cabins were quite comfortable, and actually have some of the best pillows we have had on this trip. In addition we were given a complementary meal, which we decided to use for dinner, ending up with a plate of some meat and vegetables served with some form of herby sauce. Quite enjoyable, although we did have some difficulties in discussing our choice of beer with the dining staff. A group of 2 English and 2 Germans are sharing the cabins next to us and they are doing the entire 6 day, Vladivostok to Moscow trip. They advised us to try to get Maria as our waitress, as she seems to be the friendliest. Alas, we had already had our meal and were served by Maria, and if she was the friendliest???