It was my year 12 history teacher that gave me a love of history, especially Russian history. Ever since, coming to Russian has been a dream of mine, it doesn't disappoint.

Irkutsk was a perfectly pleasant town to spend a couple of nights. It has long been a meeting place for fur traders of the west and silk and tea traders of the east. At one time it was also where Lenin sent exiles to Siberia. The range of faces you see here is amazing; Russians, buryats, chinese and seemingly every other ethnic group (of which there are many) in the area. All of this makes it a fascinating city.

Amongst other things we learnt about the Decemberists (rebels against Lenin exciled to Siberia) and that Alaska was once part of Russia. On a more current level, tencel jeans (the soft ones of the 80's) with diamanté butterflies are in for the ladies, whilst the gentlemen favor shiny suits.

The streets are a mix of grand old buildings painted in pretty shades, the traditional Siberian wooden houses with the pretty shutters, all in different states of disrepair and churches. Some of the buildings date back to the 1800's. Blows my mind.

We actually found a couple of restaurants with a form of English menu ( with backstreet boys, Lou bega and moby pumping in the back ground). Again, bar bilini (pancakes) and pelemi (Russian ravioli), not overly fond of Russian cuisine. Though I did enjoy a donut filled with Carmel. Genius.

Time here has become even more confusing. Though we are getting closer to Europe we are now only 30 minutes ahead of Adelaide. Plus it doesn't even start to get dark until 11pm, which is actually kind of great.

We headed to Listvyanka, a town on the lake for an evening. Packed minibuses ply this 1.15hr route. The driver drove like he was possessed, I closed my eyes though as Emmett said, even if we crashed, we were so packed in we wouldn't really go anywhere.

Lake Baikal is massive, looking more like an Ocean to me as you cannot see the other side. I guess to many Russian it's the closest they will get to a beach. Many sunbakers and even some brave souls in the 8 degree water.

In winter temperatures get to -40 degrees and the lake freezes so snowmobiling and dog sledding are all the rage. In summer not much to do at all.

Took a boat on the lake in hope of seeing the very cute Nerpa seals, no luck there. Apparently there are bears in the woods behind the village, probably a good thing we didn't run into one of them, word has it they are not as friendly as they look.

After tiring of trying to find a menu consisting of something other than Lake Baikal Omul (a fish) and tongue (all served with their much loved Dill), we headed back to the big smoke. Time for a 55 hour train across Siberia to Yekaterinburg, where the Romovos took their last breaths.