"Irkutsk: 5185 km / 3221 miles east of Moscow, by train"

There is no doubt that Irkutsk is the most beautiful of the Russian cities I have visited. The city is bigger than Oslo, but even in the city center there are small wooden houses, from long before Soviet times. They have great wooden carvings all over, and they are painted in many different colors. A huge majority are falling apart, which provides many opportunities to take interesting photos, and in general gives you a great insight in what Russia looked like before the communist rule. The contrast of old, vastly decorated buildings, both in the city center and in the outskirts, to the huge concrete bricks erected by the Soviet Union, is like on a time-line in the history book.

Everywhere you go in Russia today, you will find traces of the Soviet Union. Some places it still seems like this era of government is still active. One example is normal drinking glasses. During the times of a planned economy, or actually, command economy, the government provided a design, and made factories around the country produce the things they were told. This way, all drinking glasses were identical, everywhere. Of course with the cost of not being able to choose a design or quality, this created several opportunities. For instance; in a Russian recipe, there are no specific measurements in terms of grams, or deciliters. All recipes are measured in glasses. In Norway this would be a problem, since every household has different glasses. But here, everywhere I go, on the train, in CouchSurfers' homes, and even in some restaurants, they still use the same glasses as they did during soviet times. Yes, of course they have IKEAs all over Siberia, which brings all kinds of glasses to the market, but even if they buy a few glasses in a different design, everyone has a majority of the Soviet style drinking glasses. To not have them would just bee too hard for anyone cooking, I assume.

The temperatures in Irkutsk have not been too bad. It is supposed to get colder after I leave, so the timing was perfect. Around -26 to -30 C (-22 F), has not been a problem. But I have got a little cold, so I am coughing quite a lot. This made me spend one full day inside. And hopefully I will get better by the time I reach Mongolia.

I was not planning on staying for more than one night in Irkutsk, but the transport to Ulaanbaatar does not leave that often. I came here in the morning of Friday, January 8th, and the first trains left on Sunday and Monday evening. Then, when I was at the train station to buy the train ticket, the prices were very high. They wanted 4500 RUB / 850 NOK, so I decided to take the train on Monday evening to Ulan-Ude, South of the Baikal lake, and go bus from there to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia. This came up to a total of less than 1500 RUB / 280 NOK. I will do this trip with the Swedish and Australian guys I met on the train to Irkutsk. (Should be a lot of fun stuff to write in the next blog post!)

One of my days here in Irkutsk I went out to a museum village about an hour from Irkutsk. When they were building a hydropower electric station they flooded large areas, so the buildings in the museum village were removed from their original locations in several towns that would be placed under water. It was very interesting to walk around there, and the nature around the museum was beautiful. On the way out there we took a bus, but on the way back I talked to a random guy in the parking lot and hitched a ride back to Irkutsk. The guy was driving a large van, and had his whole family in the car. There were two boys, around 7 years old, who were playing with balloons. It was a lot of fun, even if they did not speak any English. Of course, Elena helped me translate, so communication was not an issue, but she was a bit embarrassed that she was Russian and hitchhiked. This is the thing travelers normally do. It is the same as when I am hitching short rides in Norway I assume. It does not feel as right as it does here. But people are nice everywhere, and as long as I feel safe; hitchhiking is a lot of fun!

All since I arrived in Irkutsk, my CouchSurfing host, Elena, was helping me with all kinds of things. Irkutsk is not a city as easy to get around in as Moscow, so being with her was great. She also prepared a lot of food for me, and made me many different drinks to heal my throat. Her brother Slava is also a great guy. Very smart, and his English is great for only being 17 years old. Elena says that she is not a talker. This is not true. She also says that her English is not good. That is also not true. She is for sure a good singer, and one of the songs she is learning now is Solveigs sang, composed by Norwegian composer Edward Grieg. I helped her read the lyrics so she could get the pronunciation right. She will be studying in a vocal class in Italy soon. Italian is the language you need to know to sing Opera, I guess. I had the pleasure of hearing her practice. It is really interesting to see all the different professions people I meet on this trip, are into! I have only been through Russia, and singing and online poker is already on my list!

CouchSurfing is about mutual exchange of culture, so since all the people I meet are constantly giving from their culture, and them selves, I am trying my best to give a lot of Norway back. Today tried to make 'Rømmegrøt' (a traditional Norwegian porridge), but I did not succeed in getting the fat out of the sour cream, so the taste was not right. The texture was perfect, and I did not burn it, so for it being the first time to make this from scratch, I am almost satisfied!

If you read this, thank you a lot for all the help and for hosting me, Elena!