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Lake Baikal by Rowena Hilton The next day, we left for Lake Baikal. At 8am in the morning at the bus pick-up point, it became clear to me that I was to be a summer camp councillor for 60 children aged between 8 and 17.
The journey took some 9 hours, although it is only about 250km from Irkutsk. The landscape is superb and constantly changing. It felt as though I was stuck in some Nintendo game, where the background rapidly and repetitively flashed around me from mountains, to steppes, to forests, to mountains, to steppes...
Finally, the camp leader ordered the hoards of kids to unpack and I was free to go and explore the famous Lake Baikal. It was just as beautiful and incredible as I'd expected. Mountainous islands spring out of crystal clear water and the sheer mass of it is completely awe-inspiring. It holds a very romantic atmosphere and Russian legend says that if you meet someone at Baikal the relationship will last forever. Some Russian couples even take holidays in Baikal in the belief that it will help patch up their troubles.
The daily routine included waking up around 8am, morning exercises, breakfast (porridge in all forms; from rice and milk to pasta and milk to mushy stuff and milk), I would then hold a short English lesson - or play a game in English; 'Celebrity Head' became their favourite. Then, we'd have lunch, which was usually soup, followed by activities like hiking, swimming or a ball game.
On my fourth day there I had what I would class as a true Siberian experience. We set off around 10am in the morning in shorts and t-shirts, as it was a really beautiful morning, for a hike in a gorge. Some 3 hours later, just as we were in the depth of the gorge and about to have lunch, sheets of rain started to drop. The sky went as if it was near nightfall. We had to get 60 cold and wet children back to camp, another 3 hours back. It was quite frightening as within half an hour the gorge had filled with water up to our knees and boulders were falling from the cliffs.
It was really freezing, as there was a cold wind blowing off the mountains. One girl, Nastya, offered me her little cardigan to wear, although she only had a towel wrapped around herself. Such an act of unselfishness from a ten year old touched me very deeply. These beautiful children never complained, not even when their lips had turned blue and they could no longer feel their toes.
The word Siberia brings an instant visual picture of harsh snowstorms to one's mind, and I am sure that this is realised in winter. But in summer Baikal is an especially peaceful and serene place to visit, when the wind is not howling. Bright wild flowers and mushrooms cover the mountains and silk worm butterflies are plenty a more than mosquitoes. The lake is a beautiful place to swim and is clean enough you can drink it.
There were no showers, so I went swimming in Baikal almost everyday. Once a week we would have a Bunya, which is like a Russian sauna. They would heat up a wooden hut by the lake and we would go in in groups of four. The idea is to get really hot and sweaty and then hit each other all over with birch leaves. When it got so hot we couldn't stand it any longer the tradition is to run out of the Bunya and jump in the lake. Hitting the cold water brings an instant and pleasant rush to the head.
I was invited to have lunch with a Russian family one day. They filled me full of food and vodka and all of a sudden I could have a basic conversation in Russian. One of the ladies was the last in a long line of Russian gypsies and she looked into my destiny via my birthdate. Her reading was something like Chinese numerology - but far more convincing and more insightful than I would like to admit.
I became really close with some of the children and I was really sad to leave. By the last week I felt as though I'd gone through so much with them and I felt like some of the Russian toughness was rubbing off on me. I could stomach fish, I could sleep on a lumpy bed, I could squat and do my business, I could go without a shower for a whole month. But, I still have a lot to learn from them. Although, I was the foreigner and I am supposed to be the one with the money and 'the good life' I felt that I took far more from them, than I could possibly give.
Now I think Moscow and even the stunning St Petersburg pale in comparison to this part - the heart, of Russia. It is the heart of Russia twofold. Firstly, geographically, but secondly, it is full of people that contain hearts that are equal in size to the Siberian mountains themselves. |
