9 April: This morning the frozen lake glistened white under clear skies and bright sun.
We visited the Wood Architecture Museum. Early wood homes, churches, schools, stables and other out buildings from all over Siberia have been moved to this location. This was an outdoor exhibit and temps were just below freezing but sunny, normally a great day for a walk through the woods. However, I was feeling worse with each hour, by lunchtime I was having cold chills. It was a great lunch; the first time I have had borch that I liked. After lunch I asked the guide to drop me off at the hotel. I piled lots of blankets on the bed and spent the afternoon and all night trying to stay warm.
Here is what I was told I missed: Lake Baikal museum and the world’s only fresh water seals, a chair-lift to the top of the mountain with great views, a tour of St. Nicholas Church, dinner at the hotel, and an evening at the local market and other spontaneous events. Betty: He not only missed the chair lift to the top of the mountain, but our guide brought vodka and home-made pickles and taught us a very important ritual to chase away bad spirits. We all enjoyed the ritual and the “spirits”.
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A much nicer day – weatherwise! The sun is out, and the wind has died down. We start the day with a visit to Taltsy – a museum of wooden architecture. In this place of several acres along the river, several buildings have been brought in and reconstructed to show the history of the people of Siberia. Many of the buildings were located in flood zones or in risk of being destroyed, so they had been removed to this place. We saw the tee pee type structures of the earliest nomadic people, the compounds built once agriculture turned them away from their wandering – a mill house, a school house still in use in the 20th century, two churches, etc. This “museum” also has little tourist shops, education centers, and space for markets.
Then we go to lunch at a local restaurant. It was great. We started with a salad, then borsht, fried fresh fish and vegetables, and finally ice cream and fruit. Chuck left us after lunch. He is afflicted with a horrible cold or maybe the flu. After lunch we went to the Museum of Lake Baikal. This museum is also a research center where scientists continue research into the whole ecosystem of the lake. The museum has several aquariums one of which had two fresh water seals swimming in it. They were so much fun to watch – swimming and playing, poking thir heads through the hole in the ice, then peaking at us starring up through the water.
When we finished up at the museum we took a cable car to the top of a mountain overlooking the lake and drank a toast to the spirits of the place with a shot of vodka provided by our guide. This was the beginning of an evening of hard partying for me, and when I thought I was ALL DONE—–,a Russian gentleman asked me if he could buy me some presents (Want a cookie, little girl?). SOOOOO, cognac, vodka, champagne, and chocolate were laid out on the bar, and we celebrated an era of friendship – sort of. I paid a heavy price for my efforts to improve relations with our Russian friends. Fran