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GBT Winterprojekt 2008 - On winter to Siberia – you are creasy!

by Rolf Sieber

My friends react like this when I told them about my journey to Severobaikalsk. Sometimes I didn’t know on with adventure I indent to do. Especially my age isn’t anymore in the thirties.

So on – at 10 of March I started at Zurich airport. At Moscow I got the first taste of Russian air getting on the plane of S7 leading to Irkutsk. The takeoff on Domotedovo has been on time and then after 2 hours of a smoothly flight the pilot inform of a stopover at Novosibirsk. Because of snow Irkutsk Airport was closed and so I got 6 hours of thinking about the Russian way of travelling. Eventually I arrived at Irkutsk Airport. There I realised my English won’t help a lot to get information’s. At least I know the Cyrillic letters to read the names of streets. Lonely but happy to find the hotel and a refreshing shower I relaxed there. My first steps in Irkutsk took me to the GBT-Office. Happy to meet Anya our team leader I got the first information about our camp. The members of our team will meet all together at Severobaikalsk: Marilyn of South Africa, Tanya of St. Petersburg/Russia; Christian and Michael of Germany and I from Switzerland.

After two days of learning about the Russian way of living at Irkutsk, I took the train to Severobaikalsk. Anya, Christian, Marilyn and I travelled in 33 hours all the way along trees and trees and..... to Severobaikalsk. In the mind time we did some studies about living without a shower and a beautiful toilet. I came to the decision, it is not necessary for life to have access all the time to a shower and a Swiss toilet.
At Severobaikalsk our host families have been waiting for us volunteers. For me it had mean talking by dictionary, hand and feet as the family didn’t know hardly any English and I hardly any Russian. But we managed the time and had a lot of fun, good food and an interesting view on Russian life.
At the School of Tourism and Ecological Education (SHTEO): Alyona, Tanya and Michael have been intending our Arrival. We started our camp with a city tour to Severobaikalsk, first testing the ice of the Lake of Baikal. First time we saw this huge "piece of ice" leading to the horizon.

We started our "work" with a hiking tour: From Baikalskoe to the Camp "Ekho" (Path to Boguchan). In between we had lunch on the ice on the lake of Baikal – a real highlight. All on ice we crossed the bay of Baguchan passing fishing holes and cars driving on ice. The next day heavy winds stopped us leaving the camp early morning. Later on we decided to cross the Lake of Slyudyanskie and climbing to the mica mines. On the ice of the lake strong winds occurred. Hiking on the Antarctic must something like that! I have been thinking about my friends words "creasy". Eventually we reached the mines and got a marvellous view all around.

Back at Severobaikalsk we wrote down all the sights of our tour. The mean goals of our camp have been: working out a brochure "Mika trail" and the information board of the campsite. Alyona had planned some more very interesting events: buriat evening with kids; visits of museum; swimming at the hot springs of Gouduschekit, Russian skiing. I have been really interested to see how Russian skiing works. Except Michael all our members of the group decided to climb the hill by foot (for skiing far too steep!!!) We took the adventure skiing on the Russian T-bar lift. This T-bar-lift would put Swiss mountain-railways-inspectors straight to death!! Michael and I had a lot of fun while skiing on the quite nice hills. Near Gouduschekit our friends tried to ski on a small training slope. Marilyn had been happy just to stand on skis first time in life. At the hot springs of Gouduschekit, we relaxed after hard skiing on the Russian mountains.

Another intensive experience was the Camp "School of Active Tourists Groups" at Baikalskoe. Together with 120 kids we compared Russian tourism with tourism in our countries. The kids questioned us about our meanings about Russian tourists in our countries and our own knowledge about the Russians. Between us many addresses exchanged. Really we had open mind discussions with the kids and the heads of those groups. Together with the kids we interviewed the inhabitants of Baikalskoe and got some surprises of the history and the life. For me it is interesting to know that there is no water supply at Baikalskoe. Everybody (600 inhabitants) gets the water out of ice holes on the Lake or of springs/wells. Only we know this system in the Alps very fare a way of settlements.

Back to Severobaikalsk we finished our work at SHTEO and our host families invited us to a "winter barbeque" at the shore of Baikal. At the "loveplace" we had an overwhelming view over the non ending ice of the Lake. We grilled Omul – the famous Baikal fish – on the fire and had a perfect Russian barbeque. Burning the winter seems to be a rite not only known in Europe. We danced around the fire while burning a dressed doll on the fire – the symbol of winter. To the end we fixed a piece of textile on pine trees – a buriate tradition to say I will come back to this place.

The sign post of the end of our camp has been a visit in the sauna and a marvellous dinner. We had to say goodbye to our lovely leaders Anya, Alyona and Tanya. Really our team has been a composition without any disagreement.
Marilyn left by car crossing the Baikal to Bargusin/Ulan Ude. Christian, Michael and I departed by plan from Nishneangask to Irkutsk. Lucky, the quite old Antonov 24 managed to take us safely to Irkutsk. There - our ways switch again: Christian and Michael had some more days at Ulan Ude and I stayed again in Irkutsk and Listwjanka.
All of us are thinking of having another stay at the Baikal one day. Baikal - a nice place and with lovely friends!

Changes for the next Baikal trip:

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