The Big Lake

Irkutsk (it's on the Risk board) is the closest biggish city to Lake Baikal, which is the world's largest (by volume) and deepest freshwater lake. It has more water than all the Great Lakes combined; take that, HOMES. Fresh off the 50+ hour train ride from Irkutsk (we're halfway across Siberia now!), we bought our next set of train tickets (whine), got in a fight with a taxi driver, and took an hourlong bus/crowded van ride to Listvyanka, which is right on the lake. A rough-ish couple of hours, but entirely worth it. The windows on the bus/crowded van opened, a big upgrade from previous buses/crowded ven I've been on, and as we got closer to the lake the wind got cold, even though it was really hot outside. Listvyanka is hot, but when the wind blows the right way it feels like you're standing in front of a very powerful air conditiner. Not surprisingly, the lake itself is freezing. I whined and shivered and contorted myself just putting my feet in the water, and couldn't keep them in very long because it hurt too much. Also, Lake Baikal has this mist or fog or something that makes it really hard to tell, even on a clear day, where the lake ends and the sky begins; it almost looks like the boats are floating. The bad thing about the area around the lake is the bugs. There are these huge swarming hornet-y bugs that are basically the size of your head, and flies at least twice the size of the deer flies in Michigan that will bite through your shirt. Yikes.

Listvyanka is basically one road that runs along the lake and has some hotels and some fish restaurants. If you walk on the main road past the last fish restaurant you'll be at the edge of town, which is really the quintessential edge of town. There is a big rusty overturned boat on the side of the lake, and car parts strewn about, and abandoned buildings with broken windows and graffiti and unhinged doors. It's exactly the kind of place where you imagine the bad kids go to drink and smoke. Except that I think they can do that basically anywhere here.