You never can tell

The food in Irkutsk has been underwhelming. We did have one good overpriced lunch of little dumplings and toast, but it was followed up by really gamey lamb plus generic fried things; pickled mushrooms that tasted like chemicals plus salad with unannounced, not scrape-offable mayonnaise; and frozen fish that was not supposed to be frozen. Tonight's dinner was a big improvement, although not really because of the food. Not long after we sat down, the meanest looking woman ever (and this is a land of mean-looking people) sat down at the table next to us. Her hair was pulled back so tightly that it almost distorted her eyes, and the corners of her mouth literally pointed down. She looked like the kind of cartoon character that would pick up an annoying cat or crying kid and throw it out the window. After she sat down she gave us this pointed, withering look that was so extreme it almost made me laugh right out loud. But then a few minutes later she turned around and asked where we're from and started telling us in pretty good English how much she loves New York and welcoming us to Irkutsk. Later she wanted to buy us a drink and when we really didn't have time because we had a train to catch, she somehow produced a Schweppes bottle of Irkutsk-ian moonshine. (It tastes a lot better than Baikal vodka. Or any other vodka.) I don't understand this place at all.

The other noteworthy thing about Irkutsk, besides its bad food and proximity to Lake Baikal, is that a lot of the Decembrists were exiled here. In 1825 after Alexander I (of Napoleonic war fame) died, next-in-line Constantine abdicated (he decided to remain in charge of Poland and married to his non-noble Polish wife) in favor of his younger brother Nicholas (I) and the Decembrists, a group of discontented nobles, tried to use the succession 'crisis' as a platform for revolution. (They just wanted to free the serfs, not overthrow the government or anything.) It didn't work, and they ended up in Siberia. They have a mildly cult-like status here now (the wives in particular are given a ton of credit for following their husbands into exile, although I doubt the newly-single but known to be married wife of an exiled criminal would have done so well alone in St. Petersburg at the time), and you can visit the graves and former houses of the more important ones. The Volkonsky house, which we went to, is basically a mansion, with parlours and chandaliers and nice art. Still a downgrade from St. Petersburg, maybe, but the gulag it was not.