Lake Baikal [Holy Sea]

Irkutsk March 9, 2020

We are picked up at 9 a.m. and drive off in a comfortable, 15-seater bus on the north side of the lake towards Ust-Orda. The roads are very bumpy, and the good suspension adds to the wobble. When we later switch to two UAZ Buchanka, everything gets better, which offer unexpected comfort despite the leaf springs.

Approach to the lake

The first ice in sight!

On the way we stop at an Orthodox church and a Buddhist temple, as well as at a shamanic place where all the Buriats (a warlike Mongolian tribe, 600,000 of whom live in Russia) stop to leave a small donation, cigarettes, coins, something to eat. At 2 p.m. we stop for a 4-course meal, which is as always plentiful, and Aldar Baldanov (the name of our tour guide) buys vodka for the evening. And here we change into the UAZ Buchankas, and the adventure can begin. On the worst roads we go downhill through the forest towards the lake. We drive over a sloping, frozen river without batting an eyelid, these cars are really impressive! Finally we see water and arrive at a ranch near the lake and near Yelansy. We spend the rest of the afternoon on the ice. Well wrapped up and facing the wind

I can hardly believe that I'm really here. I've seen so many pictures that I'm not really surprised by the sight, but reality quickly takes over in my brain and I'm overwhelmed! Before dinner I do the first flight with the drone. We have a full moon today and it's as bright as day outside at night. The beds are quite comfortable, you have to go outside to pee, but what really bothers us is the heat from the stove, it's hard to get to sleep and you can't open the windows or it'll be below zero in no time. Finally around 1 a.m. it gets a bit cooler. At 4 a.m. the door opens quietly and the farmer lights the stove again, but this time it's not as hot. These Russian stoves seem to have an efficiency of over 100%, with three logs the large room is heated for 5 hours. For big business we have to go about 100 m behind the house, behind the barricades that separate the ranch from the wilderness. We have strict instructions, also for the coming days, not to go any further at night, as there are wolves and bears everywhere, although the latter are almost certainly hibernating.

Kristovski, Yelansy March 10, 2020

After breakfast at 7:40 we set off towards the island of Olkhone, the shamanic sanctuary. We alternate between land and sea several times. For lunch we stop at a café on the side of the road, again there are four courses and a great meal. On the way we stop several times at ice falls to take photos. And in the early evening we arrive on a headland to spend the night in a hotel. Here, too, we are happy about the lack of tourists. Our overnight stay

The disadvantage of the well-functioning internet connection is that we are learning something about the world again. The paranoia about the corona virus seems to be taking on ecstatic traits and our return flight has been canceled. We decide to forget everything and be here.

Mys Burliuk March 11, 2020

After this comfortable night, we set off at 8:30 a.m. in a hovercraft because the track is too bumpy. We also make faster progress at around 50 km/h, but I like the bus much better. Igloo à la Baïkal

In the hovercraft

On the southern edge of the island we visit an energetically charged place with a Buddhist stupa and shaman flags. Russia is very tolerant, even well-disposed towards its five religions.

Shamanism and Buddhism are merged here

We leave the holy island of Olkhone slightly to the right and only go ashore in Khuzir. The many new wooden houses smell of Chinese tourism. We have already thanked the Corona virus a hundred times for keeping the tourists away from us, we are the only strangers. In a supermarket we stock up on provisions for the next few days and especially beer and vodka, the only drinks not included. We get into a new, military green UAZ, it's really great, but after 10' it stops and we're put into another one that was actually intended but had to repair its cardan drive. The 24-year-old driver Sascha explains to us that he let four black cats cross his path that morning without spitting over his left shoulder, a big mistake as it turns out. 20' later we stop because of a nail in the tire (cat number 2 I assume). He tries to patch it, but can't get the drill injector out and has to switch to the spare tire. We continue with one tire less. After 30' the driver's door opens and can no longer be closed properly. We stop again and repair it. This old ship has seen better days

At lunchtime we stop at a windless, sunny spot on the shore for a simple picnic. Then cat number 4 strikes, the starter fails. Sacha uses a gas burner to heat the engine so that the starter works again.

Every picnic includes a donation of vodka for the lake and a donation to us :-) In the best sunshine (without sunglasses you'll be blind in an hour here) we walk for two hours on the lake. With our Canadian caribou you can walk on the ice, but it's very tiring, so we have to constantly look out for snow tracks where you can get more grip. Luckily most of them have little crampons with them, they make too much crunching noise in my ears. Rock drawings from the Neolithic period, many of which have unfortunately been engraved over by vain tourists.

At around 5 p.m. we arrive at the meteorological station (Mieteostantsiia Solniechnaya), which Tesson also reports on. All weather parameters are measured here and, theoretically, radioed to Moscow every three hours. However, there is a nationwide strike (the only one) of all meteorologists at night. A young farmer's wife is also there with husky, goats and sheep. This really is a lonely place. And then we head straight to the bagna (sauna), which is extremely hot and dark. When I come out again, with bare legs, wet swimming trunks and parka, Lake Baikal is blooming in an unparalleled evening violet. I am so enchanted that I stay outside for 20 minutes and take photos. The next bagna saves me from pneumonia.

Our beloved bagna

At the same time as the 'alpenglow' there are eerie sounds, the ice is working after the sunny day. There are cannon shots, ricochets, cracks, and everything seems to come from an unfathomable depth, for me it is Acoustic Northern Lights.

Cracks in the ice, harmless but spookily beautiful

We are here on the edge of a nature reserve that is not allowed to be entered. On the walls there are many pictures of bears walking between the three houses, in summer they come every day. Now in winter until the beginning of April they are in hibernation. Aldar (our guide's first name) often goes to explore the bear caves, which can be recognized by the steam that rises from their breath. He then takes the GPS coordinates and sells them to rich Yakut fathers who want to initiate their sons. Up to $1000 is paid for this. The initiation of the 13-14 year olds goes something like this: A group of men wakes the bear with long sticks. When it comes out angry, the father usually shoots it in the shoulder blade first, so that the bear can no longer walk on all fours, because it is about twice as fast as a human at close range. The bear stands up and it is easier for the initiate to shoot the bear.

The evening light is stunning, a kind of alpenglow of the better kind. I just came out of the bagna, still wet, but wearing a parka. After 10' of taking photos, a layer of ice crunched on my legs, I didn't even notice

Aldar and the two drivers prepare our meal, which is healthy and delicious with lots of smoked salmon. The obligatory rounds of vodka seem never-ending, and it gets late over the endless stories of Aldar, who is a living and breathing encyclopedia, knows every subject because he has worked as an interpreter for ministers, directors (Vanier, Safy Nebbou) and Mafiosi in France, Germany, USA... He was originally a French and English teacher, drove yurts to France and sold them, picked up cars in Japan to bring them to Irkutsk via Vladivostok. Even today, that seems as adventurous as smuggling used cars through Mauritania. In any case, he has faced several RPGs. He has traded cars for hashish, which he had exchanged for 30L of turpentine oil, which the Mafia needed to paint a bridge on time. He has accompanied the Paris-Beijing Rally 6 times as a guide. My doubts about his Munschhausen stories diminished over the course of the days because I either knew many of the unbelievable things he said myself or was able to confirm them on the Internet. He is extremely precise, especially with numbers.

Aldar's wisdom:

A herd of buffalo always flees from lions at the speed of the slowest animal. When the lions have killed the last of the buffalo, the herd can run faster because the slowest one is now gone, and so the game repeats itself until the weakest buffalo have succumbed to the lion. The fittest ones remain. It's the same with vodka and our nerve cells, the weakest die and only the best survive.*

Metereological station (Mieteostantsiia) March 12, 2020

According to my blood alcohol level, I slept badly, I didn't wake up, but the body doesn't rest, lack of deep sleep. At 7 a.m. I venture out to pee, it's -17º, but no wind, which means you can get by with a simple jacket. The weather has changed, the sky is gray, the sun is a white, cold spot like on an alien planet. Sergeuï, a man in his 40s who seems a little crazy to me, grabs me and asks me to come into his hut. I'm supposed to tune his guitar, which is horribly out of tune, the strings are even in the wrong tensioners. After that, I'm his hero. With his Russian glasses from Brezhnev's time, he doesn't look particularly good, to put it in a PC way. He takes his guitar and strums around on it without harmony or definition...

We don't move on until around 10 a.m., after visiting a fishing hole in the ice. Sergeuï from the weather station pulls the net out of the water with his bare hands, after removing a 10cm thick layer of ice, which forms every night despite the wooden lid, with ice picks. His hands are deep red from frost.

The ice forms anew every night

Ice break fields are often found close to the shore, where the ice plates, driven by the wind, slide over one another like tectonic plates and form small mountains

At lunchtime we have a picnic near Zavorotnjy in light snowfall and 100 m visibility. Then we drive 20 km further to Tesson's hut, which is located on a headland (cedars of the north). We have to stay close to the shore because a little further out a wall of large blocks of ice blocks the way through. We often have a whiteout, our Buchanka jumps in a triangle on the snowdrifts and we drive in extreme zigzags, forced by the bus itself, which is probably guided by the frozen tracks of the previous drivers under the snow. I put on my seatbelt because otherwise I keep falling on my neighbor. The snow is now 40 cm deep, the Buchankas are not impressed by this, but they use 20 L/100km with their hard work.

It's hard to stay on track

Sylvain Tesson's hut March 12, 2020 2 p.m.

And then we are there, actually, it is the hut as you know it from the book and the documentary. Actually, the goal of my trip and my dream has now been fulfilled, when I read the book I wished I could stand in this hut one day, and now it has come true. In fact, this is also the culmination of our journey, from now on we slowly head back. Just 30m from the hut, someone has started to build an Isba, a Russian wooden house.

The author in the snow

Zavorotnaya March 12, 2020

It is really astonishing that practically all the paths, even the worst ones, are marked on OSM (Open Street Map). With Osmand+ we can find our way offline in the remotest wilderness, even Tesson's hut is marked. Our typical picnic lunch on the lake

We spend the night with a landlady, Stasia, 30 years old, who has lived here her whole life and is very happy in this isolation. Unfortunately there is no bagna that could enhance our Siberian experience of contrasts, what a pity. For dinner we have chicken legs cooked in bouillon with penne and sardines as a starter. The night turns out to be less than pleasant. We have a couple in the group that is sometimes unbearable, she has to pose on every ice floe (I don't do that anymore, why, she asks, because I feel disturbed in my world, I answer, oh we're exactly the same, what star sign are you? .... pfff) and he because he only snores once a night, from falling asleep to waking up. Up until now Nico and I have always managed to get into a different room, but today we drew the short straw. I turned it into a meditative task and slept quite well. The toilet is so far away that I don't dare think about it.

Nico with an old Soviet flag in our accommodation: time has stood still

Ouchkany Island, Meteorological Station March 13, 2020

At 9:30 a.m. we set off south, a feeling of melancholy sets in, yesterday we were still cheerfully heading north, loneliness and wilderness, now we are finally heading home again. I envy the French couple in Mieteostantsia who rented a cabin there for a week. We see snow tornadoes on the horizon, the weather changes extremely quickly here.

We turn off the coastal route towards the south coast, towards the island of Ouchkany, where the local meteorological station is our destination for today. We get out and walk a few kilometers. I try to memorize the snow desert, this loneliness, it is a fleeting moment. I turn the drone into a cameraman and fly parallel to us, I have already learned something! But my fingers give up faster than the battery, without feeling it is difficult to control. Ouchkany is clearly visible in front of us, we cannot believe that the island is still 40 km away. That reminds me of the salt lake in Bolivia, where the air was so clear that you could see 150 km away. And there is hardly any difference visually between a salt lake and snow. By the way, in the snow you quickly forget that you are on the water, water that reaches down 1642 m.

When we reach the Buchankas, the drivers unpack the picnic because the sun has broken through. We eat standing in the lee of the buses. You really can't take your sunglasses off, it's so bright out there. We arrive on the island at around three o'clock. The station is very beautiful 'dans son jus', as we French say. We enter a forgotten time zone, as if the clock had stopped here 50 years ago. The four wooden houses are old and lovingly patched up in an amateurish way; everything is patched up here.

In addition to the meteorological installations, there is also an ionospheric sounder antenna, like the one I know from my first Max Planck Institute in Lindau. Three huskies, which they call bear dogs here because they are trained to bite bears on the legs, greet us with high spirits. The area is not tidy, there are old things lying around everywhere, and there are also two UAZ four-wheel drive jeeps from the dinosaur era, the tires are so worn that the fabric is showing through.

At around 6 p.m. it becomes magical outside again with the late light of the sun. I wander around between ice walls, shoot a film and take photos, a great farewell to the day. Finally, the mountains on the Buriat side light up. Then we go into the super-hot bagna, it is the most spacious we have had so far. Due to a lack of towels, I stand in the wind and snow for three minutes, then I am sucked dry by the cold. The stove in the bagna is also completely homemade, welded together from steel sheets, but the heat it gives off is in no way proportional to the little wood that burns in it. Unfortunately, we don't sleep well at night because of the unbearable heat, the tiled stove is too warm. Windows cannot be opened because of the double front windows. The only option is to open the door.

*This little husky gave his mother a lot of trouble

• The surrounding mountains promise endless expanses of an untouched world

Khoujir, Olkhone March 14, 2020

We set off again at around 10 a.m. after a bad night, the stoves are simply too hot and last too long. The heat turns out to be the real problem in Siberia, not the cold! On the way to Khoujir on the island of Olkhone (approx. 120 km) we stop at beautiful rock formations and ice caves. We get back in touch with the world. Weekend tourists from Irkutsk spoil our beloved solitude and our cell phones get their fill again. The corona madness reaches us.

Olkhone is considered THE shaman island in Russia and the population is Buriat. The whole island and Lake Baikal itself are a nature reserve. That's why there are neither gas stations nor paved roads here. The waste water is transported to the mainland in tanker trucks. The law enforcement officers are apparently very strict, except for the driving ban on the lake. Our whole tour is actually illegal, but the law is not yet enforced, too much tourism depends on it. Fishing is also prohibited, which is quite upsetting to the locals, who, as usual, are not to blame for the overfishing, but rather make a living from it. Aldar says that one day, not too far in the future, the gamekeepers will suddenly be eaten by bears, it works here like with the Corsicans.

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