Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
To our surprise we were denied a view of Baikal until the following afternoon. A
series of lower hills separated the mountains from the lakeshore. Blessed with clear
weather we stopped frequently to film and take photos. The clouds had parted to
reveal an incandescent blue. With the sunrise the grey sloping giants were awoken
from their modesty. Lower mountains, olive green in colour, bore slopes where
even the scraggiest bushes struggled to cling on. In many places the green was
broken by scree slopes where rocks tumbled and seemed to flow like rivers. In the
shadowy crevices the trickling waterfalls and snow shone a brilliant white. Unlike
the mist of yesterday everything was crystal clear. In the intense heat, the idea of
snow seemed far fetched.
The lake appeared just as the road turned to bitumen and my legs felt as if they
would splinter under the strain of more uphill work. Through the trees the unmis-
takable blue glittered in the sun and mountains launched straight up from the far
side, snow drifts glistening like jewels embedded into the cliffs.
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Cevero Baikalsk was a bustling town crisscrossed by apartment blocks and sur-
rounded by a sprawling mess of wooden shacks and train carriages. It had been
built in the '70s purely for the
BAM
railway workers. Nowadays harvesting the
famous Baikal omul fish, a member of the salmon family, is a core industry. I found
it strange that so many cars filled the streets when they were confined to such a
small area. The only roads that were navigable led to the neighbouring fishing vil-
lage of Nizshneangarsk and the hot springs. In winter there was an ice road - a
route marked on the frozen lake when the ice is thick enough - along the lake that
led about 500 kilometres south to the city of Irkutsk.
The population of Cevero Baikalsk was an intriguing mix of nationalities. Many
of the workers on the
BAM
had been recruited from central Asia. When the rail-
way was completed and basically abandoned, many people, reluctant to leave, had
found other means of making a living. Interestingly, by crossing the Baikal Range
we had officially crossed into the Republic of Buryatia, which is home to the
Buryatians, close relatives of the Mongolians. In the market of this far-flung settle-
ment one could find Azerbaijani food, Buryatians with Mongol faces, gypsy fam-
ilies and Russians from all corners of the country.
For us, Cevero Baikalsk was where the road ran out. From here, our task was to
seek passage on a ship that would take us about 250 kilometres southeast to the far
shore, where we could rejoin a road.
