Photos from the train

MightyMissy's Mighty Adventure

Here is a comment about the Lake.

Wednesday morning, we headed to Lake Baikal. It is HUGE and Beautiful!!! It reminds me of Lake Tahoe in CA but at a much larger scale and less people. The lake was too big for us to drive around in the time we had and we stuck to the lower mountainside of the lake. Many of us were commenting that if it were in the States that developers would have put up exclusive homes and hid the coastline with condos. In general, the parts of Siberia that were saw were gorgeous with birch and pine trees all over the place. Although it looked green and enticing now, apparently the 7+ months of winter deter people from moving there…go figure!

Read more.

Mir-1

Three Go Sideways

News from three persons travelling on a car everywhere...
Interesting article on clrossing Mongolian-Russian border and reaching lake Baikal.

Waking up to the sound of waves crashing on the beach was really nice, and we had a great morning doing nothing chilling on the beach. If we got thirsty at all during the day all you had to do was dip your cup in the lake and have a drink. It is strange to be able to drink straight from a body of water that looks like an ocean. Somewhat reluctantly we paked up and left early afternoon to make camp to the east of Ulan-Ude. Since then we have spent two days driving and have made 700 miles east. This is our first serious driving session for a long time and it feels quite good. The only slight problem is the continued loss of turbo pressure, but it comes and goes and so we can easily live with it.

Find out more...

Such a Shame

Here what we may read about Baikal.

We found the 'beach' (so strange as the Russians come here for a beach holiday, with sand and everything, but its a Lake... very strange) There are absolutley stunning views here, but it seems the Russians do not know what they have, as the litter and smashed bottles are EVERY WHERE (This is the same throughout the whole of Russian... such a shame).

Read the full article at Travelpod.

Irkutsk, downtown.

Photos taken in Ulan-Ude, Buryatiya during spring 2008...


"No tresspassing"

"Toy"

An entry from World Nomads mentioning lake Baikal

The undoubted highlight of my trip to Irkutsk, however, was my visit to lake Baikal. It is absolutely vast and extraordinarily beautiful. I got the bus to Listvyanka and spent the day walking in the little valleys of hamlets and along the shoreside, and swimming in the lake. The valleys were so picturesque with little wooden houses winding higgeldy-piggeldy uo the wooded hillsides, the lake glistening and glinting through the trees below. The lake itself stretches further than the eyes can see and the water is as clear as its reputation. I'd been worried that it wouldn't have lived up to my expectations but no, it was wonderful. Its just a pity I didn't have time to head up to Olkhun Island as its meant to be the most scenic but I really enjoyed what I saw. The hot hot weather helped of course, and although the water was freezing at first you soon got used to it. All thse years as a kid swimming in Scottish waters maybe served as good training! Its so clear and banks so quickly you don't have to venture far from the shore to swim easily.

Where is Jess...?

And interesting blog by Jess who has travelled all over the world... Here is a quote...

The village where we stayed was called Listvyanka, a small little town right on the shores of the massive Lake Baikal. Lake Baikal is the biggest and deepest fresh water lake in the world, and during the winter months is completely frozen over creating a roadway between each side of the lake. It had only defrosted around a month prior to us arriving. It really was the most amazing thing to look at. It was as if you were looking out at the ocean, not being able to see where the sky began and the lake ended. And the water was so clear, that when we did a boat trip out on the lake, you found yourself suffereing from vertigo as you could see directly to the bottom in some parts. The water tempreture at that time was around 1 degrees, so we decided going for a swim would not be the best of ideas!

Read more on her blog...

Solar eclipse observed in Irkutsk

Yesterday, I spent my free time out of city at summer house. We had goo time and observed solar eclipse. I thought it would be darker outside while it happens.

Old house in the center of Irkutsk city

Ice?

Transport "Voshod"

Order your new website in Siberia

Talking about innovation technologies and internet projects.
American and European clients may find it more efficient to order Online services like: web-design, IT project management and maybe more. The problem is that companies like Virtech lack good orders. In other words their customers don't need what they really can offer. I'm sure that people may have good experience working with Russian managers and engineers.

Find out more...

:) they have an english version of website...

Baikal Economic Forum (BEF) – 2008

Baikal region is the way of intagration and collaboration of Europe and Pacific Asia.

Documents to download:

Project of the program.doc

Project of the round tables.doc

Topics to be discussed:

- Decent social standards and quality of life as the basis for competitiveness of the regions of Siberia and the Far East.

- The new town-planning philosophy and the practice of territory development.

- The social and economic strategy: role of the human capital.

- Clean environment, a competitive advantage of the lands of Siberia and the Far East.

- The timber industry of Siberia: ways of development.

- Efficient nature management and the environment.

- Baikal as worldwide heritage: environment, economy, and tourism.

- Tourist and recreation areas: ideas and real opportunities .

- “The Eastern Vector” in the Energy Industry of Russia.

- The energy markets of Russia and the Asian-Pacific Region: integration in the global context.

- The energetic safety of Europe and the Asian-Pacific Region: Russia’s role and opportunities.

- Shared energetic projects: the future and ways of carrying them out.

- The role of international organizations in energetic cooperation.

Organisational fee for taking part at the forum

Name	Register fee, thousand roubles
FORUM’S PARTICIPANT	30*
ROUND TBLE PARTICIPANT (OR ATTENDANT)	5**

*-- approx 1200 USD
*-- approx 200 USD

Preliminary registration of the forum’s participants will be carried out until August, 15th 2008.
Till August 15th 2008 all people wanting to take part in the forum are on the waiting list. The decision to register a person applied for the participation is made by the forums organisational board.If the decision about one’s participation is positive, the forum organisational board bills the participation, it sends the bill to the payer via e-mail or faxes it. The bill is to be paid by August 25^th 2008. Only after the organisational fee has been fully paid will the participant registration be considered.If the decision about one’s participation is negative, that person can still register as a round table participant (under condition of registration fee payment till August 25^th 2008).

Baikal sets a record!...or not

A Russian submarine set the record for world's deepest lake dive in Baikal.

For more info:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080729/ts_afp/russiasciencetechnology

UPDATE:
Recent news reports that the dive did not, in fact set a new record and that the submarine did not dive as deep as was previously reported. Here's an updated news story:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/07/29/lake-baikal-dive.html

Baikal

Hi!

I am planning on making a photo expedition on horseback expedition this
summer around Lake
Baikal and into Eastern Siberia. I want to start from Ulan-ude (or
Ulunkhan, Ust-barguzin or Severobaikalsk), and buy some horses there
from Buyriat horsepeople. I usually spend my summers in Mongolia with
local herdsmen, and this year I want to visit the ethnic minorities
around the Lake. Do you by any chance have contacts from people living
in the Buyriat territories? (i dont mean tourist agency). Or anybody,
who speaks a bit of english and could maybe put me on the way to contact
local horse owners.

Worth a try:)

Thanks a lot!

Adon

www.bedouin.hu

Who said Russians don't smile?

Ulan Ude's claim to fame is having the largest Lenin head in the world. It is very big. The square is dominated by Lenin and people roller blading, skateboarding and BMX biking. I wonder what Lenin would have made of it. ...

Asiatified

Round the world way. See ther is Baikal!





Another nice mentioning about lake Baikal on this blog. Very stylish stuff.
The Transcontinental Oldbones Project

Back in the USSR........

It's Tuesday afternoon and I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Irkutsk, Siberia.

Another story by another wanderer...
Actually, a good example of a good travel experience! :)))

Gerbi Tsesarskaia

The interaction of Nature and the creative human spirit is the greatest source of inspiration in my work. Composite memories of pine- and cedar-covered hills surrounding the Baikal lake in Siberia, of the stillness of Armenian mountains, of the watery grays, pale blues and pinks of St. Petersburg's magnificent buildings, of the curves of its countless rivers, canals and bridges--all of these find reflection in the forms and colors of my work.

Find out more at Miami Photo

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Technorati

I've just signed up to Technorati. This is a verification post so don't pay much attention to it.
I just want to say, that http://technorati.com looks like a pretty good blog search engine.
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Lake Baikal. Island Olkhon. Nikita Bencharov's homestead

There are many different homesteads, hotels and camping areas. But there is one at the lake Baikal on Olkhon Island hosted by Bencharov family, which could be called at least unique. This place is located in a very beautiful place. They know how to do many things which bring great value to the homestead. They involve many different people, cultures, groups and individuals in making their homestead a living thing. Everytime you visit you will see changes and new perspectives.

Nikita Bencharov is a well known name. I wish there be more people like him.
Learn more about Nikita’s homestead.

Russia wins Eurovision!

Check it out here: http://www.eurovision.tv/

Dima Bilan's win for Russia means that next year's contest will be hosted in Moscow.

Image: Dima Bilan performing at the Starii Russkii Novii God Festival in London, 2008

Baikal.doc

From 30.06 to 5.07 Baikal.doc documentary movie festival will be held in Ulan-Ude, Buryatiya.

http://www.baikal-doc.ru/ They have eglish version of the website.

There I learned some news about cinema in Buryatiya.

Dad and Dave

Here is a blog by father and son about traveling through Russia from Vladivostok to Moscow. Pretty interesting with nice photos.

Euro News about Russia

The Champions League Football Final is being held in Moscow. Manchester United vs. Chelsea

Dima Bilan, Russia's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, has advanced to the next round.

Updates to follow!

Artsiberia

From Artsiberia:

"The idea and the goal of the project is to promote Siberian art and to encourage knowledge about the cultural heritage of the Eastern Siberia through art exhibits and exchanges, and the publications of books and articles, cards and posters.

All requests related to cooperation, exhibits, lecture series, publications and art and citizen exchanges are welcomed."

You can find many images of siberian art, also religious buddist and orthodox art. Very interesting and 'real' subjects.

Baikal Butterflies

Here is a very interesting web site about Baikal Butterflies. Would be very interesting for people who study this subject or biology.

Here is the link: http://babochki.narod.ru/pi.html

It is both in eglish and russian :-| actually at the same time. :)

Totally must see. There are many photos of butterflies!

Baikalplan - shto eto?!

Here is a quote from http://www.baikalplan.de/

“It was in spring 1995 when the first curious clique visited the Arabika club in Irkutsk. Actually, the BUNDjugend Sachsen had looked for contacts with an ecological youth club, but what they found was a mixture of cavers, conservationists, and a social youth club on the lakefront of one of the most beautiful lakes of the world. A disused water tower on the verge of a development area serves as their domicile, their activities range from youth camps on the lakefront of Lake Baikal to great expeditions into the longest or deepest cave of the world, their leader is a geologist, archaeologist, shaman, and social worker in one, their operating range is as big as Germany, always keeping in mind their expeditions to the Caucasus or Mongolia, to France and Alaska.

The language abilities were low on both sides, but nevertheless they got along with each other at first go, and ever since each year a German group has visited Siberia or members of the Russian club have come to Germany. Friendships were developed, joint projects were realised, and visions were devised. What was only a touristic exchange of sights at the beginning has become more over the years. An exchange of thoughts and experiences without thinking of all the cultural differences, a joint fascination for the natural spectacle called Lake Baikal, and the wish to keep it like that for the following generations.”

Very interesting vision. This is a very strong community on the web. Everyone should pay attention to it.

Environmental Memoirs

I found this interesting website which has information about Russia and lake Baikal.
Click here -- to go to this page. Also there is some info on Great Baikal Trail (GBT).

Holiday in Siberia Part 1 - Baikal

An article by Edward on Slow Travel

Historically an invitation to Siberia came from Josef Stalin. Unlike Butlin’s it was to a rather different sort of camp, a gulag, or labour camp. Trips also tended to be one-way affairs, with many prisoners literally worked to death. The size and remoteness of Siberia allowed this barbaric activity to go on out of sight if not out of mind of most Russians. If Siberia was an independent nation it would still be one of the biggest countries in the world, and anywhere this size has got to have something special offer. And indeed it does!

We’ve just spent the last few days around Lake Baikal, the biggest single repository of freshwater on the planet. It’s awesome in scale. You could lose Scotland in it. If it wasn’t so far away some people might be tempted to try. It’s also currently frozen, covered with an incredible icy surface that creates a tempting white plain (up to 80km across) between the rugged black mountains that flank the water on either side. The ice is deceptive however, especially at this time of the year. During the numb winter months people happily drive 20 ton trucks across the surface on established ice roads. Come the spring melt it’s a different story. The ice softens unevenly and whilst it is safe in some areas, in others it becomes treacherously thin and downright dangerous. This year 11 vehicles have been lost and 9 people drowned in the deep dark icy waters when the apparently reliable ice has suddenly given way beneath them.

It was with this grisly fate in mind that we were somewhat thankful that the timing of our arrival on Olkhon Island (the biggest in the Lake) coincided with the deployment of a natty little ‘Padoushka’ or hovercraft. This enabled us to skim thrillingly over the ice safe in the knowledge that if it cracked we weren’t going through and into the depths below. And what depths. Baikal is 1637m deep at it’s most abyssal point, and as a result the water remains startlingly, scrotum-shrinkingly cold even in midsummer. It’s also terrifyingly clear with visibility up to 40m down resulting in some swimmers suffering from vertigo – not something you expect whilst taking a dip (but at least it might take your mind off your freezing testicles).

We are almost the first tourists of the season on the island too, only being beaten to this honour by a (very nice) German couple who arrived the day before. Typical. We later met them naked in the banya, so made friends perhaps more quickly and intimately than we might have anticipated. Yesterday however we were literally the only guests at the homestead and as such have been treated like slightly weird, if welcome, oddities. Last night we even had a personal concert on accordion and guitar (not simultaneously I hasten to add) by Nikola the care-taker (‘Because I take care of things’). It’s like being part of a small family and a world away from the summer hordes when the dining room has fed up to 350 people in a day in high season.

Far from the madding crowd. On an island. In the middle of a frozen lake. In Siberia. Bliss.

Peter Thomson

Peter Thomson is an independent writer, editor and radio producer. He’s the author of the acclaimed 2007 book Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal (Oxford University Press), which The New York Times called “superb” and “compelling,” and founding editor and producer of the groundbreaking NPR environmental news program Living on Earth.

New York Times Article on Baikal Warming

An article from NY Times

For direct link: click here.

Family Science Project Yields Surprising Data About a Siberian Lake

In 1945, when Stalin ruled the Soviet Union, Mikhail M. Kozhov began keeping track of what was happening under the surface of Lake Baikal, the ancient Siberian lake that is the deepest and largest body of fresh water on earth.

Every week to 10 days, by boat in summer and over the ice in winter, he crossed the lake to a spot about a mile and a half from Bolshie Koty, a small village in the piney woods on Baikal’s northwest shore. There, Dr. Kozhov, a professor at Irkutsk State University, would record water temperature and clarity and track the plant and animal plankton species as deep as 2,400 feet.

Soon his daughter Olga M. Kozhova began assisting him and, eventually her daughter, Lyubov Izmesteva, joined the project. They kept at it over the years, producing an extraordinary record of the lake and its health.

Now Dr. Izmesteva and scientists in the United States have analyzed the data and concluded, to their surprise, that the water in Lake Baikal is rapidly warming. As a result, its highly unusual food web is reorganizing, as warmer water species of plankton become more prevalent. These shifts at the bottom of the food web could have important implications for all of the creatures that live in the lake, they say.

Although Dr. Kozhov is famous among scientists who study lakes — his 1961 book “Lake Baikal and Its Life” is considered a classic — the new report is “the international debut of the Kozhov family’s legacy of research,” Stephanie E. Hampton of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said in an e-mail message.

She led the work along with Dr. Izmesteva who, like her mother and grandfather before her, is a professor at the university and a researcher at the biological field station it established in Bolshie Koty in 1918. Their findings are being reported this month in the journal Global Change Biology.

Like others who have seen the data, Dr. Hampton said in an interview that she was in awe of the people who had collected it. “Even in the spring, summer and fall, this is tough,” she said. “In the winter to go out a mile and a half on the ice and break through it to take water samples, in a year-round effort for 60 years, is pretty amazing to me. Every time I think about it I am humbled.”

Marianne V. Moore, an ecologist at Wellesley College and another researcher on the project, said she learned about the data in 2001 when she took students in her class, “Baikal and the Soul of Siberia,” to the lake. Dr. Izmesteva spoke to the group and showed a few slides, which the translator said had been drawn from a 60-year record. “I thought he had made a mistake,” Dr. Moore recalled. “So I basically ignored it.”

When she returned with another class two years later and another scientist mentioned the data, “my jaw dropped to the floor,” she said. “I realized this is just extraordinary.”

She got in touch with Dr. Hamilton, who is an expert in the analysis of complex ecological field data, particularly the use of statistical techniques to discern real trends in the messy ups and downs of nature. The center in Santa Barbara financed the collaboration.

Baikal is a place of unusual biodiversity, with many species found nowhere else. Among them are giant shrimp, bright green sponges that grow in shallow water forests and the Baikal seal, the world’s only exclusively freshwater seal. In 1996, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or Unesco, designated the lake a World Heritage Site.

Although it is known that warming is more intense at high latitudes, as in the Baikal area, and that water is warming in other major lakes, including Lake Tahoe in Nevada and Lake Tanganyika in central Africa, many scientists had thought that Lake Baikal’s enormous volume and unusual water circulation patterns would buffer the effects of global warming.

Instead, the researchers report, surface waters in Lake Baikal are warming quickly, on average by about 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit every decade. At a depth of about 75 feet, the increase is about 0.2 degrees per decade, they say, enough to jeopardize species “unable to adapt evolutionarily or behaviorally.”

Over the last 137 years, the researchers say, the ice-free season has lengthened by more than two weeks, primarily because ice forms later in the year. The database, including data on chlorophyll that the family started collecting in 1979, suggest that the “growing season” for plankton and algae has lengthened in the lake. Chlorophyll levels have tripled since measurement began, the researchers said.

Ordinarily, the researchers said in their report, this increased plant growth would be accompanied by decreases in water clarity, but that is not what the data show at Lake Baikal. This finding, they said, “highlights the importance of establishing monitoring for ‘early warming’ before a need for monitoring may be perceived visually.”

Now, Dr. Hampton said, she and other researchers are examining how the Kozhov family’s data fit with records of ecological phenomena elsewhere. So far, she said, “the data correlate well.”

“You could not make up something like this.” she added.

Dr. Moore said Dr. Kozhov died in 1968 and his daughter Olga died in 2000. The family persisted in their work through years of political, economic and social turmoil, especially the collapse of the Soviet Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 when, Dr. Moore said, “funds for the program just dried up.”

Today, she said, Dr. Izmesteva and her colleagues pay for their work in part with fees they earn by consulting or doing environmental impact assessments.

“They sustain the program any way they can,” Dr. Moore said.

Missing Russian Food?

After being removed from Baikal and Russia for over half a year now, I began to get nostalgic for nice Russian food, so I began my quest for a Russian grocery in London and discovered the wonderful Kalinka at 35 Queensway in London (Queensway or Bayswater tube). While most of the products are technically imported from Poland or Germany, you can find all your favorite Russian foods here (or introduce yourself to the delights of simple, tasty Russian food). The store's location near Hyde Park also makes it a great place to go pick up a picnic on a nice spring day. For our picnic, we went for the ‘peasant lunch’ buying two types of sausage, farmer’s chees, black rye bread, eggplant caviar, Russian pickles, and some kvass (Russian soda made from fermented bread) and apricot juice to wash it all down, and then finished with some poppyseed cake and spice cakes (just like on Baikal!). Kalinka is also a great place to buy things like buckwheat flour for a good price, get a nice bottle of vodka, or explore the interesting world of Russian candy.

For more culinary adventures in London, please visit http://peoplewhoeat.wordpress.com/

Baikal Activist Receives International Award

Marina Rikhvanova, one of the founders of Baikal Environmental Wave, has received the Goldman Environmental Prize (the 'Nobel Prize' for Environmentalism) for her efforts to preserve the lake, and bring attention to its issues. It seems that Baikal Environmental Wave has had some recent successes. Congratulations!


Here's the link to the story in the Christian Science Monitor:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0414/p01s04-woeu.html

And the text:

Devoted to saving Lake Baikal, she won even Putin's ear
Marina Rikhvanova is one of seven grass-roots environmental activists who will receive the 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize in San Francisco Monday.
By Fred Weir Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the April 14, 2008 edition

Moscow - In a land where oil dominates politics and environmental issues barely make the agenda, it was a veritable coup.

Concerned with plans to route a major oil pipeline within 900 yards of pristine Lake Baikal, Marina Rikhvanova and her Baikal Environmental Wave advocacy group led thousands of people into the streets of nearby Irkutsk; collected over 20,000 petition signatures; and summoned "flash mobs," which used tactics such as handing bottles of murky "Baikal water" to embarrassed officials.

After two months of protests, President Vladimir Putin pointedly asked the chief of state-owned oil company Transneft on TV whether an alternative route was possible. "If you are hesitating, then there is such an opportunity," Putin told the quavering official. The pipeline was subsequently rerouted.

In recognition of her work, Ms. Rikhvanova will on Monday receive the Goldman Environmental Prize at a ceremony in San Francisco. A biologist and veteran environmental crusader, she has spent her life battling to save Siberia's "sacred sea" – which holds over 20 percent of the world's fresh water reserves – from the depredations of Soviet industrial planners and unregulated Russian businessmen.

"Around here she is a major authority, in both public and scientific circles," says Yelena Tvorogova, president of the environmental nongovernmental organization (NGO) Revival of Siberian Land Foundation in Irkutsk. "[Rikhvanova] is one of the founders and is still a key leader of the movement to save Lake Baikal. She's always been persistent and uncompromising in her principles."

In addition to cofounding Baikal Environmental Wave, Rikhvanova is cochair of the International Socio-Environmental Union, a network of Russian NGOs, many of whom cooperate with her group on Baikal issues. Her organization has received support in the past from a wide variety of international sources, including the US Agency for International Development, Germany's Green Party, the Ford Foundation, the Moscow-based Vernadsky Foundation (an environmental NGO), and others. Its international collaborators include the Earth Island Institute in San Francisco, The Heinrich Boll Foundation, the Pacific Environment Research Center.
Encouraged by the success of Baikal Environmental Wave in banning the pipeline from a sensitive seismic zone near Baikal's shores, Rikhvanova is now organizing to block the expansion of a state-run uranium enrichment facility at Angarsk, just 50 miles from Lake Baikal, where the Russian government is planning to import nuclear waste from around the world for reprocessing.

"It is extremely dangerous for people who live in Irkutsk and along the Angara River, because underground waters move in their direction," says Rikhvanova. "I don't think Rosatom has considered the danger to the region and to Lake Baikal. They do not provide information to the public about their plans, or the possible damage."

Rikhvanova still lives in her cramped Soviet-era flat in Irkutsk, trying to juggle motherhood, scientific work, and environmental activism. "I have studied Lake Baikal all my life and worked and protested," she says by phone. "It hasn't been easy, but it has been interesting."
Rikhvanova has endured frequent harassment from the FSB security service, including several search and seizure raids of her home and office. Last year her adult son Pavel was one of 20 people arrested after a still-unexplained attack on her group's environmental encampment, apparently staged by nationalist thugs, in which one activist was killed and several injured.
She describes it as an attempt to intimidate her. "Pavel is still in prison, although I believe the authorities know everything that happened," she says. "My son never belonged to any nationalist groups."

Environmental activism is growing increasingly hazardous in Putin's Russia, say other ecologists. "If you oppose Transneft or any other state company, you can expect to come to the attention of the state security services," says Roman Vazhenkov, Baikal campaign coordinator for Greenpeace-Russia. "We have growing limitations on freedom of speech in Russia. I know that Marina has had a lot of that kind of trouble. She's been heavily involved in opposing reckless development near the lake, and I fear her troubles are just beginning."
Such determination, evidenced throughout her decades of work, made Rikhvanova one of seven recipients of this year's Goldman Environmental Award, given in recognition of "sustained and significant efforts to preserve the natural environment." The world's largest prize for grass-roots environmentalists, it is sometimes dubbed the environmental "Nobel Prize" and comes with $150,000.

Sometimes called "Russia's Galapagos," Lake Baikal is a unique ecosystem with almost 2,000 endemic plant and animal species. Nearly 400 miles long and more than a mile deep, it is a vast reservoir of pure water – the world's largest – collected in an ancient rift valley at Asia's heart. Rikhvanova, a native of the region, was profoundly influenced as a young girl in the late '60s, when the Soviet Union's first environmental protest movement erupted over a plan to build a pulp and paper mill to take advantage of the lake's unlimited supply of clean water. The factory, which still operates at Baikalsk on the lake's southern shore, has remained a potent symbol of economic abuse for generations of Russians.

"Any biologist dreams of working at Lake Baikal, it's one of the most special places in the world," says Irina Pokrovskaya, a biogeographer at the official Institute of Geography in Moscow. "It's a crime that there's a pulp and paper mill operating there."

Rikhvanova recalls being taken by her father in the 1970s to visit Valentin Rasputin, the traditionalist writer who did much to publicize Lake Baikal's plight within the tough literary controls of the Soviet system. At university, she made friends with Jennifer Sutton, a British woman who'd lived and taught English in Irkutsk for many years.

"Jennifer was interested in ecology, and she would discuss it in class," Rikhvanova says. "At one point she brought in a lot of [Western] literature about the environment and, gradually, our English-language club became an ecological organization."

After graduating, Rikhvanova worked as a biologist at the famous Limnologicial Center on Lake Baikal's shore, classifying the lake's unique fish species. But she turned to activism in the early 1990s after growing disappointed with local politicians' lack of commitment to ecological priorities. "We saw it was no use to work with them, so we decided to do it ourselves," she says. Members of the Baikal Environmental Wave, which Rikhvanova cofounded with Ms. Sutton about 16 years ago, started out lecturing in schools, collecting books for the local library, and producing a monthly magazine about the struggle to save Lake Baikal.

"Rikhvanova and her group never let public opinion in this region fall asleep," says Vadim Takhteyev, chair of biology at Irkutsk University. "One might criticize their actions at times, but on the whole it's positive. Their magazine has done a lot to improve ecological education around here."

Since Putin came to power, an increasingly authoritarian, economically-interventionist Kremlin has clashed repeatedly with local environmentalists. The Baikal Environmental Wave's protests in 2006 and the subsequent rerouting of the pipeline was the first big victory for environmentalists in Russia. Despite the official harassment she's suffered, Rikhvanova says there's hope that Russian authorities will learn to respect the environment. "The authorities are watchful toward us, but at least they are paying attention," she says. ," she says.

Baikal Playlist

This is music that makes me think of Baikal. Some for obvious reasons, other for inside jokes (we had a fondness for musicals and Avril Lavigne).

Mama I'm a Big Girl Now, Hairspray Original Broadway Cast
Солдат, 5nizza
Seasons of Love, Rent Original Broadway Cast
Umbrella, Rihanna
All That Jazz, Chicago 1996 Broadway Cast
Girlfriend, Avril Lavigne
Hymn to Baikal
Midnight in Moscow (I like the Black Swan Classic Jazz Band recording)
Cabaret, The New Broadway Cabaret Cast
Complicated, Avril Lavigne
I Want it That Way, Backstreet Boys
Never Let You Go, Third Eye Blind

Any suggestions for more?

Moods

My new favorite website

BBC Russian. It takes longer to procrastinate by reading the news ;)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/news/default.stm

Ohio State Catches Baikal Fever

Ohio State University is now starting an environmental study abroad program dealing with environmental issues in Siberia, as well as language and culture. The program is based in Tomsk, but will include trips to other important sites, including Baikal - the most important of them all. The program looks like a good introduction to environmental issues, as well as Russian language and culture. The deadline for applications this year has passed, but hopefully the program will be a success and continue in the future, introducing more people to the beauty of Baikal.

Here's the program's website which contains all the basic information, hopefully they'll update it with pictures of their travels this summer:

http://cfaes.osu.edu/current-students/get-involved/folder.2007-11-06.3186332430/russia/

Я Люблю Choco-Pie

On our trip to Russia, we became quite fond of Choco-Pies. Our liking for them started on the Trans-Siberian railroad, when they would come with our tea (for an extra charge, of course). We developed a love for the chocolate-coated spongey cakes filled with marshmallow. The phrase "Я Люблю Choco-Pie" even became a bit of an inside joke. On returning to the States, and subsequently moving to England, I had forgotten about the brief summer affair with the mass-produced pastry. Today a friend asked me to go shopping with her at the local(ish) Japanese grocery. Much to my suprise, I found some Choco-Pies there, sitting on the shelf and begging to be purchased. I complied, and am now happily reunited with the junk food.

Something invisible and magic.

Finally I have opportunity to post great photos by Emma Pratt taken august 2007.











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