A Swim

Good sunny day, -15.

 Russia, Siberia, Lake Baikal, 14 January

Good mood boost from Olkhon Island, lake Baikal

Olkhon Island from Dim on Vimeo.

A summer behind the Iron Curtain: documenting the fall of the Soviet Union

The best word to describe Tree Gore is “adventurer.”

Stories from his latest adventure sound like scenes from a Russian version of James Bond, and he ultimately hopes that his new project will inspire other young people to travel and explore the world beyond the classroom.

Gore, a UVU aviation student, and Christine Armbruster, a BYU student and photographer, set out to explore and document the tiny forgotten or unnoticed towns of Russia left destitute after the collapse of the Soviet Union. These towns, called monogorods, are settlements that were built around a single industry, much like mining towns once popular in America. After the collapse of the USSR, the nearly 2 thousand monogorods shifted from being government controlled to private ownership. Because of tough competition with the free market, many towns prospered while others were left impoverished or even barren.

While much has changed in Russia since the Cold War, its effects are still felt by the millions of people living there, yet no one is really paying them any attention. Fueled by curiosity and the desire to share the immensely important but untold stories of Russian life post-Soviet Union, Gore and Armbruster spent their summer roaming through Russia with just the clothes on their backs and two backpacks full of equipment to make their upcoming documentary “Half Day Around.”

The filmmakers prove that you don’t have to be a Columbus or a Werner Herzog to explore completely foreign territory. “My hope is that the film will help inspire other students to travel and learn about a different culture than their own. With traveling comes a type of learning that you can’t get anywhere else,” Gore said.

As he works on sorting out the footage, photos, and memories of all the experiences he had on the other side of the globe, Gore noted that the most important lesson he
learned is that “despite the fact there are bad people and horrific things in this world, the majority of people are great and eager to lend a hand.”

His entire journey was made possible through the kindness and generosity of friends, family and even people he had never met before. While in Russia, it was the strangers he met on the street that offered the young filmmakers a place to stay or volunteered to act as tour guides and translators. “Some people might say we were lucky,” Gore stated, “but the more optimistic view is that there are people out there willing to help others.”

Although the filming for “Half Day Around” is mostly completed, the project still has a long road ahead of it. Gore and Armbruster are hoping to raise the last of their needed funds by September 13, 2011. The filmmakers plan on presenting a teaser for the movie by December and are arranging gallery showings to display photos and profiles of people from the trip. The film will make its debut sometime next year.

For more information about the project visit the blog or help donate to the cause through www.kickstarter.com.

This article is from UVU Review website.

Kree-Sha

Catamaran Tours along the shores of lake Baikal

 

Baikal ice desert

Stephen MC Day photography

"Staraya Angasolka" village. The great escape.

Visiting South lake Baikal area, "Staraya Angasolka" village. Where "Alp Base Angasolka"is located. One of the best hostels and activity centers
on lake Baikal. Very small village, no cars and just few houses.
Welcome to the land of peace and pure nature.



Photos by Claire and Jeff (CA, USA).

Professional Photography of Lake Baikal

Visit our new project and find out where you can find the best photos of lake Baikal and surrounding areas. Also featuring photos of Nepal and North India.

Order suvenirs and other products.

Baikal Club International Photography

Guy Meachin photographer

Check out great photos from lake Baikal by Guy Meachin.

James Morgan Photography

James Morgan, photographer, visited lake Baikal and Siberia recently. Good pictures and cultural experience. Visit his website to see some of his work.

Irkutsk and Baikal (Listvyanka) in February

Web Album: Baikal February 2009

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...

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!

Similarities

Mysterious (to me, anyway) stone structure on the banks of Baikal near Kodil'naya Valley. Doesn't it look quite similar to...
...Stonehenge?

Eco-Tourism in Wales and Russia

NB: This is not a well-researched academic article, just some observations from my travels.

After the closure of coal mines in the UK, Wales was forced to revamp its economy, and find other sources of income. One of the methods of so doing has been to develop the country's tourism industry, including a large eco-tourism sector. With the natural beauty of the lush green mountains and hills, and the picturesque ruins and flocks of sheep that dot the countryside, and its relatively easily-accessible location (approximately a 3 hour drive from London) Wales is ideally situated for a tourist industry. Some creative Welsh groups have even taken Wales' industrial past and used it to attract tourists. For example, at Pyll Mawr (Big Pit), visitors can visit a coal mine and see it's inner workings. The Museum of Welsh Life in St. Fagan shows architecture from many periods of Welsh history, from a Celtic Village to a Coal-Miner's home in the 1980s. My impression was that the locals were glad to have tourists, and didn't mind sharing their stories and histories with visitors, as long as you didn't call them English.

Image 1: The Wye River near Tintern Abbey.

Russian eco-tourism, however, has a different feel to it. It hasn't developed as an industry from a previous industry, but has developed on its own. The populace seems less responsive to eco-tourism, mainly because it seems that it will do more harm than good to the environment.

Image 2: A Russian Conservation sign at Shaman's Rock on Olkhon Island.

I see three main differences between the Welsh and Russian eco-tourism industries that have allowed the Welsh industry to be largely integrated, while the Russian industry remains on the fringe. The first of these is the previous condition in the area. With Wales' industrial past, much of the country's national beauty was in danger, so eco-tourism was a boon which saved and preserved many of these sites. A poster I saw in Wales said "Protect the Best, Restore the Rest" (or something along those lines). In Russia, though, because of the vast size of the country, many areas had been minimally effected by industry, and were not screaming to be saved and protected. To many people it seems that eco-tourism will harm the environment, rather than save it as it did in Wales. The second difference between Wales and Siberian Russia which effects the effectiveness of eco-tourism is the comparative degree of infrastructure in the countries. Again because of Wales' industrial past, it has well-developed roads and bridges which can support the tourist traffic. In the Baikal area, however, the main source of transportation is boating, which can be a difficulty for tourists. The third difference between the two countries is government regulation and support. Wales, as part of the United Kingdom, has a strong and effective centralized government which can reasonably effectively enact and enforce environmental protection regulations. Russia on the other hand, although it has a strong central government, is less effective at enforcing environmental protection regulations. Because of this difficulty, eco-tourism can become a can of worms in Russia, where tourists could destroy the national beauty because laws are not enforced.

Green Mountains

View looking south from the mountain north of Bol'shiye Koty.

Getting to Baikal

In my Russian History class, the professor said "Can you even imagine how long it would have taken to get to Irkutsk in this time?" My mental response was, "Actually, I can, because I can tell you with complete certainty that even now it takes forever to get there." To reach Baikal we flew to Yekaterinburg, and then took the Trans-Siberian Railroad across the vast expanse of Russia to Irkutsk. The Trans-Siberian Railroad is relatively famous (perhaps infamous?) and romanticized as the last great railroad in the world. I confirm that the train journey is certainly an experience.


We travelled in "hard class" so we were grouped four in a cabin. Our furnishings were two bunk beds with a small aisle between them. In this aisle was a small table which we used to eat, or more frequently, play Scrabble. The journey from Yekaterinborg to Irkutsk was to take fifty hours, so it provided an excellent opportunity for us to get to know our travel companions very well. In addition to socializing with our travelling companions, we met many other travellers on the train. Some got to know the man in charge of the dining car, and from him procured many a Choco-Pie. We also met a young Australian couple who had recently been living in London, who were moving from London back to Australia, and taking trains as far as possible. Also on our train were a group of young Russian soldiers who were being re-assigned to the Far East. We also spent a great deal of time sleeping on the train, and writing in our omnipresent journals. After fifty hours spent thus, we were glad to arrive in Irkutsk, although our journey was still not over.



We were met in Irkutsk by our Russian companions, and loaded onto a bus to drive to Baikal. The drive took approximately an hour. When we reached the shores of Baikal, amazed by how beautiful it was, but too disoriented to properly process where we were, we had a one hour boat journey to our final destination. When we arrived, we were greeted with breakfast, and were glad to have a place to stay and call our home for the next few weeks.

Photographs:
top: The view out the window from our car.
bottom: At Krasnoyarsk, an historical train commemorating the Great Patriotic War (WWII)

www.trans-siberian.co.uk

Nice view

on Baikal.

Photos from Marina:






I wanted to take a picture of a shooting star, or night sky, but my camera is too weak to do that...

The Sky at Baikal

One of the most incredible things we saw on our trip to Baikal was the sky there. It sounds like something simple, but it was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.

The night sky was ten times more brilliant than any I had seen in the US. The Milky Way was a wide band across the sky, and there were smaller ribbons splitting off from it. Many of us mentioned that looking at the sky over Baikal was like being in a planatarium, except it was real. There were so many stars in the sky that many of us couldn't identify simple constellations like the Big Dipper, because there were so many other little points of light between the major stars that we knew from home. Late at night, we were also treated to shooting stars which streaked across the sky.

The sky in the day was just as spectacular in its own way as the night sky. Baikal treated us to multiple rainbows, and the sunsets were fantastic. One evening in the East we were treated to a rainbow at sunset reflected in the lake. In the West the clouds blazed blue, purple, pink, and orange over the mountains, giving us a technicolor view of Baikal's beauty.