Friday, January 7th

The following day, I awoke in the train. I asked where we were, and another passenger, perhaps a Russian, answered me that we had crossed Красноярск (Krasnoyarsk) several hours before, a well known UFOs research centre and scientific city built on Енисей (Ienisseï) river. I gathered that we would soon enter the Siberian historical centre, Irkutsk.

ИРКУТСК, километр 5100

Irkutsk was a nice city with an unusual atmosphere and an interesting architecture. It had been one of the oldest cities in Siberia since it has been founded in 1686 by Cossacks. This city owed its wealth and expansion to gold, mammoths ivory and zibeline exportations. In the XIXth century, it had become the European gathering place of pioneers and gold seekers. But this wealth had always caused violence. So it was quite logical that the city was one of the most dangerous places to live in during the Russian Revolution, since it had been an impressive theatre of fights between communists and czarists.
Nevertheless, 66km on the West of Lake Baïkal, Irkutsk was said to be “Siberian Paris” thanks to the magic it gave off. As I already knew the truly amazing beauties of Lake Baïkal, I preferred to spend my time visiting the city itself.
I first noticed the beautiful Eastern Churches. Those buildings impressively radiated all the essence of Orthodox faith. Typical wooden houses, theatres and museums concluded my discovery of Irkutsk. I could now imagine better why some Russian writers had spent their entire carriers and lives in this city.

I had a look at my watch; it was time to return to the railway station.


The train stopped in the middle of the night and I gave a jump. Was it a technical problem? That was what I first thought, but this idea disappeared fast when the first passengers came in. We were in Ulan-Ude station:

УЛАН-УДЭ, километр 5600

The train had finally and definitively entered Asia. Indeed, a Mongolian atmosphere penetrated the carriage as new voyagers sat down opposite me. We were still on Russian territory, and yet I was sure that this calm and friendly Asian town had a lot of interesting and exotic things to show.
What a pity! The stop was too short to adventure into this puzzling place. I was reduced to travelling alongside huge and magnificent river Амур (Amur), natural border of more than 2000 miles long between Siberian Russia and North-Eastern China, on rails that guided me to Vladivostok. I would see just a little part of it before reaching salted landscapes of Far Eastern Russia.