Mysterious Siberia

We're moving eastwards on the Eurasian continent. On June 29, our Trans-Siberian train left Moscow at 11:30pm for the 72 hour journey to Irkutsuk, where we arrived on July 3, at 9:30AM.

After meeting our driver, we continued east to the small town of Listvyanka on the shore of Lake Baikal, one hour away by car. Our lodging is located up a dirt road that stretches from the lakeshore into a lush valley. It's a log cabin that shares property with a few other homes, the Baikal Culture Center and an art gallery.

The valley itself has exploded with fresh green wild grass and wildflowers busting into purple, white, yellow, orange and pink blooms. The thick forest of pine and birch flank the valley floor and a small creek runs through the valley floor to the lake. The view from the cabin looks out to Lake Baikal, with it's surface shining cold blue. The opposite shore lies about 50 Kilometers beyond the rising mist of the lake.

Lake Baikal is huge. It holds about 20% of fresh water that exists on this planet. Its surface area is not so large, but its depth drops over 1,600 meters, making it the deepest lake in the world.

The lake hosts a unique set of wildlife including the fresh water Baikal seals who live mostly in the remote, northern part of the lake. Its water is crystal clear, and the rocky bottom can easily be seen. The lake has three distinct ways to purify itself: sponges, corpse-eating shrimp and a unique microorganism that all live in the waters. Unfortunately, many environmentally ignorant Russian tourists visiting this beautiful place mindlessly dispose of their trash on the shores.

As we walked the shoreline we felt the chilly wind blowing off of the lake. The water temperature stays below 15 degrees Celsius during the warmest season, and acts like an enormous water-operated cooler. It's easy to imagine how cold this area gets in winter, just by feeling the breeze coming off the lake in early summer. People told us that the lake freezes solid and that cars can be driven across in February and March.

The people's expressions are much softer here. It only takes seeing us twice for them to share their smiles with us. Our accommodations include breakfast, which is served at the neighbors' house next door. Each morning the grandmotherly woman welcomes us with a smile and serves us a large home-cooked meal. This gives us a sense of the true Russian hospitality. In her backyard is a wonderful vegetable garden, from which she picks lettuce and herbs for our morning meal. Potatoes take up the largest patch and tomatoes grow in the greenhouse along side the laundry hung to dry.

Another neighbor on our hosts' property is an older woman living with her grandchildren. We photographed her working in her potato patch and afterwards she invited us to her house to see her painting. During the long winters she transforms herself from farmer into artist, painting self-portraits and her surroundings in a Chagall-like style.

Unfortunately, the art gallery burned down this past spring. The property owner is busy building the new gallery. Paintings that survived the fire are now shown in a temporary building. I did not expect much out of artists who live so far away from art centers, yet once I stepped into the small room there were many wonderful discoveries. The imaginations of artists in Siberia are fabulously mysterious and surrealistic, sometimes even psychedelic. Their originality stretch out of their own fairy tales and are realized on canvas.

During this short stay by Lake Baikal, we believe that we have peeked into the beautiful natural surroundings and the mysterious lives of the Siberian people.

The City of Vanity

At first I could not think of anything to write about Moscow. Just like the faces of so many we've come in contact with here, totally expressionless. We realized that it's only when they feel a personal connection with another person that their facial expressions relax and their stone facade cracks into a smile. The only exception was the driver who welcomed us at the Moscow airport. His friendly smile was a relief to us, but then again, an American firm is his employer.

So, what can I write about this city? One of the things we first noticed was the decaying infrastructure of the socialist era, most of which are left as-is, at least for now. Another is the new development that replaces the old infrastructure. Fashion houses, like Prada, line the major streets, and the advertisements of world famous designer goods are taking over the sides of typically huge buildings. The monument of Lenin in Red Square now ironically faces Estee Lauder, Louis Vuitton and Moschino housed in the once Soviet owned State Department Store. Russian icons of Jesus located at the main entrances guard these high-end shops.

Fashion among the people of Moscow is following the flow of this new era. The standard, especially among women, is to deck out in designer products (the more famous, the better) with bright color coordination, such as pink shoes, pink handbag, and a coordinated pink outfit. Six-inch high-heels are not rare, and four-inch are standard fare. It looks really difficult to walk through the cobblestone-covered Red Square in those, especially in the driving rain!

There are no alternatives to this fashion trend. There is no casual fashion like we saw in Amsterdam or Berlin. Perhaps it's the rebound effect from the long bitter years under rigid socialism. Or it can be master marketing. While people may live in small, cramped apartments with limited facilities, their disposable income is invested in their outer image.

The visual arts, as we have been following in Europe, are non-existent. Only the traditional forms of performance arts, such as ballet, theater, and music concerts are visible. We, by chance, found a young man showing his friends his art school portfolio at a café, and we asked him where we might find some art galleries. He gave us a name of one, and he said, "It is very difficult to find visual art in Moscow." Probably that's why he is studying in London.

Many people gave us advice and warnings for our visit to Russia. They said "Russia is a dangerous place, don't show anything valuable." We had even heard that there have been bandits attacking trains with gas and that they would take everything from you, leaving the naked tourists behind. Fortunately for us, we found none of these true and in fact saw many digital and video cameras in use, not to mention all the designer shoes and handbags in abundance.

There is so much construction going on in this city. Hotel Moscow's proud structure is being demolished. Hotel Rossya, where we stayed, which occupies a whole Russian-size street block and having nearly three thousand rooms, is also slated for destruction in August of this year. New buildings are being built everywhere. In this era when globalization has reached every corner of the globe, Moscow is going through an enormous makeover. We just wonder, when there would be creative activities out of this consumption-only society and if the art might blossom.