Famous places

Olkhon

     the biggest island in Baikal, with steep mountains on the Eastern shore . The western shore ends with the many bays of the Maloye More. The island is 72 kilometers long and 15 kilometers wide with a population of 1500 people. The major occupations are fishing and cattle herding. The Island 's aboriginal people are Buryats. The "capital" of the island is Khuzhir. Scientists still debate whether "Olkhon" translates as "little forest" or "dry" as both names fit well. The amount of precipitation is extremely low here- about 240 mm per year.

     Olkhon has many beautiful places, and everyone discovers his or her own beautiful place on Olkhon.

     Burkhan Cape (Shaman Rock) - known as one of the palaces of Heaven's gods, tengrii, and one of Asia 's most sacred places. This is the most famous of Olkhon's capes. Here, many testimonies of ancient people's lives were found. The strongest of heavenly tengiies (gods) chose Shaman Rock to be his home, and people were not allowed to go there. Many years ago people used to cover hooves of their horses so as not to disturb the great spirit and master of the rock. Now people are not supposed to think negatively or behave badly here.

     Sagan-Khushun, White Cape , or Three Brothers - is made of light marbles which are covered with red lichen. The beauty of this place was described by the famous Russia writer, Valentin Rasputin: "l would choose this place as a grave for Ghengis-Khan. And I would bring here people with different sins to show them what they are fighting against; I wish poor souls found here relief, ill people - health, and people with big egos - humility".

     Khoboy - the most northern cape of Olkhon, when looked at from the water, it resembles a woman's profile. You can hear multi-voiced echoes reflected by a great boulder and meet rare plants. From the cape you can overlook the great panoramic view of Maloye and Bolshoye More, and if the weather is good - Ushkanii Islands and Svyatoy Nos ( Eastern Shore of the lake). Someone once said that Khoboy seems to be the end of the Earth - as it is surrounded by water. "Khoboy" means "tusk". If you are lucky, you can see seals that come to sun bathe on the rocks below. It is one of the sacred places on Baikal.

     Uzury - is a valley that brings you to the Bolshoye More, where there is a great panoramic view of Baikal. It is the only valley with easy access to the water in the north of the island. Here is a little settlement with a few research centers from The Russian Academy of Science including the Institute of the Earth's Crust.

     Zhima - is the highest mountain on Olkhon. It is a sacred place where, as legends say, lived the Master of Olkhon. Here, fragments of Bhuddist hut called "mankhos" are found. On the western side, relicts of spruce trees grow that were found by Nikolai Reviakin, a teacher from the local school, in 1963. Traditionally, women were not allowed to go up the mountain.

Listvyanka

     Listvyanka is the most visited spot on Baikal, a tourists' Mecca . Listvyanka is located to the southwest of Lake Baikal near the source of the Angara. The settlement stretches in an arc along the coast at the foot of a high stony ridge.

     Russian pioneers came to this spot in the middle of the 17th century, and a hundred years later there was a stage-post here. The settlement grew along with the development of navigation on Lake Baikal. Listvyanka is now a small settlement, but it has shipbuilding and ship-repairing yards of its own.

Lake Baikal can be visited in a one day trip by the highway. The route runs through the taiga forest as far as Listvyanka village - a small Russian settlement - the best destination for the first acquaintance with Baikal.

Listvyanka is also the site of the Limnological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences . The village is situated on the shore of Baikal in Listvenichny bay - the place where Angara river, the only outlet, flows out of Baikal.

The distance between Irkutsk and Listvyanka is 68 km.
Activities: sightseeing excursion; cultural & ethnographic sights.
Winter activities: Dog-sledding, snowmobiling, down-hill skiing.
The duration of the tour to Listvyanka depends on the places you are going to visit. It can be from 5 hours to 1 day. One can stay there for a night or to spend several days enjoying the sunsets and home-cooked omul specialties, a famously flavorful salmonoid lake fish

History / Facts:

Listvyanka received its name because of the larch trees, that grow on the neighbor cape "Listvenichny".

1645: first Russians appeared in Listvyanka. It was a group of Cossacks headed by Ivan Galkin. Unlike other local villages founded by colonization, Listvyanka became important from economical point of view. At that time Listvyanka did not have a single house.
1701: the first structure was built in Listvyanka. It was a chapel constructed on the spot of the modern Nicola Village .
1716: people began to settle around it. They were mostly fishermen and sable hunters.
1725 - 1730: many of the Irkutsk middle class residents moved to Listvyanka. Soon it became the main point of trade and communication with Asia .
1843: Listvyanka became the most important among neighboring villages.
1860's: the village grew up very quickly because of the shipping company of Hamesnov and Russanov.
1873: Listvyanka was a village in Irkutsk province with a population of 195 people.

Circumbaikal Railway

     The use of Siberian exile for punishment of criminals and political offenders began almost immediately after the conquest, but accelerated with the rise of the Russian revolutionary movement in the 19th century.

The Trans-Siberian Railway greatly influenced the composition and size of the population of Siberia .

After the railroad's completion in the early 1900s, Russian people migrated to Siberia in much larger numbers than before, greatly increasing Russian presence in the region. Tsar Alexander III conceived of the railroad in the late 19th century, and construction on several sections took place simultaneously.

The Trans-Siberian Railroad links the economy of Siberia with the rest of the world. The railroad, which has fueled the development of trades and industries in Siberia , has led to an associated population growth in the region. The longest railroad in the world, the 8000 km (5000 mi) Trans-Siberian crosses a vast area made up mostly of the Asian part of the former Soviet Union .

The construction of the Circumbaikal Railway encouraged the further investigation of the lake. A large hydrogeographical expedition headed by F. Drizhenko (1896-1902) gave a detailed atlas of the Baikal depths and its sailing directions that are used by the Baikal sailors up to this day.

The construction of the Circumbaikal Railway as part of Trans-Siberian Railway (the section from Port Baikal on the south-western shore of the lake) to Mysovaya Station (on the south-eastern shore) took 4 years.

Ancient crystal rocks, granite, gneiss, gabbro, diabases, possess enormous strength; the steep rocky shores precipitously go under water, forcing railroad builders to make excavations and niches in rocky cliffs, and to construct arches and tunnels. The railway is 84 km long. It includes not only Russian engineering design of that time but also the hard work of Russian, Polish, Italian and English workers. The Circumbaikal Railway needed 200 bridges and 33 tunnels. Within the 56-mile section from Kultuk to Port Baikal alone there are 48 arches and tunnels. And how many bridges and supporting walls! It is no coincidence that this part is rightly regarded as the museum of Russian engineering thought, and foreign tourists respectfully name it the golden buckle of the Great Siberian Trail.

Rail Fact sheet:

• At 9,446 kilometers (5,869 miles) it is the world's longest continuous railroad.

•Some stretches are the heaviest-used railway in the world.

•Work on the line began in 1891. Most of it was built without any form of machinery.

• In some permafrost areas the ground had to be dynamited before rails could be laid.

•Work gangs suffered from floods, bubonic plague, extreme cold, cholera, landslides, anthrax, bandits and tigers.

•The line was completed at the bridge at Khabarovsk in 1916.

•By the time it was completed, entire sections had been rebuilt. Cost-cutting expedients such as cheap light-weight rails had led to frequent derailments.

•Even with cost-cutting, a trillion roubles had been spent to build it.

•The Circumbaikal loop to the south of Lake Baikal needed 200 bridges and 33 tunnels.

•Conversion to electricity began in 1927. Steam engines were finally retired only in 1987.

•Today's ChS4t locomotives weigh 126 tonnes and can travel 180 kph (112 mph).

Three years later after Baikal , an ice-breaker Angara was also built in England for carrying cargo  and passengers. Both of these Baikal giants were assembled in Listvyanka, on the southwestern shore of  the lake, where a shipyard was built especially for this purpose.

The railway, its construction and exploitation, had been preceeded by great scientific activities in investigating the geology, hydrology, climate, and seismics of Baikal on the whole, as  well as the territory throughout which the road was lain and exploited for years.

Before the commissioning of a Circumbaikal railway in 1905, the "Baikal" together with the ferry-icebreaker " Angara " crossed the lake twice a day, connecting the coasts and transporting cargo on the Baikal.

The source is - "CD Encyclopedia of Baikal”