Olkhon Island

Nikitas Homestead and Khuzhir village

Our lovely driver Genadi picked us up early from Buguldeika, as we were abandoning the lake and taking to the roads again to go to Olkhon Island. Our first stop was at a sacred spot, and it was our initiation into the Buryat custom of sprinkling and leaving offerings at these sacred places. We had been sprinkling since we reached the lake, but now it actually had some meaning behind it. The first one we stopped at was at the highest point in the area. We all tied little ribbons around the post and we had vodka at 9.30 in the morning.

We stopped again to take pictures at the first place the island came into view. All the snow was gone from the ground and from the trees, giving a deceptive warm look about the place. This wasn't the case and that was obvious any time we stepped off the bus. Poor Laira had caught a cold somewhere along the way and she was really beginning to feel the effects by this stage. But she never complained. Lisa would also go on to get the cold. The toughies, Kappa and Gena, luckily did not succumb.

To get to the island we had to use the government approved Ice Highway. This was created every year, in a different location, to provide people with a safe and maintained way to reach the island. Genadi got us on to this very professionally and it was great to drive across the ice on the bus. It's possible to drive on other parts of the lake, but the ice highway is tested all the time and is closed at night. It's as safe as it can possibly be. Russians are made of harder stuff, we never felt completely comfortable driving on the frozen lake. What are we like, no wonder the Russians laughed at us!

Olkhom Island is the biggest lake on Baikal, and also the second biggest inland island in the world. The going was pretty bumpy as there are no real roads on it. The inhabitants are extremely proud of the island and want to keep it the way it is. There are signs up telling you to take your rubbish with you, and you would be hard pushed to find a bin anywhere. In contrast to the mainland, there are few trees here, it has a very different feel to it. The Sarma wind blows over the island, and therefore snow doesn't get much of a chance to lie. Buryat make up a big part of the population.

The settlement that was to be our home for the next few days was called Khuzhir, and it was the biggest settlement on the island. It could possibly be the only one as we didn't get to see any others. Our hotel/guest house/hippy commune was owned by a man called Nikita, and the place bore his name. It was a lovely wooden place, with an assorted collection of wooden lodges, each one different than the last, loads of banyas and a communal eating area. Most of the furniture was homemade, it would put us Ikea and MFI lovers to shame!

The first thing we did after unpacking and taking a look around was to take a walk to the Shaman Crag, a sacred spot on the lake and apparantly the most sacred shaman spot on the whole lake. It is important for Buddists in the area too, the Dalai Lama is said to have visited the spot and held a ceremony there. The outside banya is beside the crag, but it wasn't open for business. It seemed a bit too public for me! The ice formations where the lake met the rocks were really spectacular, you could see where the ice had frozen mid wave as it lapped against the coast. It was very "Day after Tomorrow".

We had our first meeting with the Shaman tonight (Dadya Vasa) after our banya. She was dressed in traditional costume, and was very smiley and friendly. Alexei translated for us, and Andrei took pictures on her camera as she said no-one else could take pictures. Everything she did was very precise, and for a reason. It was a fun evening. We had to sit women to the right, men to the left, and we were not allowed to cross our arms or legs in her presence. We never really found out the exact reason for this, but we all participated anyway. Another thing we did was smoke a symbolic cigarette, well light one anyway, this was a weird experience for us all, totally against our UK sensibilities. But when in Rome.....

We drank milk with her and heard what would be happening the next day, as we were scheduled to go onto the ice to the deepest spot on the lake (the polar spot) and have a shamanistic blessing. We were all nervous about meeting her, we weren't really sure what would happen but she (or he) put us all at ease. It turns out that even though she is female, she had a male side to her too, hence the name dadya (which means uncle in Russian). This explains why she kept grabbing Cappa's chest.

The day of the ceremony was beautiful, clear blue skies and everything. Before we left we went to the local museum and found out about the history of the island and it's inhabitants. The lady who worked there was also called Cappa, she was friendly. Alexei had to translate for us again, surely he must have been fed up with this. We all bought DVD's (mine is still in the wrapping in my room), postcards or books. We had a new addition to our group, a young schoolboy and Shaman in training, my attempts at talking russian to him were met with confused looks. Our transport to the polar spot was an old army jeep, which bumped us across the island. We passed an abandonned Soviet Internment camp on the way, no-one lived there but the last inmate had only died a few years before. He had chosen to stay on even after he was free.

The details of the shaman ceremony are to be found on the Shaman page. After our trip to the polar spot we went to the Shaman crag to take pictures of the sun going down on our last night on the lake, as tomorrow we were leaving it altogether and heading back to civilisation. We all had a drink and listened to the locals singing songs, Alexei also treated us to some revolutionnary tunes. Our trip around the lake was at times challenging, because of the way of life we lead at home, but the place was beautiful, the guides were interesting and the food was much much better than we expected. Below are a few tips to help anyone else coming on this trip, I hope you had as good a time as we had.

1. Bring warm clothes, but not too much as you will be mostly in the middle of nowhere. A few trousers, fleeces, t-shirts hats and gloves will do.
2. You have to carry your luggage a lot, and also there is a lot of unpacking and packing to be done, so travel light
3. Warm socks are an essential
4. Waterproof boots are needed for time spent on the ice
5. You will be out to eat in Listvayanka, Irkutsk and Moscow so keep an outfit that can be worn on these nights
6. A torch will be invaluable for the ranch and the husky farm for trips to the toilet in the night
7. The water is really safe in the area, so don't worry about buying bottled water every day. buy one and then refill it
8. Buy water if you want it before leaving Listvayanka as the shops in the smaller places don't always have it
9. Be prepared to tip, a lot! The locals seem to expect it. Or work out in advance how much you are going to spend on tips and stick to it. There are a lot of different people involved in this trip, so it can work out quite expensive
10. Practice squatting at home, this will prepare you for hovering over the pit toilets

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