Irkutsk Travel Blogs

And so, after three days and four nights on the train, we arrived in the city of Irkutsk, one of the biggest cities in Siberia. I have very mixed feelings about Irkutsk. You could say it was love at first sight when we arrived with the glorious weather and a bright morning sun beautifully illuminat…

People i met here, who contributed to and improved my trip: Juliana (Russia) We got back into Irkutsk on Thursday after a trouble free journey from Lake Baikal and in time to pick up our passports, complete with Mongolian visa. We spent Friday trying to pass the time until our evening train, …

WE were to leave Moscow at 9 pm and arrive to Irkutsk by 7.55 am (with 5 hour difference , so it wasnt too bad) but due to a snow storm Irkutsk wont take us and after circling around for some time we were diverted to Bratsk airport, a huge field in the middle of nowhere i would call it. A two…

Endlich, Tag meiner Abreise aus Irkutsk. Nachdem ich mich entschlossen habe, nicht nach auf die Insel zu fahren, habe ich die letzten 2 Tage eigentlich nur mit Warten zugebracht. Seit gestern regnet es außerdem. Die beiden Finninnen sind relativ früh aufgebrochen, um mit dem Bus zur Insel zu fahr…

Our arrival in Siberia :)  First to Irkutsk. We had a brief tour of the town, which is filled with old Siberian style buildings. It has a lot of Universities and Museums, being the cultural and educational centre of eastern Siberia. We then drove to Listvyanka by the shores of Lake …

When we arrived in Irkutsk Galia insisted on escorting us personally to our hostel and even paid our tram fares.  We stayed at the Downtown Hostel which had good facilities and a laid back atmosphere.  We met some other interesting travellers and spent our first night knocking back a…

Today is our last day in Irkutsk/Lake Baikal. We catch a night train to Ulaan Baatar (Mongolia). Didn't do much today, basically packed our things and walked around Irkutsk for a while and eat. All the boring stuff. Played the usual game of how should I spend the rest of my rubles so I have none le…

what can i say! we travelled from ekaterinberg on `the train of pain` for three days...it was so hot in the tiny carriages we all nearly fainted!we had called it the train of pain before had because of the length of the journey but it lived up to its name...carl unfortunately had his fingers slamme…

We hopped off the train in the early hours of the morning to the fresh temp of -18!!! Brrrrrrrr! We found a warm hotel (naughty!! but we couldnt find a hostel!!) and had a walk round town. One major thing we noticed was the fur hats seemed to be alot bigger here!!!! Our main reason for stopping her…

Got dropped off at the front of Moscow train station at 10pm.  The station was like Kings Cross at rush hour with a really pungent smell!  We had no idea which platform we should be heading to, and obviously couldn't read any signs, but after a little bit of sign language with a stat…

As I boarded the train in Moscow, I don't think I quite knew what I was getting myself into. Normally tourists travel in first or second class, with nice cabins shared by a couple other people. I had an unwieldy bike box and I was hesitant to put it in the baggage car so I bought a ticket for third…

Feels like I've been away for so much longer than I have, think its all the moving around, so see a silly amount in a small space of time. St Petersburg was stunning, Moscows nothing to write home about, apart from the crazy march the soliders did at changing of the guards - it was like a slow mo…

Our transfer to Bolshoe Goloustnoe took just over two hours along bumpy roads.  Really felt like we were heading into the middle of nowhere. On arriving at our izba (traditional Siberian accommodation) we were served lunch by Tamara, our host for the next couple of days.  We had a great …

I used various Trans-Syberian trains in the following order:Moscow-Irkutsk (3d 5h), costs 3900rurIrkutsk-Ulan Ude (8h), costs 500rurUlan Ude-Khabarovsk (2d 2h), costs 3300rurKhabarovsk-Vladivostok (12h), costs 850rurAll together, only 8550rur or 190eur for travelling 9,288km!!!Russia is huge and an…

I spend 5 weeks making my way through Russia, Mongolia and ending up in Peking, China just before the Olympics ended. So I saw sun in Peking!:D