It’s 6:30 am in Irkutsk, about 40 km from Lake Baikal. I’m at the kitchen table at Baikaler Hostel, a remarkably friendly, clean, well-run place owned by a native Irkutskian. Seems like I had to come 2000 km east of Moscow to find some decent backpacker accommodation. My sinuses have me up before everyone else [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Kyzyl’
Shashlik smells yummy. Shaman stinks.
Posted in Russia, tagged Abakan, Irkutsk, Kyzyl, Lake Baikal, Olkhon Island, Russia, shaman, Tuva on June 4, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Tuvan cowboys and bachelor pads
Posted in Russia, tagged Kyzyl, Russia, steppe, Tuva on May 30, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I’m sitting at a low makeshift kitchen table, made of a slab faux-cherrywood countertop balanced on a cardboard speaker box. It’s the only clean surface in the apartment. Balanced against the wall beside me stands a mountain bike. The Kruschev-era, meal-colored wallpaper is peeling in places, revealing cheap plaster underneath. It’s hard to tell what [...]
Mojo: from bad to good
Posted in Russia, tagged Ergaki, Krasnoyarsk, Kyzyl, Russia, trains, Tuva on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Greetings from the local radio station in Tuva.
Krasnoyarsk, my first stop in eastern Siberia, killed any mojo I had built up in Tomsk. After arriving on the train on Sunday at 11 am I spent the entire day looking for a room – all the inexpensive places were full. I even took a bus ride [...]
Kyzyl foh shizzle
Posted in Russia, tagged Abakan, Ergaki, Kyzyl, Russia, throat singing, Tuva on May 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It was 6:45 am, Eastern Siberian Time. I was in a minivan with nine laughing Mongolian-looking young men who I had just met at the train station. As we rattled along the road out of Abakan, our chain-smoking driver pulled out wrap-around shades to block the sun that had squeezed its way through the thick [...]
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