Wild East

After a wonderful and peaceful night, we light our campfire first thing in the morning to boil hot water for our tea. As the lake will soon have drinking water quality everywhere, we draw our water directly from the Baikal. One reason for this is the sparsely populated coastline. Only 40 villages and four towns are located on the shores of Lake Baikal. With its circumference of 2125 kilometers, there is an average distance of 48 kilometers between the settlements. Another reason for the clean water is that most of the cities are located at the southern tip and their sometimes very polluting waste water does not reach here due to the ground relief and the outflow of the Angara. The explanation for this can be found in the depth of the lake. The water masses of the Baikal are separated from each other by three basins of different depths and each of these basins has its own flow circuit. Although the shallowest parts of the basins are between 100 and 300 meters deep, there is hardly any water exchange from one to the other. This means that the dirtier water from the south, contaminated by industry, remains there and is discharged through the Angara. The different ages of the water are also interesting. In the southern basin it is around 66 years old, in the central basin it is 132 years old and in the northern basin it is as old as 225 years. The average cold of 3.5 degrees from a depth of 50 meters also ensures low algae growth.

The most successful water purification plant is probably a one and a half millimeter small, very voracious amphipod called Baikal epishura. According to scientific findings, there are sometimes up to three million of these little animals per square kilometer of water layer, which are able to remove the smallest algae and bacteria from the top fifty meters of water layer (approx. 83 cubic kilometers per day) over the course of a single year. Another small crab, which the inhabitants call Jur, devours everything organic that pollutes the upper water layer of the sacred sea. They eat dead fish, drowned insects, but also animals that live on land and have died in the water for whatever reason. If, for example, a swimmer drowns in the lake, the self-purification processes will have completely consumed him after just seven days. Nevertheless, the effluent from the cellulose and paper mills on the south bank of the Baikal, parts of which were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996, poses a serious threat to its balance.

During breakfast, a strong wind comes up and simply blows away our neighbors’ toilet blocks. The campers let it happen without a care in the world. In many things in life, Russians are decidedly more relaxed than we Germans. In wind force six we dismantle our camp and set off in the direction of Chushir. We push our bikes across the grassy steppe to the dirt road that winds its way over the hills. The wind blows against us with undiminished force from the north and makes progress very difficult. Although we didn’t call him by his name, the master obviously turned us off again to make our day more difficult.

We bump down a mountain on the washboard track. The first trees appear. Fine sand suddenly covers the slope and forces us to dismount. Every now and then a car rattles past. Dust is stirred up and makes us cough. Dog-tired, we push our bikes past the small hand-painted town sign of Chushir. Desolate, weathered board fences and wooden huts bent by the ravages of time greet us. Although our speedometers show just 23 kilometers per day, our thighs are shaking. We are at a loss for words and at the same time curious to see what awaits us here. “There’s a supermarket just 500 meters away,” a local points us in the direction of the dusty village. Just like in the Wild West of that time, the gray, 50-meter-wide sandy road runs through the poor-looking main town of the island. Tourists with large rucksacks on their backs come towards us, cheerful and exuberant. Young travelers stand in front of the simple, small grocery store. They suck on ice cream and talk about a planned island hike. Cyclists speed past and disappear into a side alley. An off-road motorcycle thunders across the path. Exhausted, we stand at the edge of the slope and watch the hustle and bustle of a thriving tourist resort at the end of the world on a remote island in the middle of Mother Earth’s largest freshwater lake. “Are you hungry?” I ask Tanja. “A ravenous appetite,” she replies apathetically. A large tent next to us turns out to be a Buryat restaurant. “Is there anything to eat?” I ask, while Tanja guards our bikes. “But yes, just come in,” says the only guest. Outside, a sheep’s leg is being cut off with an axe. Blood runs from the rickety wooden table and seeps into the sand. While the master of the house strikes again with his apparently blunt axe, his wife tries to tug at the animal’s leg to tear it from its rump. As there is no window in the restaurant tent, we have no opportunity to watch our bikes while we eat. “No problem. People don’t steal here,” assures the landlady. Our experience has taught us not to listen to such supposed safety slogans.

Despite our hunger, we continue to push our bikes through the remote Wild East of Russia. “The Wolna (Wave) restaurant isn’t bad,” praises a pretty young Russian woman and shows us the way. We actually reach a beautiful log cabin with windows overlooking the dirt road. We order fish from Baikal, salad and bread. “You should call Simone and tell her we’ll be there soon,” I say after the delicious and relatively expensive meal. “Are you at the Wolna restaurant? Please wait for us there. We’re just at the ferry station and will be there in a minute,” Simone replies. We pass the waiting time by eating a second fish and salad. A young Buryat stands in front of our bikes to take a close look at them. His clothing reveals that he is a cyclist himself. “My bike was stolen last night. I pitched my tent near here on the beach and locked my bike to a peg. The thief probably came early in the morning. He simply pulled the peg out of the ground and was able to take my great bike. It looks like he also stole an inflatable boat. I think the thief loaded my bike into the boat and made off that way. I’ve already been to the police. They think it was a local,” he says, visibly sad. “Where are you from?” I ask him. “From Ulan-Ude. Wanted to spend my summer vacation here and explore the island by bike. It’s a shame. Now I’m no longer a cyclist,” he says, on the verge of tears, as a minibus pulls up next to us and Simone and her partner Leonid get out. Tanja and I greet the pleasant-looking people. Simone comes from Germany and has been living on the island with the Russian Leonid for 15 years. They have built a log cabin on the outskirts of the village of Charanzy. “Would you like to load your bikes onto our van? We can give you a lift?” the sixty-nine-year-old, very young-looking woman offers us. “Thanks, we still have some shopping to do. We’ll catch up with you,” we reply. “If you don’t know where to go, just ask for Simone. The villagers all know me,” she says, whereupon Leonid starts his minibus and drives off.

We find the only internet in the village in a yurt. A minute costs 3.50 roubles (13 euro cents). Because of the satellite connection, the only computer available is extremely slow. The owner offers Tanja his own laptop, so she is able to check our emails briefly. Then we buy a few groceries and leave the quirky but not uninteresting place. As soon as it is behind us, we are greeted by a real forest. Although almost the entire east of the island is covered with dense forests, there are few or no trees on the western side.

The sun is already low when the forest releases us onto a steppe landscape again. We pass a green area that was once used as a landing pad for small propeller planes. However, flight operations have been suspended for years. At the entrance to Charanzy, we leave the sandy main road towards the shore. We pass yurts stretching their white heads into the evening sky. They are not inhabited by locals, but by tourists. “Do you know where Simone and Leonid live?” I ask a Buryat woman who is cooking for the guests in front of a yurt at the camp. “But yes. Just down there,” she says, pointing to a lovely-looking wooden hut hidden behind a high wooden fence.

It’s 9:30 p.m. when I push open the latch on the gate and we let our bikes roll into the garden. Leonid and Simone immediately give us a very friendly welcome. “If you want, you can sleep in the tent. That costs nothing, of course. But you can also move into my work hut. I charge ten euros per person per night. We only renovated it this year. It was supposed to be a horse stable. But as it’s not easy to get hay here, we abandoned the idea. Now I use the room for knitting and painting,” she explains and shows us a pretty log cabin, the inside of which still smells of fresh wood. “We’ll gladly move into your hut,” we say and carry our Ortlieb bags inside. Inside, we are greeted by a shelf full of interesting spiritual books. But publications about Siberia and Russia also share the space in German and Russian. A small fireplace promises cozy warmth for the cold winter months. A sofa invites you to sleep. There is a worktop in front of the window where I can write. On the other side, we have a direct view of the Baikal and the wooden terrace in front of the cottage. We feel at home straight away and decide to stay here for a while that evening.

“So you’re the cyclists. All due respect. I did the route on a motorcycle, but on a bike? Gentlemen,” says Stefan, who arrived here about two years ago with his girlfriend, then moved on to China to live there until a few weeks ago. Now he has returned. But without his girlfriend. She is now with a Hong Kong Chinese man living in Canada. They have stored their motorcycles here since then because the Chinese still do not allow foreigners to travel around China on their own vehicles. “I’ll fix up the machines. My ex will then get hers at some point. I, on the other hand, will be setting off in a few weeks to travel to Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Turkey,” he explains. As it’s already late in the evening and we’re really exhausted from the long drive, we postpone further discussions until tomorrow. Simone brings another kettle. We sit down on the sofa, light a candle and enjoy a cup of hot tea. Then we unroll our sleeping mats and slip into our sleeping bags.

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