Halfway up Lake Baikal’s western shore and reached by a short ferry journey from Sakhyurta (aka MRS), the serenely beautiful Olkhon Island is a wonderful place from which to view the lake and relax during a tour of Siberia. Considered one of five global poles of shamanic energy by the Buryat people, the 72km-long island’s main settlement is Khuzhir, which has seen something of a tourist boom over the last few years mainly thanks to the inspiring efforts of Nikita’s Guest House, which also runs the tourist information office(9am-9pm) outside its premises. For a good map of the island go to www.baikalex.com/info/map_olkhon.html.
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Novosibirsk, 530km east of Omsk, is Siberia’s biggest city. It’s a lively and useful transport hub but you’ll thank yourself for choosing Tomsk instead to break your long trans-Siberian journey.
If you want nightlife, restaurants with Las Vegas-style glitz or a choice of countless Irish pubs, Novosibirsk might be your Siberian dream come true. For anything else, consider skipping the place or departing the same evening on an overnight train. Novosibirsk hotels, already overpriced, have a weird rule preventing most from accepting foreigners unless prebooked through a tour agency.
Stockades and wooden houses on broad dust-blown roads give this small, 19th-century town a memorable Wild West feel. Learn something of Novoselenginsk’s interesting history at the Decembrist Museum (Muzey Dekabristov; 96716; ul Lenina 53; admission R10; 9am-5pm Wed-Sun), which is housed in an unmissable 200-year-old colonnaded house in the town’s centre. Lower floors are stocked with 19th-century furnishings, while upstairs are maps and photos relating to the Decembrist exiles and their wives, as well as a long- armed naive-style crucifixion scene rescued from the town’s 18th-century church.
Founded on the right bank of the Tom River in 1618, the frequently enlarged Kuznetsk Fortress became one of the most important guardians of imperial Russia’s southeastern frontier. The chunky remnants remain Novokuznetsk’s modest main attraction. The city’s left bank, named Stalinsk until 1961, developed from 1932 as a gigantic steel town and is now the city centre. A day is ample to survey Novokuznetsk’s intri- guingly pompous early-Stalinist boulevards fanning out to towering smokestacks.
Severobaikalsk might be much bigger but Nizhneangarsk, 30km northeast, is much older and remains the administrative centre of northern Baikal. A small museum in the high school traces the history of the settlement back to the 17th century. Most buildings are wooden and the town forms a quietly attractive low-rise ribbon of long parallel streets stretching 5km along the lakeside from the port to the airport. Opposite a red triangular monument on the coast road, the centre is marked by the tourist office (room 1, ul Pobedy 55; 10am-5pm Mon-Fri). Staff book rooms and ferry tickets for Khakusy, and issue permits for Khakusy, Frolikha and Ayaya Bay.
Once one of eastern Siberia’s foremost towns, forgotten Nerchinsk is quietly intriguing. While hardly worth a special 300km trip from Chita, a day here handily breaks up a long Chita-Blagoveshchensk journey.
Minusinsk’s scattering of partly derelict 18th- and 19th-century buildings offers more architectural interest than Abakan, and its riverside houses can look picturesque when very selectively photographed. The old section is 25km east of Abakan across the protoka Minusinskaya waterway from new-town Minusinsk’s domineering concrete blandness. Jump off buses 120 or 10 beside the elegant 1803 Saviour’s Cath- edral (Spasskoe sobor; ul Komsomolskaya 10) and cross the square to find the excellent Martyanov Museum (20752; ul Martyanova 6; admission R50; 10am-6pm Wed-Sun). Over a century old, highlights include splendid archaeological and cultural exhibits, and the preserved little library in which Lenin occasionally studied while genteelly exiled at Shushenskoe. The museum’s gift shop sells town maps.
The nearest Lake Baikal village to Irkutsk, Listvyanka offers winter dog-sledding and summer boat and horse rides, and is ideal for watching the Siberian nouveau riche at play. Outside busy weekends, the village is still reasonably quiet with inspiring views towards the distant snow-capped Kamar Daban Mountains. Basic maps are available on www.irkutsk.org/fed/maps/listmap.jpg and from a tourist information booth at the port’s bus stand, which also has accommodation listings.
Deep, delightful Lake Teletskoe is Altai’s serene answer to Lake Baikal, a great place to simply relax and catch your breath. Ridge after forested ridge unfolds as you scuttle along on one of the myriad little pleasure boats that buzz out of Artybash village, the lake’s charming tourist hub.