Back from our trip to Baikal region of Russian Siberia.

[peejay 327]

Hello everyone.

Back in April I posted on the Russia forum that my wife, stepdaughter, and myself would travel to the Baikal region of Russian Siberia to visit my wife's relatives. Chili74 asked me to report how the trip went, so here it is (and it is a long read).

As some of you may already know, my wife took Belarusian citizenship after the USSR dissolved because that was her residency at the time. However, my wife was born, raised, and went to university in the Baikal region before moving to Belorussia in the early 1980's and almost all of her relatives still live in the Baikal region. My wife last visited there in 2003. My 23 years old stepdaughter first and last visited there as a little girl to meet her relatives, but has not seen many of them since then. My stepdaughter was born and raised in Belarus. So she was well past due to be reunited with her relatives in Baikal after so many years. Belarus is a long, long way from Baikal region and my wife's trips there were rare after moving to Belarus. And I have never met my in-laws or ever been to the Baikal region before even though we have been married going on 6 years. The USA is also a long, long way from the Baikal. With tickets as cheap as they were ever likely to be again anytime soon, we decided now was the time to do it.

We left Houston on May 23 and flew nonstop 12 hours on Singapore Airlines to Moscow. We had a 7 hour layover in Moscow, but decided to just hang out in the airport before flying 6 hours nonstop on S7 Airlines to Ulan-Ude which is in the Buryatia Republic.

My wife's cousin Andrey picked us up at the airport in Ulan-Ude and drove us in his Toyota Camry for 3 hours to the village of Maleta where my wife was born and raised. Maleta is located outside the Buryatia Republic. We passed through lots of scenic country, but the air was thick with smoke from forest fires in the mountains and visibility was limited. Andrey said it was the dry season and this happens pretty much every year. In several places along the road fires burned right up to the road. It was real eerie and a bit unsettling. He sped up whenever we had to pass by flames.

We finally arrived in Maleta and ended up staying at my wife's parents' house she grew up in. As usual, the table was already laid with plenty of food and many bottles of vodka. My wife's sister and her family live in Maleta and were there too.

The next day my father-in-law attempted to register me at the post office in Maleta, but we could not do it. In fact, I am most likely the only foreigner that has ever come to Maleta and the post office did not even have the forms nor did the postmaster even have a clue how to register me. She called her boss in the town of Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy for advice and was told I should go to Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy with my father-in-law to register me there. Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy is about 2+ hours round trip from Maleta and a big hassle since we had no readily available reliable car to get there. My father-in-law has an old 1975 Zhugili sedan, but it is not dependable enough to drive outside of Maleta. Instead we decided to travel to the big city of Chita to visit my wife's brother (and family) and to register at the main migration office there. My wife's younger sister and her youngest son would go with us there too. The boy had never been to a big city before and we decided to bring him along with us.

So, on the 3rd day cousin Andrey came from Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy in his car in the evening after his work and took us to the train station there to take the train to Chita. We would stay at the flat of my wife's brother there. Of course, cousin Andrey could have registered me to his house in Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy, but the migration office there was already closed in the evening after we arrived and I still had enough time left to register within the 3 business day limit in Chita.

So we slept on the sleeper train all night and the 5 of us arrived at the train station in Chita in the early morning. My brother-in-law picked us up in his Toyota van. It was a real treat to stay in his flat because it had running water, a real shower, and an indoor flush toilet. In Maleta none of that is available. Maleta is a rural village. Chita is a big city.

We spent 3 days in Chita exploring the city, shopping, and meeting my wife's relatives there. Since my wife went to university there she also looked up some old classmates that still live there. My stepdaughter really enjoyed seeing her relatives in Chita after so many years. She was especially glad to see her uncle's two daughters that are also in their early 20's like she is. We also took my sister-in-law and son to a bowling alley / billiard arcade in Chita. The trip to Chita was especially rewarding for the boy because he got to see and do many things that are completely unavailable in Maleta and it was all very new and exciting for him. Chita is a modern city with modern amenities. And, I finally got to register and get the migration paper I was given at the airport in Moscow stamped at the migration office in Chita. I did not realize how important it is to get that coveted stamp until later in our trip.

Anyway, my brother-in-law and his family eventually left for their annual vacation at the sanatorium after we were in Chita for several days and we decided to return to Maleta even though he told us we could stay at his flat while he was gone. So the next morning we took the electric bus across the city from his flat to the train station. We bought tickets for the train back to Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy. I really enjoyed this return train trip because it was in the daytime rather than at night and I got to see the spectacular countryside of Baikal region. There had been rain and light snow since we left Maleta days ago and the smoke from the earlier fires was absent. So the view of the mountains and towns along the rails was clear and the visibility was good.

Cousin Andrey picked us up once again and drove us back to Maleta (where we stayed for the rest of our trip). I enjoyed staying in Maleta, but it is a rural village and conditions might be a bit harsh for some Americans unaccustomed to rural life in Russian villages. My mom's parents originally immigrated to the USA from a rural village in Belorussia and I have stayed in similar conditions when I have visited my relatives in Belarus. So this was nothing new to me even though there are many differences between Maleta and my grandparents' village in Belarus.

Once you leave the main road you take a dirt road into the village of Maleta. There are no paved roads in Maleta. Most of the houses are constructed of logs, but there are also houses made from crude planks produced locally and some houses from what appears to be stucco cement. Some houses are duplexes (2 families living in one house separated by a wall). The houses of my in-laws had no running water, indoor toilet, or shower. Both houses had water from water wells and an electric pump for filling water barrels from the well. They use hoses as needed from the pump located in the kitchen to distribute water as needed on their property. Bathing is done outside the main house in the banya and the water is heated with wood. Many of the outdoor toilets in the village don't even have a seat to sit on and you just squat over a hole in the floor to do your business. Kind of rough going for the uninitiated. In most of the houses I visited there is a tank in the kitchen with a faucet on it that flows into a sink that drains into a bucket under the drain. You have to refill the holding tank with water and dump the bucket of gray water outside when it gets full. So there is some water from a faucet inside, but it isn't running water. It may be a bit primitive for most Americans (or even many big city Russians), but it is not so bad once you get used to it. I imagine in the dead of winter it is much more difficult than during our spring visit.

There is a small post office, a small government administration building, a clinic, a regional orphanage, and a couple of small grocery stores in Maleta along with local schools for the kids. The Soviet era enterprises once attached to the village shut down long ago and the buildings have gone to ruin after being stripped of anything of value. Logging and small scale farming on the small family plots pretty much sustains many of the inhabitants. There are a lot of pensioners in the village that get pensions from the government. My in-laws have a vegetable garden and a big plot of potatoes planted on their small plot of land inside the village. My father-in-law brews his own samogon (homemade vodka) and he showed me how he makes it from fermenting potatoes, yeast, sugar, and water. He set up his distillery in the banya and cooked up several gallons for our visit. My sister-in-law's family raise pigs, but my wife's parents don't keep any livestock. The livestock in the village pretty much wander through the streets and many mornings I observed cows from their neighbors walking on the street in front of my in-law's house. The scenic Khilok and Maleta rivers run within walking distance of the village with forested mountains in the background. It is a beautiful place to see on a clear day. Unfortunately during most of our stay there smoke was in the air from the previously mentioned forest fires in the area, but we did manage to have a few clear days to take photos of the beautiful scenery. We had a big picnic along the river one Saturday and many of my wife's relatives and childhood friends from Maleta were there. They showed me some really beautiful places and it is all within walking distance of Maleta.

Unfortunately the time passed by quickly and we eventually had to return home to the USA. One of my wife's friends drove us the hour trip to cousin Andrey's house in Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy where we spent the night before leaving in the morning for the airport in Ulan-Ude in Andrey's car. Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy is much bigger than Maleta, but nowhere near as big as Chita. I would call it a town rather than a village. Unfortunately we never spent enough time there to give a good report about the city, but cousin Andrey's house was really nice. I especially enjoyed the 2 hour drive from Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy to Ulan-Ude because a front had passed through and the air was cool and clear. We had almost unlimited visibility to view the scenery and we stopped along the way several times to take lots of scenic photos. The views of the mountains along the Selenga river which runs along the road to Ulan-Ude was especially noteworthy. The Buryatia Republic in general as well as the entire Baikal region is a very scenic area to see.

At the airport in Ulan-Ude the militia not only wanted to see my passport and visa before boarding the flight to Moscow, they also requested to see my migration paper and I was really relieved that I had the required stamp on the back of it showing that I had duly registered. I somehow got the impression they don't get many Americans passing through there. Not to mention that my wife and stepdaughter were traveling with Belarusian passports which was probably not very usual so far east.

We arrived in Moscow at 11am and we had a 24 hour layover there before our return flight the next morning from Domodedovo. Fortunately my wife's uncle has a flat in the Moscow suburb of Pushkino and he invited us to stay overnight. Unfortunately we did not realize Pushkino was so far out from Domodedovo airport. It took us nearly 3 hours of metro, electric train, and walking to get there and the same the next morning to get back to the airport. However my wife hadn't seen her uncle in roughly 20 years and my stepdaughter had never met him, so it was well worth the trouble in addition to the money we saved avoiding the overpriced hotels of Moscow. Pushkino is a very scenic suburb with lots of lush trees and we were duly impressed with the area.

My wife didn't have any problems traveling with dual citizenship / passports in Russia or the USA. Returning through customs in the USA my wife just handed the Border Patrol guy her US passport and he thumbed through it looking for the Russian visa. When he didn't find it he asked her for her Belarusian passport. After seeing the Russian entry and exit stamps in her Belarusian passport he waved her through. No problem.

While my wife, stepdaughter, and I were glad we made the trip, it involved a lot of exhausting travel. I could see it was taking quite a toll on them. Many times during our trip they both expressed the wish to return home to the USA. They finally got their wish when we returned to Houston on June 7. For me it is comforting that they now consider the USA to be their home. So I would say our trip was a success. We got to see a lot of people, go to a lot a places, and did a lot of things.

AIRPORT ULAN-UDE, BURYATIA REPUBLIC, RUSSIA

CHITA, RUSSIA

CHITA, RUSSIA

TRAIN STATION PETROVSK-ZABAYKALSKIY, RUSSIA

KHILOK RIVER NEAR VILLAGE MALETA

[peejay 327]

KHILOK RIVER (left) MALETA RIVER (right)

MALETA RIVER NEAR MALETA VILLAGE

MALETA, RUSSIA

SAMOGON DISTILLERY (left) WATER WELL POLES (right) MALETA, RUSSIA

SELENGA RIVER, BURYATIA REPUBLIC, RUSSIA

[Thomas-n-Elena 0]

great pictures, my wife is from Irkutsk and I have spent some time at Baikal, beautiful country. My wife and son traveled to Irkutsk in march and spent a week with her aunt and uncle in Ulan Ude in may. I know the area well it is amazing.

[sivad 0]

sounds like a great time,and the pictures are fabulous!

[Tnic 5]

Enjoyed your TR very much and the pix are terrific.

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us.

[Brad and Vika 129]

Great story and pics! Vika and I enjoyed them both. And welcome back

[chili74 0]

Peejay! Wow, is it really thanks to me that you shared this wonderful tale and great photos??

Looks like you had great weather. I am blessed to have seen Baikal, Chita, and Ulan-Ude (not Maleta, though). It does sound like quite an exhausting journey. Thanks for filling us in on the formalities, as well as the conditions and what this trip meant to your family.

[slim 1,530]

Thanks for sharing, peejay! (And glad to have you back!)

[LvivLovers 39]

Great to hear about the trip and see all the fantastic photos! WB!