Water, water everywhere...

and none of it was still. That's what we discovered in Irkutsk. It was nearly impossible to get water that wasn't carbonated. We finally found some at a grocery store, but we were both shocked when we saw it. They even gave us carbonated water on the train to Yekaterinburg. It tasted like sweat.

Aside from that, Irkutsk was a nice, small city. It is home to over 500,000 people, and if I remember correctly, is the largest city in Siberia. It is definitely a city, but it doesn't really feel that big. Most things are centrally located, and you can walk to the big sights from almost any hostel, save the one that is over 4 kilometers from the train station.

The biggest things to see are definitely the churches. They hover near the river, and loom above the surrounding buildings. Every church is beautifully colored and has murals and icons painted on the outside walls. There is also an eternal flame, but Emily and I never found out what it was for. It is behind one of the churches, and just over the hill from a bushy-bearded statue of Tsar Alexander III looking imposing with his sword and musket.

We ate at a restaurant called Pervach one night. We have come in well under our budget, because many of the home stays have offered meals, so we decided to splurge a little bit. The food was excellent, but the portions were a little small, and you had to pay for all sides. The English translations in the menu are pretty funny, and you are never quite positive of what you're getting. I ordered beef in its own juices, which I thought would be a steak of some sort and got a bowl of beef stew. The translation was correct, but not what I was thinking. We also found out that since the tourist season is ending, certain dishes are unavailable, like 4 out of 6 desserts. We were told 'nyet' to both fried ice cream and tiramisu, so we opted for the apple strudel. It was tasty, but I really wanted the ice cream.

It was definitely better than an earlier meal where we tried the old, let's just point at stuff on the menu trick. The first choice was solid, a nice meaty soup with vegetables called solyanka. The next choice was randomly chosen from the salad section and didn't turn out too well. The name literally translates into, "herring in a fur coat." It consists of: shredded beets, diced onions, loads of mayonnaise, all topped off with cubed herring. We thought the herring was potato at first, so we dug in. That was a mistake. Every bite reminded us of what a bad idea it was to just point at the menu.

The next day, we took the tram out to the Volkonsky House Museum. The Irkutsk tram is only 12 rubles per person, which comes out to roughly 34 cents for the Americans or around 350 won for those in Korea. Top that New York MTA. The Volkonsky House Museum was a little pricey, around $6/person, but very fun to look around. The Volkonsky's were Decemberists. I am going to put my history hat on here for a second. Decemberists were people who were opposed to the rule of Tsar Nicholas I, who was the youngest brother of Tsar Alexander I. Nicholas I was set to be crowned Tsar December 26^th, 1825. Prior to his crowning, the Decemberists attempted to stop Nicholas from taking control of Russia, and were stopped by soldiers loyal to Nicholas. Some of the Decemberists were executed, but most were exiled to Siberia. Most of the Decemberists were military officers and aristocrats, so they were quite wealthy. Their wives were responsible for paying their own way to Siberia, which was around $200 in 1825 money. Despite the difficulty in raising the money, they faithfully followed their husbands and brought with them European, mostly French, style and taste that you can still see in Irkutsk architecture today.

This house is a good example.

We took a picture of this, because it was awesome.

After that, we hit the fine art museum. The museum looks a little run down fr om the outside, and you can see just how outdated it is on the inside. The lighting is terrible, and more than a few of the paintings look like they belong enclosed in glass. They are being degraded by sunlight that pours in through the large windows. To be honest, I think we could have skipped it. The portraits were beautiful, and the Chinese and Mongolian art they had in their collection was nice, but I don't know if it is worth the mandatory 200 ruble ( $6) entrance fee.

Before we got on the train, Emily decided we needed to try to find the Nerpa seal aquarium, Akvarium Nerpy. So, we took the tram back across the river toward our hostel and the train station. We got off about where Emily thought we should, and then began walking. This was our discussion:

She said, “Ok, it's 300 meters that way. How far is 300 meters?”

I said, “A little more than three football fields.”

“Well, I know, but I can't visualize that.”

“Ok, think about one football field. Now triple it.”

“Uh, ok.”

Following that exchange, we walked. We walked about 300 meters and then decided we had no clue where this place was. After trying to figure out where it was supposed to be on the map (the map ends and then has an arrow pointing straight off the page with a caption that says, 'Nerpy Aquarium 300 meters'), we decided to head back to the hostel. When we got back to the hostel, Emily decided to look online to see where exactly the aquarium was. Of course, she decides to do this AFTER we already tried to find it. I called it, we walked right past it and had no idea it was there.

We got a few supplies at the store, went to the train station to get our tickets, ate dinner, and then got on our 30-hour first-class train ride to Yekaterinburg.

The pretty much empty dining car. Our train was the #1, so it had a name, the Rossiya.