MIR Space Station Shower Cubicle – Listvyanka

I woke up at 2am chilled to the bone with a full bladder and managed to throw on some clothes and run to the toilet, in the nick of time. Happily someone else with an out of control fire hose for a penis and the concentration span of a newt had left me an El Banana de Chocolate. I blame mister Mongolian Police, it seemed he lived in the toilet for pretty much the entire journey.

We were both cold as the only blankets available for our use looked like they had not been washed since Perastroika and they released so much dust into the cabin after a mere jab with an index finger that we decided that we’d rather remain cold, then catch fleas or whatever else may have been living in said blankets.

Just after both getting comfortable, there was a knock at our door and we were told by the Providnitsa of limitied altitude and patience, that Irkutsk would be coming up in five minutes. Both of us were still in our PJs, but managed to get it together and pack in eleven minutes flat, and then waited a further 30 minutes until we pulled into Irkutsk. Had we agreed to smuggle the polar fleeces, she probably would have greeted us with a cup of tea.

Much like the Russian welcome we received on the Irkutsk platform, the weather was also grey and cold. It turned out that the Americans next door, Steve and Carol, would also be sharing a car with us to Listvyanka, These guys are well into their 70s and still going strong, but there are quite a lot of stairs in the Irkutsk train station and it came down to me, already carrying two backpacks to help them down the stairs with their things, whilst our Russian guides stood by and watched. Unbelievable!

Once outside we were all deposited into a van with darkened windows, loud Russian techno music and a driver that was surliness epitomised. After being asked to turn down the music, he simply switched it off with an angry flick of the wrist and we rode the rest of the way with zero conversation between us and the Russians. However it was great talking chatting with Steve and Carol. Steve is a competitive swimmer in the Masters Games and spends his time traveling and swimming all over the world. We also heard about the womens 100 metres that is totally dominated by a 94 year old Japanese woman, that needs a zimmer frame on dry land, but is a super-fish, a thorpedo once in the water.

We dropped Steve and Carol at a quaint looking hotel and continued on to our homestay.

We stopped about 500 metres down the road, we’d arrived at Olga’s house in Listvyanka. Olga’s house is a cute 300 year old traditional wooden Siberian cottage, with a 3 year old, half finished upstairs and two new rooms out the front. We ate a breakfast of what I will call fat arse pikelets with slabs of cheese and homemade rhubarb and orange marmalade. Olga seemed very nice and hospitable, but we were to learn later that this persona only appeared when the guides were visiting.

Now, traditional wooden Siberian houses, have traditional outside plumbing and toilets. The traditional way of washing is in the banya, which is basically a small wooden room, much like a sauna where you dump tubs of hot water over yourself and wash. After some discussion, we finally made it clear that there was going to be no Tanya in a banya, because saunas, spas or anything else hot can cause “issues” with the baby. Happily through the money they are making from tourists, they have managed to put in a shower that we could both use. I was not allowed to banya on the first night, as it would obviously eat too much into their profit margin.

Tanya, Lena our guide and I trooped down the road to the Lake Baical Museum. Incidentally, the museum, had just been visited by James Cameron that very morning, but we missed him. We looked at rocks, stuffed animals, old diving suits and the MIR 1 submarine used in the opening scenes of Titanic. Lake Biacal, 1.6 kilometres deep, 40 kilometres wide and holding 20% of the entire worlds fresh water was the reason we had come to Listvyanka.

The museum also held live lake creatures and we saw Sturgeon, Omul, shrimps, numerous other fish and two cute Lake Baical seals. After this we stopped in at a cozy cafe for lunch, where I had a plate of fried omul, with potatoes and Tans had beef goulash with potatoes. The meals were great and as it was chucking it down with rain and only 7 degrees it was a nice place to sit. Owing to the weather, we spent about 2 hours using the Internet place next door.

The weather had begun to clear, and we went for a walk to the end of the main road in Listvyanka, around 1.5 kms. I washed my face in the lake, apparently adding 12 years to my life. We had a brief look around the market, which sold a variety of tat, shasliks and smoked fish.

We figured a good way of breaking the ice would be to appear at around tea time with a bottle of vodka, but it seemed that Olga was not into it. Tanya said hello in Russian to Olga’s adult son and was rudely ignored. However dinner was great, we had mutton dumpling soup, coleslaw and bread. After this we showered and went to bed, where it would seem, we were sleeping on children’s beds with mattresses that were probably still second hand during the Stalinist era.

Our homestay had turned out to be more like a half arsed B&B, with crappy beds, worse plumbing, but great food. Usually I am happy to suck up all of the discomforts for a bit of warm foreign hospitality, but in this case there was no warm hospitality at Olga’s.

At around 9pm, the entire family buggered off to parts unknown and we both had showers. The shower was like a relic from the Soviet space program, plastic, incredibly lighweight and not bolted down or fixed in place. During my shower I could feel it moving and had visions of it tipping over, trapping me inside, while a bunch of angry Russians yelled at me for wrecking their first bathroom renovation. I made it out of the shower, which moved when I got out and I also managed to avoid the handbasin, also not fixed in place and got into my child sized bed and fell into a fitful sleep.