Thank god that we were only staying one night in Soviet splendor. Any more time here and I would have had to order a door from room service to slip between my wire camp bed and saggy mattress.
We breakfasted in a restaurant at the hotel, bedecked in deep red wallpaper and lots of soft core porn. Above our table was a framed portrait of a woman who looked like she was putting her hot pink tights back on after a severe ravishing at the hands of some vikings. Hands and torn rags were strategically placed, there was no money shot, but it was all a bit distracting at 8:30am in the morning. Soft porn, like alcohol needs to begin at midday at the earliest.
Breakfast, we have had no luck with breakfast in hotels and the Angara did not disappoint. There was a hot section that consisted of large white sausages floating in suspect looking water, luke warm pre-fried eggs and a pot of porridge. We both opted for porridge. The porridge had been sitting for a while and needed to be diluted, as I poured my “milk” on I noticed it looked a little lumpy, perhaps a bit thick, I figured it was just full cream milk. What I had done was pour sour milk, a Russian “delicacy” onto my porridge, this combined with butter and sugar tasted “interesting” to say the least, I managed to get it down, but worse was to come.
In the cold section there were cakes, from a distance they looked pretty appetising, especially a big white number with what looked like cream cheese icing. Naturally this caught Tanya’s eye and she proudly deposited two enormous slabs of said cake on our table. One bite was all it took to realise that the “icing” was in fact sour cream and the “cake” was in fact cake, but mostly made from cottage cheese. It’s probably the most disgusting thing I’ve had in my mouth, and I’ve eaten fresh mutton blood sausage.
We went out for another walk in Irkutsk and had a look at the insides of the churches we had seen last night. We walked some more and then had lunch at Cinema Donatella where we were prepared with our Russian phrasebook and some restauranty phrases, but the menu was all in English and the food decidedly western. After the breakfast debacle, we needed something familiar in the stomach, I had a burger, Tan’s a club sandwich.
We ran into another tourist, an Australian who is about one day behind us on the Trans-Siberian, staying one night with us at Olga’s. He proudly informed us that he had been arrested in Listvyanka for, wait for it, throwing a rock at a police car. The story goes that he was walking home from the pub and the same car kept cruising up and down the highway, possibly on patrol, so he decides to throw a rock at it. Soon after he was cuffed, put in the divvy van with five officers of the Russian constabulary and driven halfway to Irkutsk, which is an hour and a half drive. At the halfway point they stopped, let him out of the van and stood around wondering what they should do with him. Olga, for fear of having to halt her upstairs building works and second inside toilet construction, probably rang the tour company pronto, as the Russian cops slapped the cuffs on him in Olga’s front yard. For whatever reason, the cops apparently decided to turnaround after 45 minutes of driving and 10 minutes of deliberation in the forest and headed back to Listvyanka. I suspect someone with the tour company had gotten in touch with the Listvyanka police or said Australian bloke has paid a large “fine” in the forest and avoided a beating, a long walk back to Listvyanka or both. The story seems a little flaky in places, but whatever the case, I am convinced, somewhere, someone is out of pocket for a few thousand Roubles. I pointed out to this guy that he was lucky to get off scott free, without having to pay a large bribe or take a beating from the cops. He claims that when he was pulled out of the van in the forest in the dead of night, he was not scared, he also maintains that if they had of touched him, he could have fought them and later brought them all up on charges of “police brutality”. Some people live in fairy land. I personally would have been shitting myself. This guy is also 32 years of age, so should know better.
After our lunch, we went for a bit of a stroll and sat in the park opposite the Angara hotel. This is a truly beautiful park and I was reminded of my mother’s love of flowers and love of repeating “absolutely beautiful” in the presence of pretty flowers. We found a nice bench, under a shady tree and just sat and enjoyed the sunshine. About 30 minutes in it was getting a bit boring, but no fear, the good citizens of Irkutsk put on a spectacle for us. A young man and woman, I dare not use the word lady, enter the park, clearly fighting. We can tell, as her harpy like voice can be heard a good 300 metres away, as can the slaps as she connects with her man friends face. After this she rips off her dress (we have photos) and throws it away, but her man friend covered her up, encouraged her to get dressed and got a punch in the face for his chivalrous efforts. This continued for around another 45 minutes, it would seem to calm, the man went off to buy the woman a coke, this seemed to ark her up again, I would have chosen something with a lot less caffeine, as the slapping, kicking and general abusive screaming continued for another 15 minutes. Eventually the man walked away, the woman giving chase, by this time, it was clear there would be no more rending of garments, so we also went back to the hotel to have some pizza for dinner and gather our things for tonights train journey.
We boarded the train at 7:20pm, Irkutsk time. We were in a brand new carriage, so new, it had that brand new carriage smell. This carriage was like nothing we have experienced before, it has such modern comforts as a sewerage tank, meaning you can have your number two’s whilst the train is stopped at a station, but it also means you can no longer shout GERONIMO!!!!! as you watch last nights dinner leap to certain doom on the track and sleepers flashing past below. The beds, whilst a little narrow are firm and comfortable, with scrupulously clean linen. The Provodnitsa’s are also nice, and even smile, which is contrary to pretty much what everyone else, the guidebook and our own experience tells us. The Russian Provodnitsas even clean the toilets regularly in stark contrast to our Chinese and Mongolian carriage attendants. Given that we are begining a 50 hour two night train epic, we are both pretty happy with our accommodations.
