September 25th, 2008 ~ The Legend of Tankhoy

Entering the Reserve

The village of Tankhoy, on the southeast shore of Lake Baikal, is a train town sandwiched between the switching yards of the Russian national railroad and the forested hills and snowy mountains of the Baikalski National Nature Reserve.

We got here a couple of days ago after our time on the Holy Nose. That required another five hours packed in a mini-bus, then catching a train and arriving at Tankhoy in the middle of the night. We were told the train would stop for just one minute, so we were quick in shouldering our packs and hopping down onto the landing.

We're staying at a visitor center that, like much of the rest of the town, is owned by the railroad. The Great Baikal Trail Association has taken over the place for its annual end-of-season meeting. There are thirty or forty people here for that event, many of them college-aged leaders of trail crews that have been working in the parks during the summer. It's very festive, with the good energy of friends who like to be around one another. Several officials from the national parks are also here to take part in presentations about the projects completed in the last twelve months.

Vika

The Americans joined with several of our Russian friends for a day-long hike into the nature reserve. Reserves here are more protected than the national parks, similar to wilderness areas in the United States. Access is allowed only when accompanied by a guide. Ours carried a rifle to protect us from the bears. I've spent so much time among the bears of Glacier and Yellowstone that an armed guard in the backcountry seemed a bit much. Twenty minutes into our hike, though, we found the footprints of a very large bear in the middle of the trail, and I decided the little guard guy might be pretty good company after all.

The GBT is building a new trail into the reserve. It was good to see the progress they have made. We also found a number of ways to make their work easier and the results more durable. This is a gorgeous landscape—rugged, mountainous, cut through by magnificent streams.

When we stopped for lunch, we opened our packs and pulled out bread, sausage, cheese, brown bread, and Thermos bottles of sweetened black tea. The guard took the more traditional Russian approach to lunch in the field by kindling a little campfire and bringing a pot of water to a boil for brewing his tea.

Late in the day we were back at the reserve headquarters where we met Vika, the director of environmental education for the reserve and yet another of many remarkable women we've encountered. My friend Wally Berg, who has traveled quite a bit in Russia, told me one time that "America may have won the Cold War, but Russia got the beautiful women." That certainly appears to be the case in Irkutsk, where the city streets seem to be full of supermodels. One of the women's fashions of the moment there is knee-high boots with four-inch stiletto heels, an interesting choice for walking in a city with lots of potholes and lake-sized puddles to negotiate.

Wearing much more sensible shoes, Vika gave us a tour of the exhibits at the reserve headquarters, starting with lots of stuffed birds and animals that she told us had all died of natural causes rather than being shot just to be stuffed. Which must give forest animals with cardiac worries serious cause for concern. Vika also showed us around a traditional wooden yurt that celebrate the Buryat culture of the indigenous population of the area.

School Girls

This morning Vika invited several of us to come with her to the nearby grade school. Established in 1906 by the railroad, which still owns and manages it, it's the school Vika had attended as a child. Almost fifty percent of the children who go there eventually become employees of the Russian railway.

The school building is immaculate—marble floor in the entry, high ceilings, big windows. The boys were dressed in dark suits, a few with ties but most without, and the girls were right out of a Harry Potter novel, wearing dark wool skirts and vests, white stockings, and white shirts, their long hair pulled back and clipped in place.

We were ushered into a room containing the museum of the railroads. Most amazing were the model train cars set up as a facsimile of a railroad route that had been laid across the ice of Lake Baikal as part of an effort to transport wounded soldiers west from a war with Japan. In 1904, tracks had been nailed to the ice and train cars were brought across the lake one at a time to limit the weight, each pulled by horse-drawn sleds. The engine was emptied of coal and water to lighten it, too, and people crossing the lake walked or rode in the sleds.

As we studied the museum exhibits, children peeked in the doorway to see the strangers in their school. I looked at them and they got shy but didn't flee. They lingered behind us as we walked down the hallway, too, whispering to one another. I pointed my camera their way, and at first they laughed and fled, but then they were back and then they were posing and then I was overwhelmed with children. They all wanted to be in the picture, or didn't want to be, or couldn't decide. Boys were flashing hand signs. Girls were piling up against one another either to get into a photo or to get out of the way, all of them giggling excitedly.

A boy stepped up and said, "Hallo!" I said hello back, and found myself swarmed by kids eager to say "Hallo! What eez your name?"

Watching the swirl of my new entourage, Vika whispered in my ear, "You are legend."

When I returned to the house where we Americans are staying, John Schubert asked if I'd been with Vika. "Yes," I told him. "She told me I am a legend."

I left it at that. It's always good to know what parts to leave out of one's stories.

BB

«« Back