TransIrUBBeBAMBa (5) - Farewell to Irkutsk

Back from Listvyanka we had some time to kill before heading for a train, so we went on the Amur river at the dam. The "Angara" icebreaker/museum is definitely not the major interest here, it is the concrete 'beach' where the crowd of locals enjoy cold water. 

 

Concrete blocks of flats and generally the spirit of the place reminded us our motherland - Poland -  in the 90's. As much as for us it was kind of retrospection or 'living socialism museum' experience, some of the aspects can be either shocking or totally misunderstood by a westerner.

Buildings on the outside and their interior finishing, condition of the roads, some of the cars that should have been scrapped in XX century, are the obvious things to mention. General feeling of a mess and lack of organisation made me think that this society, suffering both communism and then rapid transformation, created this 'whatever' attitude. What I'll remembered though are going to be the shopping experience in small local store, with us standing and waiting to be served when one of the shopkeepers moving the goods on display and the other with her mobile - totally ignoring us, until called. 

The other shop, with bag lockers at the entrance (against theft), alcohols as the first area of shopping and loud disco music. When talking about shops, I did like to see small local general stores, often with fruit and vegetable stalls next to, present at pretty much every corner, with central market being quintessence of business of the past. 

It is expensive there: food prices are actually identical as in the UK, but transport is cheap (bus ticket 20p, diesel 60p/l anybody?). I'm not sure about other costs of living, as tourist accomodation isn't that affordable, especially at the very poor standard it offers. At equal price, food is of much better quality and taste though. Other noticeable thing was number of shoe repair shops.

On our way to the train station we used a marshrutka, and we were lucky it wasn't too crowded at this time of the day. Marshrutka, short from "marshrutnoye taxi" - literally routed taxi, is I think another of the inventions of socialism. Now minibuses of different size and age serve the purpose. Fare is also flat at 12RUB, paid to the driver when leaving. Advantage of using marshrutka is that it is faster (more rounds, more passengers, more money), especially on the last part of route where stops not requested are skipped. On the bad side is condition and comfort of them, but most of all because they can only take several passengers, one might be refused the ride. For the same reason travelling with luggage can be an issue.

Next: Train 362 Irkutsk - Naushki - Ulaanbaatar