Listvyanka is a little town which is actually on Lake Baikal (as opposed to Irkutsk which is about 40km away). Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world - with an average depth of 750m. It's a freshwater lake - Wikipedia tells us that it holds 20% of the world's surface fresh water in it. Those are mountains on the other side.
The actual town was pretty nice - it's nice to visit smaller towns after the big cities. It was pretty cold, but we were amazed after a couple of hours when it started SNOWING! The people in the homestay/B&B probably thought we were nuts, because we immediately bundled on all of our warm clothes and ran outside into the snowstorm. The funniest part was that the rain, snow and high winds didn't stop the markets - people just kept going. So we did too :) One of the best things we discovered was shashlik - basically shish kebabs (pork), which we bought from a market stall and ate in the snow. We also discovered potato pies which are basically just mashed potato inside pastry - they're delicious, and we've bought some more in hopes that we can heat them up and eat them on the next train.
The town was full of wooden buildings, which are apparently a big drawcard of eastern Siberia. They look very pretty, especially with the red and yellow autumn trees.
In the morning we woke to discovered that it had continued to snow overnight, so after breakfast Stephen and I ran out and threw some snowballs at each other. We also built a snowman :)
From here, we're heading south - we catch the train tonight, and we'll be on it for 2 nights and 1 day, arriving Tuesday morning in Ulaan-Baatar. I'm a bit concerned about leaving Russia - apparently customs and immigration can be pretty difficult and tough, and there's also the matter of getting off the train to wait for 8+ hours in no-man's land in 0 degree temperatures. Hopefully we make it through without any problems.
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