A trip to Irkutsk

Recently, Internet user went to Irkutsk. And he wants to share with us their exciting rides.




My trip to Lake Baikal, like most people, started in Irkutsk. We arrived at night and the first impression that I got from the city - clean and well maintained. In the morning, when dawn broke and I went on a trip, and already the road seemed not so smooth, and the streets are not all clean. Nevertheless, the overall impression was positive ...



On that day in Irkutsk was an exhibition of the Olympic torch. The organizers have asked me to call and talk about their experiences in the torch relay before the Olympics in London. The presentation took place at the Baikal-Arena, where it's a lot of young athletes from sports schools:



For the children it was a great happiness to touch the torch. I saw burned their eyes and they lined up to be photographed with him:



I, too, held the torch in his hand. Frankly, I liked him a lot less than in London: a thin pen - do not feel that you carry the torch itself is made either from plastic, or from some similar material, design mixed ... well, not much. I expect more. It was nice to see among the guests who came looking for a T-shirt "blogger against trash»:



After the event, Alex Strelyuk of travel company "Baykalika" took me on a tour of the city. We started with the new quarter, which is called the 130th:



There Irkutsk tried to recreate what it was before. The truth is all these new houses look very cheap popular, especially considering the fact that most of them are on the first floor there are shops with large windows, like in American cities:





Feature Irkutsk architecture - canopies over the entrance:



Sometimes they are used as a roof over a balcony or winter garden:





Symbol of Irkutsk - Babr holding in teeth sable. In fact Babr - a Siberian tiger in the Yakut language, but one of the officials in approving the emblem of the town corrected "a" to "o" and turned beaver, sable holding in his mouth. Beaver on the arms, of course, did not begin to paint, instead tiger've added the beaver tail. It turned out that's a mythical beast:





We walked through the city center. We looked at the Polish church, converted under the Organ Hall and the large number of churches:











Quay Angara:



In Irkutsk love to leave messages on the pavement:







The central street of Irkutsk:



But it is worth a little step back and have things become not so good. Especially surprising column in the center of the city - there is no running water everywhere:



The very center of the city was occupied by visitors from China and other neighboring countries. The area is called "Shanhayka»:



By and large it is a quarter placed under the Chinese market:





Like the words "Toilet-fitting»:



The next morning we piled into an SUV and 4 left on Baikal Olkhon Island. Over the 4 days we went on the ice. Photos turned out this time very successful. In the next post I will show. Stay Tuned!







Source: sergeydolya.livejournal.com