A wintry trip to the soulful Paris of Siberia

Fred Melnyczuk

braves the chill of Irkutsk to explore sinking streets and eccentric markets

As our train came to a tired halt and the doors dragged open a pink dawn, water drops whispered as they dangled off the roof. I lit a cigarette and watched with hungover weariness the circles of steam that hissed into the December air. “Come, Fred, we go to the market,” said Stanislav.

Irkutsk, so they say, is the Paris of Siberia. It was once rich. It was also a centre of learning, on account of exiled intelligentsia. A strange place, its people are different to in the west of Russia. Here the blood is Turkic and Mongol; here, even the white Russians are not entirely so – faces more rounded and eyes more wild – carrying the nomad gene as those in the East do.

Stanislav had become a drinking buddy on the train, for some five days now. He was returning home to his family. A big Russian bear, he was a security officer; proud, jovial and red-faced – he had been good company in these frontier lands. We strolled through the markets where dangerous men in fur coats and tall hats bartered over goods. They sold frozen fish from Lake Baikal, shiny trinkets from tribesmen, and according to Stanislav, cheap rifles if you knew who to ask. In the alleyways,

dejected Mongolian filles de joie stood languid with folded arms and frowning eyes. After a breakfast of dried meat and tea, Stanislav went to his family, to crawl back into the loving bed from which work had taken him for many months. With sweet envy I smiled, “Stanislav, my friend, thank you, it was a pleasure. Do svidaniya.”

I found a hostel, then walked the curving lanes. Winter had collapsed on Irkutsk; the air was sharp. The majority of its buildings are timber, their once vibrant colours now pale with age. Old houses slowly decay while half the wooden city sinks, to the point where small shacks are only half-remaining, and the mansions move down wonky slopes. In the main park, an old statue of Lenin remains. The sky is a constant steely grey. Across a melancholy river, giant fume clouds plough up from factories, until encrimsoned by the cold horizon’s fire.

I stayed for just a night, in that city where the years rest upon each other like a stack of cards.

The next morning, the sun galloped over the horizon, and there I was, on the train again, chugging along. Old men played cards and music too; they nodded their heads as I peered in, searching for my bed. I was leaving Russia now; south to the steppes of Mongolia, ancient home of Temüjin – a land I had dreamt of since childhood encyclopaedias.

The train curved around Baikal, Earth’s oldest and deepest lake. In the pink morning light, layers of steam peeled away from its surface. I watched a while, sipping tea from the samovar; then I had a cigarette and went to sleep.