MIR Corporation's Travel Log:
Trans-Siberian Railway - Day 10: Ulan Ude

MIR clients Helge Pedersen and Karen Ofsthus ride the rails of the fabled Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to UlaanBaatar on MIR's Trans-Siberian private rail journey as they check in from each stop with stories, photos and video.

• Days 1-2: Moscow
• Day 3: Moscow, Aboard Train
• Day 4: Kazan
• Day 5: Ekaterinburg
• Days 6-7: Novosibirsk, Aboard train
• Days 8-9: Lake Baikal, Irkutsk
• Day 10: Ulan Ude
• Days 11-12: UlaanBaatar

July 10, 2008

Starting Location: Irkutsk, Russia

Ending Location: Ulan Ude, Russia

Total Distance Traveled: 3,485 miles (5,609 kilometers)

You can always tell when someone is genuinely happy to see you arrive and sad to see you go. That was the experience we had during our visit to an Old Believers' village, sitting quietly among lovely, green rolling hills on the outskirts of Ulan Ude, Siberia.

There are some 200,000 Old Believers living in Siberia; their forefathers settled here around 1765. According to our guidebook, the Old Believers are an Orthodox Christian sect who fled persecution from the doctrinal reforms of their church in the 17th century. In doing so, they avoided imprisonment, forced labor, execution and being burned alive. Some settled in the U.S., Canada, Brazil and even Australia while others, thanks to Catherine the Great and her religious tolerance reforms, settled in Siberia. Safe in their isolated communities, they've managed to preserve their culture. In 2001, they were recognized by UNESCO as one of 19 original "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity."

Galena was the hostess of the house and welcomed us warmly as we unloaded our bus. Her tiny wooden home with blue wooden shutters included a small storage shed, a roomy chicken coop, and a woodshed, stacked high with birch. There was also a gaily-painted outhouse and a tiny garden sprouting garlic, onion, tomato, cucumber and lettuce. It all occupied perhaps an acre. Stretching forever behind the house was a huge field of potato plants: its harvest coming soon to complete the foodstuffs needed to endure the coming winter.

Accompanying Galena's warm welcome were the beaming smiles of her two beautiful teenage daughters, one of whom had attended an exchange program in West Virginia. Her English was perfect. Living with Galena and her daughters were her parents. Their faces were wrinkled and browned by long hours working the potato field in the sun; their toothless grins and bright blue eyes shone no less bright than that of their granddaughters. Galena's neighbors were there too. Everyone had come to invite us into their culture, serve us a delectable meal of their favorite dishes made from completely organic ingredients and to entertain us with traditional song and dance.

The Old Believers have perfected polyphonic singing. They sang us lively a capella songs that spoke of finding the perfect love, of girl-loves-boy and of love gone unrecognized. That's a lot of love! Their folksy lyrics were also accompanied by the get-up-and-go melody of a battered accordion; its player, an old man toothless and smiling from ear to ear.

They wear beautiful clothing for special celebrations. Aprons sewn in brightly-colored layers of red, green, yellow and magenta silk covered equally colorful ankle-length dresses with a ribboned edge. Married women wear scarves bedecked with beadwork, coiled turban-like on their heads, while unmarried women wrap their braided hair in light blue silk. Chunky amber beads, lots of them, top off the outfit. It's hard to imagine that such costumes were once the daily wear of these people. Working in the fields must have been a challenge.

Galena's daughters displayed much enthusiasm mixed with a bit of spunk as they played wooden spoons, teasing each other and us with their spoon-clapping duel. Laughter comes easily and is part of the performance. The "click-clickity-click" sound of many camera shutters could barely be heard over the laughter. Participation was encouraged during some rousing do-si-do dancing. With a yank of an arm, our traveling comrades were kicking up the dust and whirling left and right, arms outstretched a bit awkwardly. They were laughing too. It was wonderful seeing them have so much fun.

It was time to go far too soon. They bid us all goodbye with handshakes, clasping our one hand in their two and giving a little pat, pat, pat. They offered huge smiles and invitations to return and help them in the field behind the house. There are a lot of potatoes out there and someone has to do the harvesting.

Tomorrow, Helge and I leave Siberia and the Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express behind. We've cleared Russian and Mongolian customs and the famous Mongolian Naadam Festival is just hours away.

Photos from this leg of the tour:

The world's largest sculptured head of Lenin on the central square of Ulan Ude		Picturesque setting for an Old Believers village outside of Ulan Ude
The group is greeted by music and song in the Old Believers village		As we discover the homestead of our hosts, we are entertained by music and song
Beautiful young girl in typical outfit		Beautiful young girl in typical outfit
Beautiful dress and head gear		Colorful shed in the back yard of our host's home
Beautiful windows shades on typical Old Believers' home		Our tour manager Michel

A slideshow with more photos from this leg of the tour:

To start the Slideshow, click once within the frame above, then click the PLAY button at the left of the menu bar. You may also slide your mouse pointer along the timeline to view individual photos.