Irkutsk (Cameron)

We are in Irkutsk, the Paris of Siberia. Like Paris, it's a great walking city, with beautiful architecture, wide boulevards, and plenty of people out on warm summer evenings. Unlike Paris, it was founded as a Cossack garrison to subdue the indigenous Buryat population (closely related to the Mongolians) .

At the central intersection of Karl Marx Rd. and Lenin St. stands a large bronze statute of the latter. Speakers play music; we enjoyed an alto-sax rendition of Pachelbel's Canon. Just down the street there is a recently (and controversially) erected statute of White Army commander Admiral Kolchak (executed by the Bolsheviks during the civil war).

We arrived yesterday on the overnight train from Ulan-Bator. We shared our four bed compartment with two girls on scholarship to study medicine in Moscow. The neighbouring compartment was filled with the same. Most spoke decent English and were friendly and outgoing.

The train bathrooms were locked during the four hours at the Russian border, but at hour three (about 1:30am), the doors were opened and we were permitted to mill around the platform. I didn't want to pay 8 roubles to use the overburdened bathroom, so with the help of a lanky Mongolian boy on scholarship to finish high school in Ukraine, I found a sufficiently secluded corner. This seemed to spark further subversive behaviour, as a parade of others quickly caught on and followed our lead.