Frozen Hell on Earth. This is the road from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk. 1070 km of bad roads, no roads, frozen roads, snowed roads and even, sometimes, good roads. There are some medium cities on the way, without circumvolutory road, so the city must be crossed. And also some small village, that must be crossed at low speed. Impossible to do it in one single day, at least, on winter. So we had to stop to sleep in the car, with the engine running, to avoid the freezing of ourselves.
There is also many train crossing
Sunrise on the road
So after 16 hours of pure Mad Max driving, we arrived to Irkutsk on the morning. We were received by Ilja cousin, and we have some deserved rest, after a good lunch. On the evening, we visited the city with the family.
Beer, better cold
Irkutsk: the door to Asia. Big city, with an important train station and many different railways, direction to Mongolia, Kazakhstan, east Russia and west Russia. Irkutsk is bigger than Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buriat region, but even is not the capital, is the centre for the communications and moving goods and people.
Irkutsk centre
In Irkutsk live people with different religion: orthodox or shamanistic; different origins: west Russian, Buriat, Uzbek, Kazak and also Mongolian. And there isn’t any conflict, at all. There is mixed couples everywhere, and any racism can be appreciated. Regarding the people of the area this is another achievement of Soviet times: no religion, no regions, only Soviet Union people.
Irkutsk writer, half Russian, half Buriat
Apart from this, the city is dirty, due to the snow, the salt, and the gravel that is used to avoid the ice. The old centre is beautiful, the new commercial centre is empty, and the rest is dirty.
The old
The new
The dirty
