Monday, December 13th, 3:00pm, Irkutsk

Dear Blog,


It's -29°C outside and I'm still freezing to death! I've pratically finished my journey now but I still have a day and a half to visit Irkutsk so it's ok. I'm sleeping in the Baikal Business Center Hotel for $58 a night. 
At lunch time I went to eat in the Russkaya Chaynaya restaurant and I ate a crab salad, a blini with  smoked salmon and eggplant and a Black Russian Cake with chocolate, vodka and liquor in it. Mmmh... Delicious!! I'm sorry I didn't take a photo of it but it was cool!

So first of all, yesterday, I went to see the Bogoyavlensky (Epiphany) Cathedral. Apparently the first epiphany Cathedral was built in wood  by the citizens of Irkutsk in 1693 but was then destroyed in a fire in 1716 so they built another one in stone and then in 1815 they built a belfry and installed the biggest bell in Irkutsk which weighs 12 tons.

I also visited one of the most popular train stations in Russia. It is huge and has a very nice pastel color. This is where I got off the train yesterday. It was built in 1898.

And of course, I went to see the Lake Baikal which the world's deepest and oldest lake and the second most voluminous one after the Caspian Sea. It is 636km long and 744.4 meters deep, it also contains 20 percent of the world's fresh water.