"Baikal - Amikan", individual tours and nature at Baikal Lake

I am not a professional in making video, but this place is such a real "Winter" place, with its own magic and magnificance, with the freshest frozen air and cleanest snow ever, that I decided to make a short video sketch about it. It shows our Christimas trip to Khamar-Daban mountains (it's on the south of Baikal lake). Now it is winter and it is perfect time to go skiing, snowshoeing and living WINTER!!! It's calling...

We’ve visited Baikal lake today and guess what! It’s sensational but it is frozen! (At least in Listvyanka it is)) This year it is the earliest as I can remember time – early January when Baikal is frozen already! Usually it happens in the middle of January only but due to the low temperatures of December last year the water got frozen. We walked a little on the ice feeling very strange as it always feels when standing on the ice for the first time after a while, especially fresh ice. It is considered safe to walk over the ice the its thickness reaches 10cm and for the car to drive – when it is 20cm. I hope this year there will be lots of places with clear ice-fields suitable to skate, but Baikal is creative and I’m sure his design is the best anyway. So, Baikal welcomes to its frozen spaces!!! Try our Baikal winter tours here . And it was the first time when Kristina has ever stood on the frozen Baikal (she is 1,2 years old) and touched the ice herself.  Hope she’ll rem...

  A great video about Russia's specialty and piculiarities: Borsh, Banya, Dostoevskiy, old Russian car, and much more! Touch Russia...

I'd like to invite you for a trip to winter Baikal. During this trip you’ll see the most beauties of wintry Baikal, ride over the ice of frozen Baikal by snowmobile and feel its vastness, experience dog-sledding on Baikal and spend night at the warm wooden houses, try Russian Banya, explore icy grottoes of Olkhon island, try ice-fishing and have a UAZ-car excursion to the northernmost of Olkhon island. It is a nice combination of activities and leisure at the same time! To read more... Day 1: Arrival to Irkutsk, meeting with your guide and transfer to Listvyanka by car.  On the way to Listvyanka you’ll have a stop in the open air Taltsy museum of wooden architecture which is located at the picturesque shore of Angara river. Your next stop will be near the Shaman rock  - a sacred place among local people. It stands in the widest river mouth in the world – the place where Angara river flows out of Baikal. In Listvyanka you’ll be accommodated at the hotel. Lunch. Si...

Winter has taken its full rights and is giving quite low temperatures to us! The night temperature of -25 C -30 C is a normal thing while at the day time it can be about +15 C on the warm days. The skiing and snowboarding and dog-sledding season has already started, but Baikal lake is not frozen yet. Will wait till the middle of January! Till then enjoy sunny days and snowfalls and long evenings!

Olkhon land is severe. Every Olkhon villager knows it, but not likely that any tourist knows it. Every new summer more and more of them come to the island which is the most attractive place for them to visit on Baikal. For indigenous population of Olkhon this island is a sacred place, same as lake Baikal. Terrifying spirits of the Great Lake inhabit this place, this was the place where the first Buryat shaman was given the Shaman talent in ancient times, and also some believe that it is the place of Chingis-Khan burial site. Olkhon is shrouded with myths, legends and old stories which are handed down by tradition. However, the scientific community has recognized it as the main sanctuary and the worship center of general Mongolian and Central Asian significance, and the center of the Kurumchi Culture of the 6th-9th centuries. The local discoveries include Kurumchi sites of fortified towns, burial grounds and many other archaeologican monuments, the best known of which is the ancie...

The wonderful trip to Baikal which I guided, which was very bright and seemed like a short life where everyone became a family still arises in my heart and reminds of warm people with great friendship and makes me proud of beautiful nature of our place. This is the picture of our team. The first extraordinary thing we did was buying the whole bucket of wild blackberries which some locals were selling on the side of the road. I guess it was the thirst for wilderness and natural food))) Then when we we arrived to Olkhon island onb the first day - we decided to take a bike-walk instead of a regular walk to the shore and Shamanka cape. For those who doesn't know, Shamanka or Burkhan cape is the face of Olkhon, the most popular image of Olkhon, etc.  The reason of why it was not typical is because most of the people was about 50, mostly office workers ,but once arriving to Baikal everyone felt so inspired and tired of office chairs that agreed that it was a great idea! Renting ...