Rolling through Russia part 6: Pleasant ride to Irkutsk and unannouncedvisit at Team Strela's training

In the morning after the breakfast in Ulan Ude, Igor gave me some tips on how to get out of the city. I had to take marshrutka 121 if I remember correctly. But public transportation in Russia is a nightmare if you're not local or you don't know where each bus goes. There is no such thing as schedule, route maps and buses are not listed anywhere, you need to know your thing. You need to know where to wait and which bus to take. That's probably why public transportation in Russia is not available on google maps.

But anyway, I managed to get out of the city, or rather get to some suburbs. I passed police checkpoint (they have police checkpoints in many places on major routes in Russia, they stop random cars for control), walked a little further and started hitchhiking.

After maybe 15 or 20 minutes, a Buryat couple whose names I unfortunately forgot, picked me up and and I was going to Irkutsk. Second day in a row I got a straight ride to my destination, seems like luck is on my side.

It was a super nice couple. On the way we stopped several times for some shaman practices. Shamanism is very strong in Russia and especially in this region. On most of the high passes there is a place to stop and people hang pieces of colorful fabric on trees and throw symbolic amount of food or some coins for good luck.

After few hours in the car, we reached lake Baikal. The route is especially nice over there because it goes along the coast of the lake for around 100 kilometers. At some point we stopped for a lunch on a small beach. They had some ham and cheese sandwiches and some cooked chicken, which of course they shared with me. And it was delicious. The water in the lake was super freakin cold, it was that cold that I started rethinking if I really want to swim there.

After the quick lunch, of course we had some tea. I've always thought that England was the hardcore tea drinking nation but I was wrong, it's Russians. They drink tea ALL the time. Every meal, between meals, they always have some chai (tea).

After the lunch we kept going towards Irkutsk. Before leaving I've done some research and I found a BJJ gym over there. I failed to contact them but I found their address and schedule so I decided to give it a try.

Their training was scheduled for 19.00, I was watching the clock all the time and it looked like I had a chance to make it on time, until the moment when we took the wrong way, around 20 kilometers before the city - that's how we lost around 20 minutes.

We arrived at the main train station around 18.50 or even later and I already knew I wouldn't make it on time, but still decided to go there. If I would take a bus or marshrutka I would arrive to the gym maybe at 20.00 so taxi was the only option. How taxis work in Russia is also very interesting. They don't have any taximeters, you just negotiate the price before entering the cab. I knew that I shouldn't pay more than 150 rubles (around 3 USD) for a ride to the gym, but when I asked first taxi drivers I saw, they asked for ridiculous 500 rubles, I said no fuckin way, and then they asked for 350 - still too much. Few minutes later I found a guy who agreed to drive me there for 200 rubles, still too much but acceptable, so I hopped in and we left.

In every country taxis work differently but I find it a little sad how they prey on tourists, who are not aware of local prices. Later, my host told me about one guy who paid for a ride from the train station to the center 2000 rubles instead of fair price of maybe 150 max. Well, some people like to make money that way...

Luckily my driver knew the city really well and he was going really fast, often driving on red light - Since I was already late I really liked how he drove.

I arrived at the gym maybe 10 to 15 minutes late, I apologized and asked if I could join, I quickly changed and joined the training. 

There was a blue belt teaching (he was replacing main coach as I was told), 3 white belts and two kids. After the warm up, which I missed we got few light rolls and then moved to technique. They were working on lasso guar, first we got to do some drills and then the basic lasso sweep and rolling triangle.

After the technique, we got some specific training and then few 5-minutes rounds of sparring. Even though I was super tired after the whole day in a car without a proper meal I had few nice rounds. I sparred with all the white belts and the coach, who had some pretty good side control reversals.

After the training we chatted a little. One guy asked me how the hell I got such strong grips - I don't think I actually do. So I tried to explain him that I play a lot of spider guard and it comes with mat-time. I couldn't explain him that I didn't do any secret grip strength training ;)

Then we took some pictures, I took a shower and one of the guys gave me the ride to my hosts.

And my hosts were super nice people. Tanya and her daughter Lena signed up for couchsurfing not so long ago, but it seems like they really enjoy the concept. Lena speaks perfect English and Tanya is learning. We exchanged some travel stories, they gave me plenty of information about the city and lake Baikal. In the morning I also finally got to use computer so I could update my blog, and when I was done, it was time to go. My next stop - Listvianka by lake Baikal. Before going there, I walked around the city for a while and I finally bought the Russian sim card. For 350 rubles I bought an MTS sim card with 3gb of internet and I think 400 free minutes for local calls in Irkutsk area, which are quite useless since I was not gonna stay there for long. But that's how phone operators work in Russia, you get deals for regions not for whole Russia, there is roaming if you go out of your homre region.

Many people say that Irkutsk is a really nice city, but to be honest I didn't find it exceptional. I mean, there are several nice streets, but that's all. It's certainly not my favorite place. It's worth visiting, but definitely not as a main destination.