Lake Baikal

Currency

Change money in Irkutsk before going to the lake — Listvyanka and Olkhon have almost nothing, and guesthouses there want cash. Foreign cards do not work anywhere in Russia, so the whole trip has to be funded from notes you brought with you.

ATMs & cards

No foreign card works in Russian machines, and on Olkhon there is barely a machine to fail in. Draw and change everything in Irkutsk, and carry small notes — the ferry, the banya and the fish smokers do not have change for large ones.

Foreign cards do not work anywhere in Russia, and the island runs on cash and small notes.

Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.

Safety

The lake is the hazard. In winter the ice is safe where local drivers go and lethal where it is not — never drive or walk out without someone who reads it — and −20°C is a normal March day. In summer the water stays near 10°C and swimming is a brief, shocking business. Phone signal on Olkhon is patchy. The national caveats about travel to Russia apply here too.

Our own assessment, not a sourced index.

Entry & visa

Health & emergencies

Required to enter

No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.

Worth having

• Routine vaccinations up to date
• Tick-borne encephalitis if you will be in forest or countryside between spring and autumn — this is a genuine risk across Siberia and the Far East
• Hepatitis A
• Rabies for remote or long stays

Getting treated

State hospitals treat emergencies, and the standard varies enormously between Moscow and the regions. Private clinics in Moscow and St Petersburg are good and take cash. The complication is not medical: many Western insurers no longer cover travel to Russia at all, and card payment does not work, so a serious problem has to be paid for in cash or arranged from home.

Ticks in forest across Siberia and the Far East from May to July carry encephalitis, and the vaccination course takes weeks — start it early. Cold is the other one: −20°C is an ordinary winter day in Irkutsk and frostbite happens fast in wind. In Kamchatka the hazards are bears, volcanic ground and weather that strands people for days.

Orientation, not medical advice. Entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history and where you have been — check with a travel clinic or your national health service four to six weeks before you go.

Food tip

Omul, the endemic whitefish, smoked at the roadside and eaten hot with bread — it is the one thing everybody has here and it deserves the reputation. Buryat buuzy, big steamed dumplings you drink the broth out of first, are the other. In summer there are wild berries and pine nuts at every stall.

Getting around

• Irkutsk is the gateway — five hours ahead of Moscow, on the Trans-Siberian, with flights from Moscow overnight
• Marshrutka — the shared vans to Listvyanka (1h) and to Olkhon (6h, ferry included) leave when full
• Ice road — from February the lake freezes a metre thick and vehicles drive to Olkhon across it
• Circum-Baikal railway — a slow day on an old line hugging the shore, and the best way to see the south
• Hovercraft — how you cross in the shoulder weeks when the ice is neither solid nor gone

Must-see

Things to do

• Walk on the ice in March, where it is clear enough to see through
• Spend two nights on Olkhon and get out to the north of the island
• Ride the Circum-Baikal railway
• Eat smoked omul at a roadside stall
• Sit in a banya and run into the lake, which is the local idea of a good time
• Watch for nerpa seals, the only freshwater seal on earth

Nearby day trips

Say a few words

Russian

• HelloЗдравствуйтеZDRAST-vooy-tye
• Hi (informal)Приветpri-VYET
• Please / you’re welcomeПожалуйстаpa-ZHAL-sta
• Thank youСпасибоspa-SEE-ba
• Yes / NoДа / Нетda / nyet
• Excuse meИзвинитеiz-vi-NEE-tye
• How much?Сколько стоит?SKOL-ka STO-eet
• I don’t understandЯ не понимаюya nye pa-ni-MA-yu
• Do you speak English?Вы говорите по-английски?vy ga-va-REE-tye pa an-GLEE-ski
• CheersЗа здоровьеza zda-ROV-ye
• GoodbyeДо свиданияda svi-DA-ni-ya

Learn the Cyrillic alphabet before you go — an hour of work, and it turns most street signs, menus and metro maps into words you can half-read, because so many are borrowed. English is common among younger people in Moscow and St Petersburg and rare elsewhere. Translation apps with offline Russian are worth downloading before arrival.

Religion

Russian Orthodox

The Orthodox church is woven into the state and into national identity, and church attendance rose sharply after 1991. Visitors are welcome: women cover their heads in a church, men take hats off, everyone stands — there are no pews — and nobody minds a quiet foreigner at the back. Islam is the second religion and the majority in Tatarstan, the North Caucasus and parts of the Volga; Buryatia around Lake Baikal is Buddhist, and its datsans are working monasteries rather than museums.

Do's and don'ts

Do

• Take your shoes off in someone’s home; slippers appear immediately
• Shake hands firmly, and only after you have both come inside — a handshake across a threshold is bad luck
• Give flowers in odd numbers. Even numbers are for funerals, and the rule is taken seriously
• Carry your passport and migration card; the police can ask and occasionally do
• Dress up for the theatre and the ballet, and leave your coat in the cloakroom — wearing it inside is not done

Don't

• Do not expect small talk or smiles from strangers; a neutral face in public is normal, not hostility
• Do not photograph military sites, airports or anything a sign forbids — this is enforced
• Do not discuss the war, and understand that the laws on "discrediting the armed forces" and on "LGBT propaganda" apply to visitors, in conversation and on your phone
• Do not refuse a toast at a table without a reason; refusing the third one, to the women present, is worse
• Do not put an empty bottle back on the table, which is a superstition everyone observes without explaining