If you kept up with my last post on my Russian Banya experience, you'll know that life in Siberia just isn't what you'd expect.  The next major highlight during this Russian tour was our journey to take my friend's grandfather out to the 'garage'. Now this Russian 'garage' is far far different than what you must be thinking. Let me go…

The next few days in Irkutsk started off with another trip out to the 'countryside house' only this time, it wasn't to work in the garden or harvest some cabbage in sub-zero temperatures. Nope. This time is was strictly to use the Russian banya (sauna) and instead of family this time around, it was friends we'd be meeting up with. However…

After leaving from a weekend trip to Listvyanka, we arrived back in Irkutsk for my second full week there. While I would say that things were much the same as my first week spent in this city, it was far from it after randomly working in Siberia later that week. However, things started off with a dinner at my friend's grandparent's…

With a few hours spent out at the Taltsy Museum 'Village', we were once again on our way to Listvyanka to spend the day and night. I would have rather spent at least three days in the Listvyanka area however, I knew the weather would be turning tomorrow and would be the start of the Siberian winter weather that would fall…

Since it had been almost two weeks since we'd gone to Arshan for a weekend, it felt time again to take a road trip out of Irkutsk, Russia. This time we were headed to Listvyanka but had plans first to head to the Taltsy Museum. Well, I guess you could call it a museum but it was more of a small…

With about five days spent in Irkutsk, Russia so far, it was time to head out of the city and the next destination was a place called Arshan which is located within about 50 miles north of the Mongolian border. I had been told about Arshan before, even when I had traveled out to Siberia nearly a year earlier. However, with…