Day 29 - Siberian Women are Wonderful

The Wonderful Elders Of Buguldeyka

6,256 Miles  GMT +9 hours Temp –7

Today has been a total joy. Siberian women are fantastic. We started the day with meeting the village elders, all women and all dressed in their traditional best. They wanted to know about my village, and how things are run there. I gave them a potted history of Tynemouth and North Shields and showed them the pictures I have. There were some warm smiles when I told them it had been a busy fishing port. The sea fascinates them. None of them have seen one before, or heard of the Vikings, or seen brick houses, or a lighthouse. When I showed them the map of the blog, there were gasps of amazement at how far I have travelled, and Anya too, they were equally curious about other parts of Siberia, but not other parts of Russia and distinctly not Moscow. The furthest any of them have been is Irkutsk. They keep verbal histories, and ensure the old ways are not lost, but they do embrace some modern things – mobile phones, bottled gas, Satelite TV. They have a very strong faith in the orthodox church, but no chapel in the village. Each house has it’s own shrine, but they are also very respectful of the local Buryats and their Shamanistic beliefs. They don’t think of themselves as Russian, they identify as Siberian. Lena asked them if when the Buryat Republic had been closed by the Soviets they had been aware of that or noticed anything different? They had been told, and warned not to cross the lake, but they ignored it because ‘the Soviets’ had no right to put down a boundary on their land or the Buryat’s, because they didn’t respect the land or  people. Four women who defied the might of the Soviet machine and told their village to do the same. Lena was quite moved by them. Partly because they reminded her of her mother, who would have smiled today, but also that the older generation in Russia put the land and people ahead of anything else. It’s known as Rodina ‘Родина’ which translated is, a love of the motherland. Some Russians may have forgotten it but the Siberians haven’t.

Danicng in the Market

On leaving there we caught the bus back to Listvyanka to top up our provisions, as the local shop only has dried goods and fish. There are two markets in the village, a fish market and another that sells everything else. We met a lovely elderly Buryat trader lady, and were talked into buying Yak cheese, smoked goat, and some garlic. She told us that we should visit her tribe on Olkhon Island, which we said we would tomorrow.

Our favourtie Buryat trader

 

On the other side of the market there was a bit of a knees up, some of the market women dancing, as the market was quiet. We were given tea while we completed our shopping, and eventually dragged into dancing in the market place with the locals. Everyone here seems so happy and content, it’s quite infectious.

CSI Siberia - the Clanger thief

We’ve had lovely time making ice sculptures this afternoon, and playing with trick photography, as it’s been much warmer today than it has been for a while. Curried goat went down well for supper.