Day 32 - Ulan Ude Capital of Buryatia and Buddhism

6,541 Miles GMT +9 Temp –18

Virtually no sleep last night because of the storm, but I did eventually get some photos, and see the sunrise, which was adequate recompense. Togo returned us to Ulan Ude early on Friday morning. It would have been nice to stay longer with the family, but we made our choices and have no spare days left to spend, sadly. We only had few hours here, as we can only use the Vladivostok service from today, so we spent most of it a little way out of the city at Buddhist temples.

During the 1930’s Russian anti-religious mania, every Buryat Buddhist temple was destroyed. Ulan Ude was closed by the Soviets until 1988, and the Buryat culture was almost destroyed in that time. Thankfully today Buryatia is recovering, new temples have been built and the Dali Lama has visited to encourage the education and the re-establishment of Buryat culture. We were welcomed at both of the temples that we visited, and at the second one, invited to watch the monks making sand mandalas, which was such a lesson in patience and timely reminder of impermanence.

Ulan Ude is the intersection of the Trans-Siberian meets and Trans-Manchurian Railways, and the diversity of cultures is evident at every turn, with Mongolian, Chinese and Buryats far outnumbering the Russians on the streets – although architecturally it’s still essentially a mix of Russian and Siberian buildings. 

In the main square built in Stalinist times is the largest head of Lenin in the world and two tanks set on plinths – They feel and look out of place in most cities to me, and here more than anywhere else.

All aboard

We will be back on the train soon for a journey of around 48 hours to Khabarovsk, skirting the Mongolian and Chinese borders on our right and to the left more of Siberia.