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Siberia & the Russian Far East SIBERIA & THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST JULY 17 – AUGUST 1, 2019 TOUR LEADER: DR MATTHEW DAL SANTO SIBERIA & THE Overview RUSSIAN FAR EAST Embark on the tour of a lifetime to one of the world's last great travel Tour dates: July 17 – August 1, 2019 frontiers. This 16-day tour reveals the cultural and geographical wonders of Siberia and the Russian Far East. Tour leader: Dr Matthew Dal Santo We begin in Irkutsk, a former Cossack settlement forever linked to the Tour Price: $16,975 per person, twin share memory of the immortal ‘Decembrists’ – public-minded nobles who, exiled to Siberia for their part in an 1825 rebellion against the Tsar, recreated Single Supplement: $1,590 for sole use of with their wives the cultural and artistic life of St Petersburg for the benefit double room of Siberia’s rough frontiersmen. From Irkutsk we then travel to the superbly beautiful Lake Baikal, the world’s largest (by volume: Baikal Booking deposit: $500 per person contains about a fifth of all the world’s fresh water), oldest and deepest lake to spend two nights on Olkhon Island, which is sacred to the Recommended airline: Korean Airlines indigenous Buryat people and widely regarded as Baikal’s ‘jewel’ for its otherworldly beauty. Maximum places: 20 Taking the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway along Baikal’s rugged Itinerary: Irkutsk (2 nights), Lake Baikal (2 southern shore, we arrive in Ulan Ude, a culturally Mongolian town that is nights), Irkutsk (1 night), Ulan Ude (3 nights), the centre of Russian Buddhism with its centuries of close links with Tibet, Khabarovsk (1 night), Petropavlovsk- as well as a stronghold of the so-called ‘Old Believers’, a long-persecuted Kamchatsky (4 nights), Vladivostok (2 nights) Orthodox sect who have preserved in Siberia’s remote wooded valleys a centuries-old culture that includes a rich repertoire of songs of exile. From Date published: September 21, 2018 Ulan Ude we fly to Khabarovsk, a frontier town on the border with China that played a leading role in Russian colonisation of the Far East, and onto steaming, volcano-studded Kamchatka, Russia’s Alaska, to explore its extraordinary landscape and the culture of its indigenous husky-raising people, the Koryaks. The tour concludes in the bustling port city of Vladivostok. Closed for decades to foreigners, the undisputed capital of the Russian Far East is once again very much open for business, and famous for its seafood and stunning setting on one of the world’s great harbours – the Golden Horn. Your tour leader Dr Matthew Dal Santo is a writer, historian and foreign affairs commentator who currently resides in Copenhagen, Denmark. Born in Sydney, Matthew has lived most of the past 15 years in Europe. Matthew has a PhD in Ecclesiastical History from the University of Cambridge, where from 2005 to 2008 he held the Lightfoot Scholarship. The current focus of his interest is Russia. From 2014 to 2017, Matthew was Danish Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, with a grant to study how Russians think of themselves in Enquiries and the light of their history 25 years after the collapse of Communism and 100 bookings years since the 1917 revolution. He is particularly interested in how the revival of Orthodoxy has encouraged the return of the age-old idea of For further information and to ‘Holy Rus’ as well as rehabilitation of the culture and achievements of secure a place on this tour Imperial Russia, as for example in the canonisation in 2000 of the last please contact Jamal tsar, Nicholas II, and his family as saints. Fairbrother at Academy Matthew has travelled extensively in the Russian-speaking world, from Travel on 9235 0023 or 1800 Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus to Siberia and the Russian Far East. He is 639 699 (outside Sydney) or currently writing a book called The Romanovs and the Redemption of email Putin’s Russia: Remaking Holy Rus. [email protected] Tour Highlights VALLEY OF THE GEYSERS Experience a thrilling helicopter tour through snow-capped volcanoes to a hidden canyon deep in Kamchatka’s Valley of the Geysers and walk through an unspoilt landscape of shooting geysers, steaming hot springs and bubbling mud pools. Peer into the 150 square kilometre depression that forms the Uzon Caldera and soak in the thermal mineral springs in the Nalychevo National Park. LAKE BAIKAL Immerse yourself in the invigorating waters of Lake Baikal, the world’s oldest and deepest lake. Marvel at the rugged beauty of its dramatic Western shore, and savour the picturesque tranquillity of Olkhon Island. Cruise between the capes and headland of the ‘Little-sea’ admiring one of the richest and most unusual ecosystems on earth formed in a rift in the earth’s surface 25 million year ago. RUSSIAN BUDDHISM Listen to the sounds of Russian Buddhism as the lamas chant their ancient mantras in Buryatia’s revived monasteries, a hybrid of architectural elements from Buryat culture, Tibetan temples and Mongolian and Chinese architectural traditions. Learn about the dynamic blend of Tibetan Buddhism and indigenous Siberian shamanism, once again thriving after decades of suppression under Communism. THE OLD BELIEVERS Hear the heart-rending stories of the persecuted Old Believers, a people who have preserved their beliefs and customs in Siberian exile for centuries. An enigmatic people of religious dissenters who split from the Russian Orthodox Church into a number of different sects in the 17th century after they refused to accept the liturgical reforms being imposed upon them by the Russian Patriarch. VLADIVOSTOK See the sights and sample the glorious seafood of the bustling North Asian port city of Vladivostok, unofficial capital of the Russian Far East and home to one of Russia’s most important commercial ports and naval bases. Explore the state of the art Primorsky Aquarium on picturesque Russky Island and admire the world’s longest cable-stay suspension bridge that soars over Golden Horn Bay. Detailed itinerary Included meals are shown with the symbols B, L and D. Tour start & finish time The tour begins with arrival of the Korean Airlines flight into Irkutsk Airport in the late evening of Wednesday 17 July. The tour ends in Vladivostok on Thursday 1 August, after breakfast. Wednesday 17 July Arrive Irkutsk Your tour leader, Matthew Dal Santo will meet the group arriving on the Korean Airlines flight arriving at approximately 9.15pm (by current schedules) at Irkutsk Airport and transfer with you to Above: tiger or beaver? A bureaucratic bungle resulted in this statue of our hotel. Overnight Irkutsk this mythological creature known as the Babr with a sable in its jaws Thursday 18 July Below: the Tasty Folk Architecture museum offers a window into the Exploring Irkutsk everyday life of Siberians; beautiful Olkohn Island on Lake Baikal Founded as a Cossack fortress in 1661, Irkutsk later prospered as a leading way station for the fur and tea trade between Russia and China, as well as a place of exile for thousands of political prisoners. Today, it is a pleasant, tree-lined city of 600,000 people with important aeronautical industries. We begin our exploration with a visit to the Volkonsky House Decembrist Museum. The Museum tells the story of the Decembrists – Russian noblemen who rebelled against the Tsar in 1825 and were exiled for life to Siberia. Many of their wives voluntarily followed them into exile. Among the most famous of these was Princess Maria Volkonsky who sought to recreate in Irkutsk the cultural and intellectual life she had known in St Petersburg. We visit Maria’s home in exile. In the afternoon we make a visit to the superb Taltsy Folk Architecture museum. Here we return to the origins of Russian Siberia by walking through a 17th-century Cossack fort and stepping inside the log cabins of 19th-century homesteaders. For dinner, we are guests of a local Russian family, who prepare a typical Russian meal from the produce of their own garden. Overnight: Irkutsk (B, L, D) Friday 19 July To Olkhon Island Today, we travel north from Irkutsk through the vast open steppes of northern Eurasia that are the lands of the Western Buryats, a formerly nomadic people related to the neighbouring Mongols. Claiming the mother of Genghis Khan as one of their own, the Buryats have driven their herds across these lands for centuries, and we stop at Ust-Ordinsky Buddhist Monastery for a first glimpse of their culture. Buryat culture is a dynamic blend of Tibetan Buddhism and indigenous Siberian shamanism and, though suppressed for decades under Communism, today it is again thriving. Our final destination, travelling by ferry, is the beautiful Olkhon Island that lies just off the dramatic western shore of Lake Baikal. We spend the afternoon walking to local beauty spots and, for those brave enough to brave its icy waters, swimming in the pure, clear waters of the world’s oldest lake. Overnight Olkhon Island (B, L, D) Saturday 20 July Shaman cape, Lake Baikal A deep inland sea separated by thousands of kilometres of steppe and forest from the sea, Lake Baikal (which is estimated to hold about one fifth of the world’s fresh water) is an ecosystem like no other. Of all its many beauty spots, Shaman Cape on Olkhon Island is justifiably the most famous. Looking like a perfect Japanese miniature and framed by mountain ridges, the Cape is considered the eye of the world by local shamanists and one of the seven holiest sites of Asia among Buddhists. After hearing from a local Buryat shaman about the Cape’s significance, we take to the water for a cruise across one of the lake’s most picturesque arms, the so-called ‘Little Sea’, with the capes, headlands and bays of Baikal forming a perfect backdrop.
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