Snow turtles at Lake Baikal

I’ve been hoping it would snow ever since we arrived in Russia. Even though it’s only October and technically still autumn, I’ve read enough gloomy Russian novels to know that there was a good chance we’d get some snowfall, especially in Siberia where, according to a local girl I spoke to yesterday, summer consists of only 20 days good weather per year. It gets down to about -40°C here in the depths of winter and Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake at 1642m and containing approximately one-fifth of the world’s fresh water, freezes to a depth of 3 metres.

 

Yesterday when we arrived in Lake Baikal it was sunny and glorious, but still cold enough to freeze your nose every time you faced the wind. This morning when we woke up the sky was white-washed and snow was falling!! This is only the second time I have seen snow actually falling from the sky (first time was in Holland one Christmas) and it is VERY EXCITING!!

We took a walk down to the lakeside to buy some smoked omul (a cousin of salmon and trout and endemic to Lake Baikal), washed down with a stout which I am pretty sure was brewed with snow and smoked fish in mind. After buying a bottle of Russian brandy and some hot chocolate for later cockles-warming, we were ready for the walk home.

 

It snowed steadily the whole time we were down in town, so much so that I was able to make what may well be the world’s-first snow turtle (a snow baby turned out to be rather hard to execute and there really isn’t enough snow to justify a full on snowman just yet)!!! Who knew snow could be this fun!!!