July 2015 update:
This year `m not going to Russia anymore.
But my mother in law is sending my actual pictures of Baikal region from time to time.
Still there are a lot of impressive photos of 2013 to upload to my photo-site lakebaikal, which I try to update from time to time.

my trip to the deepest lake in the world

The deepest lake in the world

With more than 5387 ft. Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world.

Baikal lies in the south-eastern Siberia, Russia.

Travelling to baikal is not that adventure that it was anymore, since Tourism started to develop in the Russian Federation since the 90`s in the last century. 

One of the few countries in the world where u still need a visa as a tourist. But there are agencies where you can get it within a few days. 

On my first trip in the early 2000`s i booked a the complete trip to Irkutsk via a local travel agency, which was rather expensive, but in that time the easiest and fastest way.It gave me the knowledge and experience to organize and book my future travels myself.

Back to 2006...

Before my frst trip  I read a lot about Russia in the internet and believe me, most of it were prejudices and rumors!

Yes, Russia is somewhat behind for our understanding. Russians like to do almost everything on their own way, no matter if its effective or not:-)

But people on the street are friendly, open minded and helpful where it is needed and I personally had no contact with crime or fraud - even when  i forgot my purse once, some girl was sent by the parents to bring it to me. 

Taxi drivers, yes here you should be careful, arange the fee before hand and dont use one in moscow itself.

To tell the truth I didn`t leave mosow airport on my first trip, because i had no language skills at all and I was warned  to go to the city as a tourist alone.

My next checkpoint was Irkutsk, the closest town to Lake Baikal with an international aiport.
Irkutsk is a small industrial city in the west of Baikal. From here you can reach domestic airports like Nizhneangarsk, which is directly on the north-eastern coast of Lake Baikal.

Though there are seldom crashes or accidences, internal flights in Russia are - Russian. :-)