Day 10

Since the Marriott was booked we had to move.  We packed, checked out and took a taxi to Angara hotel.  It is walking distance from Marriott, in the central Kirov square.  It is a Russian hotel and all bilingual is Russian and Chinese.  There is an overwhelming number of Chinese tourists here.  After checking in, we walked around Irkutsk’s two main streets – Lenin Street and Karl Marx Street taking pictures of (Bo) of beautiful historic buildings. We had lunch in a nice restaurant (Travelers café) and walked back to the Marriott. There we met with a friend of a friend of a friend, a chemistry scientist  who lives in Irkutsk.  He was supposed to give us suggestions of things to see in Irkutsk and vicinity.  But he was an absent minded professor who did not impart any knowledge.  We spent two hours with him talking about his travels, about Poland and mutual friends. After rest we embarked on an evening stroll.  We walked to the embankment and the statue of Alexander III, the tsar who ordered the construction of transsiberian railway. Since we weren’t hungry enough to go out to dinner, we just bought a box of wine, a loaf of bread, and a hunk of cheese. We needed ice to cool the wine so we asked our floor concierge (as in big communist hotels, this hotel has a concierge on every floor) who first directed us to a restaurant on 3rd floor (no ice); they directed us to a bar on 1st floor (no ice); and the directed us to a Chinese restaurant also on 1st floor where we got a lot of ice and a lot of smiles.