Bolshie Koty - In which I swim in a fresh water sea and learn about copepod foreplay

Siberia was never on my list of destinations. My only real knowledge of the place came from my senior English class when we read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, so whenever I heard of Siberia, I pictured a frozen tundra with hard work and little food. But I'm up for new adventures, so when my professor asked if I'd like to come to Siberia this summer to help on a research project, I jumped at the opportunity and threw myself in whole-heartedly. What a wonderful surprise it was to get to Bolshie Koty, the little village in which the biological station was, and to see the absolute beauty awaiting us at Lake Baikal.

Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world. If you think the Great Lakes in the states are pretty big, just consider that the volume of Lake Baikal can fit a few of the Great Lakes combined. This huge lake is often called the Sacred Sea, and it is biologically fascinating for many reasons. It has tons of species in this lake that exist nowhere else in the world, including the only freshwater seal, the Nerpa, and it has an incredibly rich cultural history with the native people. I came to the lake to study Epischura, a type of copepod that is really important in the food web. The team hoped to discover what kind of food these copepods prefer to feed on. This meant that I got to spend some time setting up the experiment, and picking copepods out of lake water with a pipette. These little guys are super fast and very zippy, making this both a challenging task and an exciting one. They also have some pretty interesting behaviors when it comes to mating which involved stroking certain hairs on their backs, and when we were searching for copepods we found quite a few females with eggs.

Bolshie Koty is a village that remains quite small, despite a recent growth in tourism to the lake. Most people leave when winter comes, leaving only about 5 people in the valley to weather the cold harsh Siberian winter. The town is full of dochas, or summer cottages, that usually have just a couple of rooms and a place to cook. There are no screens, only windows with lace curtains to block out some of the flies. Horses wander at will, munching on the wildflowers wherever they can find them and even opening gates to get into the biological station. 

 Horses aren't the only animals that have free reign of the town though. Cows also wander wherever they please. While at first I believed the local dogs were getting into the trash bags, I later realized my mistake.

 There were so many times the first few days that I was in Bolshie Koty where I thought, "It's so nice to be right by the ocean." Then I would have to stop and correct myself, reminding myself that this huge, seemingly endless body of water is actually a lake. Although you can see across to the mountains, if you look in either direction, the water doesn't seem to end. Unfortunately, after just a few days of staying in Bolshie Koty, serious forest fires hit the northern part of the forest surrounding the lake, and a thick smoke blocked out the view of the mountains for the rest of our stay. This, especially, made it feel even more like an ocean. 

I did manage to take a swim when I was there. The lake is so cold that swimming essentially involves a quick leap into the lake, 30 seconds treading water, and then a quick sprint out of the water. You then sit on the rocky beach for a few minutes, your feet aching as you start to regain feeling in your toes because a whole minute in the water was more than enough to make them go numb. And the water this summer was incredibly warm for Siberia.

 There is a park surrounding the lake, with hiking trails that are not very well marked and take you right along the cliffs of the mountains. The trails offer breathtaking views, minor confusion, and a lot of sweat and some prayers to whichever deity you think will save you from sliding down the mountain, but hiking in Russia is an absolutely unforgettable experience.

 This was one of the less scary parts of the hike. I felt like I was off on an adventure like Bilbo Baggins, and did, in fact, do a wobbly run down the road with my hiking companion yelling, "I'm going on an adventure" like a total American dork.

 I also befriended a couple of kitten when I was there. It made me feel a bit nostalgic for the days when I used to live on a farm and there were new kittens every summer. These particular kittens weren't the most friendly, but by the end of the three weeks they would let me pet them a bit before scampering off.

 The final day that I was there, I hiked up with the team to the top of the peak overlooking the village. It looked so different from above. While walking threw it, it was possible to see the people playing volleyball, the animals sorting through the trash, and the life of the little village, but from above it was obvious how truly small Bolshie Koty is. While it was not someplace I had ever planned on going, I am incredibly lucky to have seen something so few people get to.

Moscow - In which I step on Russian soil for the first time and rush to catch my next plane

So it turns out I wasn't very good at staying away from the blog. While I had decided that I would not write after I had left Spain, there are just too many cool places in this world to keep them all to myself. So here it is, I continue to photograph some of the beautiful things I've seen and offer them up as a diversion.

Since I traveled to Russia for scientific purposes, I didn't have enough space in my luggage to bring my nice camera that I took through Europe, so these photos may not be quite as nice as previous ones, but I hope they will give you a brief glimpse into what I saw.

 When I was on my way to Siberia, I had a 12 hour layover in Moscow, so a friend and I decided that we would take the time and venture into the city. Without a plan, a map, and any sleep, we found our way through the subway to the center of the tourist section of the city, where you can find St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin. Getting out of the train, the city struck me as very clean, organized, and surprisingly quiet. We found very few people on the streets up until we got to the Kremlin. Apparently this is not usually how people envision Moscow, and it is probably not what the majority of Moscow is like, but the city does a very good job of putting its best foot forward to visitors.

 Red Square feels a little bit like an adult Disney World, mostly because the buildings all have a feeling of fantasy and color to them that I have seen in few other places, and with the vast expanse of the square stretched out before you, and perhaps because of my relief to be off of a ten hour flight, the space felt full of excitement and whimsy.

 It really was a pleasure to wander around the city with my friend as well. Since she speaks Russian and knows more about the culture than I do, I wasn't completely stumbling in the dark, despite the limited amount of time I had to get to know the city. For example, she was the one who told me that if I stood at this particular spot and threw a coin, I was supposed to be able to make a wish and have it granted. She may know why, but I don't, and in my sleep-addled state of mind I forgot to make a wish until after I had thrown the coin. Needless to say, it was a good thing I had her with me because I wouldn't have found my way around otherwise.

 Near the Red Square, there was a park with a nice little fountain running through it. It had lots of beautiful statues inside the canal, representing Russian fairy tales.

 Truly, I wish that I knew the stories behind the statues, or even the reason why this lion on top of a monument in the park seems ever so desperate, but in a way that is a bit of Moscow's charm for me. Since I had not slept for quite a while and was totally lost in a culture I knew nothing about, the city could become whatever I imagined it to be for just a few hours as I wandered around the streets filled with soldiers, women in 5 inch heels, and tourists gawking at the architecture.