I had come across the organisation "Deutsch-Russisch Austausch" (DRA), or "German-Russian Exchange," in St Petersburg a couple of years previously, where I had been spending four months as part of my year abroad, an integral part of my degree in German and Russian at Manchester University, England.  As part of their support of Non-Governmental Organisations in Russia, DRA organises work placements for young people from Western Europe with different organisations throughout Russia. 

Not wanting to settle down and get a permanent job straight after graduating, and keen to spend some more time abroad, I got in touch with DRA again and managed to get a placement, through their new, European-Union funded programme, to work for Baikal Wave in Irkutsk.  And so, despite misgivings about a winter in the frozen depths of Siberia, I found myself last September on a plane flying far further east than I had ever been before (Moscow being my furthest East until then), heading for Irkutsk. 

I was met at the airport by Ludmilla, who is in charge of co-ordinating volunteers for Baikal Wave, and who I had already met at the preparation seminar run by DRA in Berlin a few weeks previously.  With her was Olya, with whose family I was to live with for the first two months of my stay (following that I shared a flat with the other volunteer sent out by DRA, Oliver from Austria.)  Beginning with this friendly welcome, the people at Baikal Wave treated me with warmth and hospitality throughout my stay, always willing to help where necessary and clearly delighted to have me working with  them.  Their enthusiasm for Baikal Wave and their real involvement in their work made it a welcoming and exciting place to work. 

The Region

Irkutsk is a city with over 600 000 inhabitants, and is the administrative and cultural capital of eastern Siberia, with several theatres and cinemas, numerous universities and shops stocked with adequate supplies of all that is necessary, including most western goods that you could get in other parts of Russia or in Europe.  So despite western misconceptions, being in Siberia does not mean you are in the middle of nowhere!  There are several daily flights to Moscow and other Russian cities, and Irkutsk is situated on the Trans-siberian railway, with direct connections to Moscow, Vladivostok, Mongolia and China.

The climate in Irkutsk is extreme continental, i.e. cold in winter and hot in summer.  Summer temperatures can go up to 40 C, winter down to -40 C.  But to my surprise, I found that the climate was one of the things that I liked - the never-ending sunshine and snow was a welcome change from the wet and windy winters in Britain.  Unlike my preconceptions that during winter the whole of Russia hibernates for five months, the Irkutyanians get out their skis and take to the countryside.  During my stay I tried cross-country skiing (both through the forest and over the frozen ice of Lake Baikal), downhill skiing at the ski centre in Baikalsk, and even had a go at cross-country skiing on "hunters skis" through the remote Barguzin Nature Reserve - these are made of wood, around a foot wide, and have fur underneath so you can ski uphill without slipping.  They are very heavy but ideal to stop you sinking into a metre of powdery snow!

The Lake Baikal area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is renowned for its natural beauty, and lived up to all my expectations and more.  Despite being also renowned for its growing pollution problems, many parts of the lake are still in a pristine condition, with areas of wild country and nature reserves with limited access covering much of the shoreline.  Irkutsk is 60 miles (one hour by bus) from the lake, and so an easy day or weekend trip away.  I spent several weekends with friends from work in the villages of Listvyanka, Bolshoy Koty, Katchergat and Baikalsk.  In autumn the lake I still warm enough to paddle in, and the golden birch and larch forests provide staggering scenery along the shore.  By January, the lake is frozen solid.  To someone used to a British climate it takes a while to get used to walking on ice, let alone driving on it!  By May the lake was free from ice again and the summer flowers beginning to bloom. 

While living in Irkutsk I had the chance to travel extensively, both on trips with people from work and independently with friends - as well as seeing much of Lake Baikal, I went to Arshan, a spa town in the Sayan mountains to the south-west of Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Buryat Republic, with its magnificent Buddhist temple, on the Eastern shore of Lake Baikal, and even managed a trip to Khabarovsk and Vladivostok in the Far East, three days each way on the Trans-Siberian Railway!  The area offers endless possibilities for adventurous exploration, although lack of tourist infrastructure means it is not always easy just to get up and go where you want.  Once you get out of Irkutsk you get a real feel for the definitely non-European rural Siberia, with its mixture of Russian and native peoples, little wooden cottages heated with a big wood stove, Russian banjas (bath houses), and the genuinely wild countryside with enormous distances between settlements.

Baikal wave and the work

Baikal Wave is an environmental information and education centre for the Baikal Region.  They produce a journal four times per year, run a specialised library which is open to the public three days a week, produce educational literature for schools, which is distributed free of charge with the aim of raising environmental awareness within the local population, and run several other projects including one on the problems of toxic waste and rubbish disposal, and the promotion of Lake Baikal as a World Heritage Site.  They also make films on environmental topics, and these are available to the public for hire.  There are eighteen employees at Baikal Wave, and numerous local volunteers, most of whom are students. 

My duties were wide-ranging, but due to my language skills included a lot of translation from Russian to English - of conference papers, articles from the journal, grant applications etc. I also worked on the computer database of the English language section of the library, gave English lessons to the employees and volunteers, and generally helped out where needed.  Baikal Wave has numerous contacts throughout the region and I managed to persuade my colleagues to take me too when off on business trips to interesting places.  In this manner I travelled to the Island of Olkhon and the Maloye Morye area, the Kachug area, where I helped with environmental awareness work in schools (standing up and giving a talk in front of a class of 14-year-old Russians was quite a challenge the first time!), Severobaikalsk and Davshe, in the Barguzin Nature Reserve.  These trips gave me the chance to see the area from an insiders point of view, and get to places that would be impossible to reach as a foreign tourist.

My eight months there (I stayed on till May, two months after my work placement finished) are an experience I will never forget.  My time in Irkutsk gave me an insight into real Russian life and culture, and the chance to see a very interesting area "from the inside."  My Russian language skills have improved more than I could have believed possible, and I made many new friends who I am very much looking forward to going back to visit.   I also gained an insight into environmental campaigning, NGO's, and development work , a subject area which I now hope make part of my future career. 

I would recommend volunteering for Baikal Wave, either through DRA or independently, to anyone with a reasonable command of Russian (the office is a Russian speaking environment so it would be a big limitation to general communication not to speak Russian), an interest in environmental issues, and the initiative to get there!

Katy Harris