Transiberian, part 4 / Irkutsk, part 1

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If you want to see typical Russian life on the train, the platskartny is where you'll find it.
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This guy is another champion from the sports competition. He placed third in weightlifting. Here, he tries to impress Michelle.
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These kids are students returning home to Irkutsk from their studies at Moscow State University.
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This very beautiful woman is studying to be an engineer and economist. She also introduces me to the Rammstein song "Moscow," which she really likes!
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This is how the locals live and travel for the four day train journey.
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Stopping at another stop, kartoffel (potatoes) are on offer.
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The aprons are kind of ugly.
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This small town is a major train thoroughfare...
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...and has an old-school train with the Red Star on front.
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Our train later passes this funny building built in 1991.
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As the train goes deeper through Siberia, the terrain becomes more and more marshy.
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Michelle, who can speak Czech (and proxmiate Russian), learns to do crosswords with my paranoid couchette-mate Sergei.
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The Russian tabloids Sergei reads are very "sexed up." Notice the title is written in English.
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The waitress in the restaurant is consistently nasty to tourists. But for some reason, she doesn't give me any attitude.
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The timetable from Moscow-Irkutsk is posted on all the carts. Trains consistently operate on time.
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A morning view as the train crosses the Angara River.
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Station after station... in the vastness of Siberia...
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...Relatives greet and welcome their family members.
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In the summertime, it's hard to imagine how cold and frozen over everything must be in the 8-month long winters!
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A typical summer dacha built by the train line with its many plants.
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For the last few hours, the trainline follows the Angara River toward Irkutsk.
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And we arrive to Irkutsk after a long trip!
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The passengers depart en masse. The mood is ebullient.
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Tour guides assemble to pick up their "roughing it" clients at the train station.
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An inevitable statue of Lenin appears on a random street corner...
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...with a gigantic Constructivist mural dedicated to the "International." (Notice the Anarchist graffiti.) A church was demolished for the construction of this Commie propaganda.
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A beautiful building on Karl Marx street.
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My tour guide for the day takes me through the sad history of this Siberian outpost, Irkutsk.
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The former Communist Party headquarters is still a very ugly administrative building. The once magnificent Anunciation Cathedral (pictured in this book) was dynamited by Stalin.
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Behind the city administration is the still beautiful Bogoyavlensky Cathedral.
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During Soviet times, the church was turned into an art museum.
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Its once beautiful murals were painted over with white paint to house Constructivist art.
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After the Soviet collapse, volunteer workers are attempting to restore the murals based on old photography.
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The Savior's Church across the way, however, still remains whitewashed with an uninteresting ethnology museum.
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However, the bell tower at the top offers excellent views of Irkutsk...
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...including the eternal flame of WWII soldiers.
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This beast of a building has remained this way for 17 years. After the Soviet collapse, funding for crazy state architecture stopped. It bizarrely has turned into an Irkutsk landmark and a symbol of Communist ineffeciency.
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The walkways shielding pedestrians from falling construction debris are "built for the Chinese," meaning they don't accomodate tall Russians!
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A typical Russian worker does what he does best.
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In Siberia, there is no shortage of wood. Lovely wooden homes are everywhere.