Welcome to Wellesley-Baikal 2011!

Welcome to the official blog of the 2011 Wellesley-Baikal course. Here, you can keep track of our expedition from 30 July to 24 August as we travel to and from Russia and explore Lake Baikal. All members of this year's Baikal team -- twelve students, three faculty, and one junior assistant -- will maintain the blog during our month-long adventure. Our goal is to post pictures and text every day of our journey using cellular-phone and satellite-phone uplinks. We'll be based at the Biological Field Station of Irkutsk State University in the village of Bol'shie Koty (pictured above), reachable only by boat. At the beginning and end of the trip, we'll be in the city of Irkutsk, the "Paris of Siberia."
     For the Baikal course webpage, go here. If you'd like to view webcasts from past Baikal trips, go here.
     Thanks for stopping in,
                                       Tom Hodge, Professor of Russian, Co-Instructor