Today was our last day on the boat, and a long day it was. The captains
began the long ride home last night, only stopping for 6 hours today to
rest at the beautiful village of Bugul'deika. Now we are back on the
boat and are expected to return to Bol'shie Koty at midnight.
Bugul'deika is a village sprawled in the shadow of the Mishkina
Mountain, a mountain sacred to the Buryats that inhabit the village. For
the first time since we got to Lake Baikal we encountered marshes
attached to the Bugul'deika River. So far we have only experienced and
identified species from forest, steppe, and meadow landscapes so we
spent some time looking into the gammarids that inhabited the marsh. The
marsh of this river is an important nursery area for young fish that
inhabit the coastal waters of Baikal.
In the village itself, an old mining village from the Soviet Union era,
we saw a World War II memorial with the names of the men from the
village who fought and either died or went missing during the war. In
such a remote village such a large, well cared for display showed the
importance of WWII to all of Russia.
Kira
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