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It wasn't until I was seated in the plane, with a Doberman slobbering on my shoulder and a bloodhound sleeping on my feet, that I questioned what I was doing. Six months before, I'd found a web page about summer camps in Eastern Europe on the Internet. I had quickly applied for one in Lake Baikal, Siberia. I had no information about what I would be doing, other than I would be spending a month by the biggest, deepest, and almost every other superlative lake in the world, working with children.

Those dogs on the plane were like the great Russian people I was to meet. Hard and tough - and put them in any difficult situation and they can survive. Only the bloodhound needed to release his bowels, once, by my feet, seven hours after we'd taken off from St Petersburg. I was quite impressed with the stamina of all those dogs, yet I was confused at what they were doing on a plane amongst the passengers. But, it was Aeroflot after all.

Whilst people around me reunited with hugs and kisses at Irkutsk airport, I stood there alone, wondering if I'd come all the way to Siberia because of some evil Internet prank. But out of the crowd some five minutes later, a lovely looking Asian girl appeared and in shy English asked if I was Rowena. She was Gulya, a young assistant English professor, who out of the goodness of her heart, had volunteered to accompany me to Baikal as a translator.

There is a line in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' that says something like "I put my faith in the kindness of strangers". How true when you are travelling. Whenever I have been stuck somewhere, or in a difficult situation, there's always been a kind stranger who has helped me. I've begun to call them "travel angels". People, just like guardian angels, but they don't have wings. They walk the earth and are very, very real. Gulya was my Siberian travel angel.

Although I'd had little sleep on the plane, mostly due to fear and excitement (and the dogs), I was keen to accept Gulya's offer of a tour around Irkutsk. Irkutsk has about a million people, being one of the larger Siberian cities. It is very civilised and on that first day I was almost disappointed at the lack of tigers and bears strolling around the streets. Irkutsk is especially well known for their centuries old wooden houses, although I was told they are earthquake proof and even, allegedly, out-stood 6 points on the Richter scale last year.

The next day, we left for Lake Baikal. At 8am in the morning at the bus pick-up point, it became clear to me that I was to be a summer camp councillor for 60 children aged between 8 and 17.

The journey took some 9 hours, although it is only about 250km from Irkutsk. The landscape is superb and constantly changing. It felt as though I was stuck in some Nintendo game, where the background rapidly and repetitively flashed around me from mountains, to steppes, to forests, to mountains, to steppes...

By the time we arrived at 'Camp Shida', word had gotten around that I was a foreigner. As I stepped off the bus 60 children pounced on me with felt pens, asking me to autograph their arms. I'd almost finished the lot of them, when one smart kid realised my autograph would wash off, so he returned with a pen and paper. Fifty nine others did the same. They were all shouting 'bolshoi, bolshoi' - urging me to write big, long and meaningful messages. I even had some requests to write messages to their parents.



Lake Baikal


Finally, the camp leader ordered the hoards of kids to unpack and I was free to go and explore the famous Lake Baikal. It was just as beautiful and incredible as I'd expected. Mountainous islands spring out of crystal clear water and the sheer mass of it is completely awe-inspiring. It holds a very romantic atmosphere and Russian legend says that if you meet someone at Baikal the relationship will last forever. Some Russian couples even take holidays in Baikal in the belief that it will help patch up their troubles.

The children quickly wanted to become my friend. Many of them were from small villages and would never have seen a foreigner before. For the first week I couldn't even go to the toilet by myself. I constantly had a little fan club following me everywhere and wanting to see what foreigners do.

The daily routine included waking up around 8am, morning exercises, breakfast (porridge in all forms; from rice and milk to pasta and milk to mushy stuff and milk), I would then hold a short English lesson - or play a game in English; 'Celebrity Head' became their favourite. Then, we'd have lunch, which was usually soup, followed by activities like hiking, swimming or a ball game.



Me playing Durak with some kids by the Lake


Before dinner we'd play chess or a card game. The kids taught me a card game called 'Durak' (The Fool). It took me about a week to grasp as it is quite hard when you have a dozen kids shouting instructions at you in Russian. But I was an expert by the end of the camp! After dinner, which a majority of the time was soup, we'd have a huge campfire while someone played Russian folk songs and everyone sung, or a disco, where the kids would dance to popular Russian music.

On my fourth day there I had what I would class as a true Siberian experience. We set off around 10am in the morning in shorts and t-shirts, as it was a really beautiful morning, for a hike in a gorge. Some 3 hours later, just as we were in the depth of the gorge and about to have lunch, sheets of rain started to drop. The sky went as if it was near nightfall. We had to get 60 cold and wet children back to camp, another 3 hours back. It was quite frightening as within half an hour the gorge had filled with water up to our knees and boulders were falling from the cliffs.

It was really freezing, as there was a cold wind blowing off the mountains. One girl, Nastya, offered me her little cardigan to wear, although she only had a towel wrapped around herself. Such an act of unselfishness from a ten year old touched me very deeply. These beautiful children never complained, not even when their lips had turned blue and they could no longer feel their toes.

The Russians have a name for all the different winds at Baikal. One night I experienced the wind "Sarma". It was so loud and strong that I had to move my bed away from my window, in fear of it shattering all over me whilst I slept. Mind you, the window was easily smashable as it was only held together with sticky tape from when Sarma had broken it last year.



Some wild Siberian flowers in front of my window


The word Siberia brings an instant visual picture of harsh snowstorms to one's mind, and I am sure that this is realised in winter. But in summer Baikal is an especially peaceful and serene place to visit, when the wind is not howling. Bright wild flowers and mushrooms cover the mountains and silk worm butterflies are plenty a more than mosquitoes. The lake is a beautiful place to swim and is clean enough you can drink it.

There were no showers, so I went swimming in Baikal almost everyday. Once a week we would have a Bunya, which is like a Russian sauna. They would heat up a wooden hut by the lake and we would go in in groups of four. The idea is to get really hot and sweaty and then hit each other all over with birch leaves. When it got so hot we couldn't stand it any longer the tradition is to run out of the Bunya and jump in the lake. Hitting the cold water brings an instant and pleasant rush to the head.

I was invited to have lunch with a Russian family one day. They filled me full of food and vodka and all of a sudden I could have a basic conversation in Russian. One of the ladies was the last in a long line of Russian gypsies and she looked into my destiny via my birthdate. Her reading was something like Chinese numerology - but far more convincing and more insightful than I would like to admit.

The Russians have so little themselves, yet they give so much. However, "no thank you" does not seem to be within their understanding. I don't eat fish, but this family said that I had to try Baikal fish - that it was the best in the world. After some 10 minutes debate I finally gave in and said that I would try a little of a fish called 'Sig'. It was actually really tasty and I managed to eat a whole piece. But, then they wanted me to taste dry fish and finally raw fish - which was not so tasty - but seeing how happy they were that I'd liked the Sig I couldn't possibly refuse.

I became really close with some of the children and I was really sad to leave. By the last week I felt as though I'd gone through so much with them and I felt like some of the Russian toughness was rubbing off on me. I could stomach fish, I could sleep on a lumpy bed, I could squat and do my business, I could go without a shower for a whole month. But, I still have a lot to learn from them. Although, I was the foreigner and I am supposed to be the one with the money and 'the good life' I felt that I took far more from them, than I could possibly give.

I stayed at Gulya's house when we returned from Lake Baikal. On the day that I left for Mongolia, her mum spent the whole morning boiling water for me, so that I could bathe, as the council had turned off the cities' hot water system for repairs. She offered to wash my hair for me and I happily agreed. After she had finished she motioned for me to take my clothes off. My narrow minded Western defence mechanisms popped up - but then I realised the beauty in such an offer. Sitting in the bathtub, as a 20-year-old, while a kind stranger washed every inch of me like a baby I saw kindness at its purest. Back home, in Melbourne, when there was an explosion at the major gas supplier and the city was without hot water for a month, it made the front page of the newspaper for days. It was the main topic of conversation. Yet, how many people would have cared enough to wash a stranger?

Now I think Moscow and even the stunning St Petersburg pale in comparison to this part - the heart, of Russia. It is the heart of Russia twofold. Firstly, geographically, but secondly, it is full of people that contain hearts that are equal in size to the Siberian mountains themselves.