ASIA

Two young people reading in the Purple Bamboo Park of Beijing, 1957-59.

I finally have some time to myself so here are some pictures of lake Baikal. 💙 This was a bit of an impromptu visit - we did a day trip to Listvyanka, a village on the Western side of lake Baikal. It was surprisingly chilly there (about 10 degrees C lower than in Irkutsk which is 70 km from Listvyanka. Our hopes of bathing in Baikal were quickly shattered - the water is only 5 °C and icy cold!

Baikal smelled of bird cherry bloom. It's such a lovely smell, one of my favorites. Interestingly, where I live in the European part of Russia, bird cherry trees were done blooming a month ago already. It was like going back into spring.

Lake Baikal is often said to be as big as a sea. Because I'd that, I didn't expect to be able to see the other side, but you can actually see the mountains on the other side! They're covered in snow. The lake is about 40 km wide in Listvyanka.

The lake is over 600 km long. I didn't know that and it's crazy to think about. It's like if the whole way from Moscow to St Petersburg was covered in water.

“Indian tennis player Sania Mirza plays pool as she addresses media representatives in Bombay. Mirza became the first Indian woman to reach a Grand Slam third round in which she lost to US player Serena Williams at the Australian Open in Melbourne.”

Photographed by Sebastian D’Souza.