Kick back and relax

By Olga Ruban
Expert correspondent

Wide-open spaces

The image of Lake Baikal as “the pearl of Russia” has become an empty cliche. Nonetheless, the word “unique” applies to almost everything related to Lake Baikal. Its waters stay uniquely clean. It is home to a huge community of microorganisms, each with its own clearly defined function. They form a unique system that continues to successfully resist human industrial activity. Even Baikal’s ice is unique. The lake is rightfully considered a natural treasure. It would be a crime if this unique place were only of interest to locals. Fortunately, this is no longer the case.

Tour companies in Irkutsk Province are getting better and better at their business thanks to demand from foreign tourists. Local businessmen credit them as key in the development of services. In Europe, the US, and Japan, many tourists are now looking for so-called “adventure” or wildness tours, and this seems like the most promising direction for the Baikal area. The average amount spent by foreign versus Russian tourists differs, of course. A Russian spends an average of less than 2,000 rubles a day, while foreigners spend at least 17,000. Statistics show that interest in the Baikal area is increasing both at home and abroad. According to the Siberian Baikal Association for Tourism, the number of tourists increased in 2001-2002 by 32% versus 2000. In 2003 a total of more than 106,600 people came to the region and spent around $60 million on their vacations.

Very unusual

What brings Europeans and Americans, so accustomed to comfort and convenience, all the way to far-off Lake Baikal? “It’s very unusual,” some German tourists told us laconically. By unusual, they seemed to imply first and foremost Russia’s huge, uninhabited expanses and empty space. It’s no accident that Western newlyweds often decide to come here.
Olkhon Island is not only for honeymooners, however. Olkhon, as opposed to the majority of the Baikal shoreline, offers long sandy beaches. The cliffs and huge boulders along the shore are almost completely covered with moss, and the island is luxuriant with conifers.

Early this summer, yet another new camp appeared on the shores of Lake Baikal with the colorful name of “Prospector’s Haven.” The camp’s owners asked us please not to mention the entertainment they offer tourists: panning for gold right before their very eyes…
The second most important typical tourist on Lake Baikal is the Russian corporate client. Programs for corporate groups, as a rule, are created on an individual basis at the request of large companies and banks. The two most popular trends at the moment are teambuilding tours that aim to strengthen teams via extreme sports like rafting, diving, and overland horseback tours, and strategic planning meetings when specialists meet with clients outside the office environment. The leading local tour company, Green Express, earns 30-40% of its total summer revenue and 70% during the winter and off season from corporate clients. “The region has a lot of potential to do well in the convention business and organize conferences and forums followed recreational programs and excursions,” believes Green Express Director Ivan Ivanov. “This would compensate for the drop in tourism during the off-season and make Irkutsk into a commercial and cultural center. It would also prove that our region is worthy of potential investors from other parts of Russia and the world.”

The development factor

One of the most promising possibilities for increasing tourism is to take advantage of the area’s proximity to Mongolia. “Mongolia has already promoted itself as a brand. Last year, for example, almost half a million tourists visited Mongolia, four times more than came to our region,” explains Alexander Finkelshtein, Executive Director of the Siberian Baikal Association for Tourism. “Mongolia is within spitting distance of Lake Baikal. You can get to Lake Khuvgul on a bus in only seven hours, to one of the most beautiful parts of Mongolia. If the Ministry of Internal Affairs would just figure out the problem with the nearest border crossing, which is currently only open to Russian or Mongolian citizens, the local tourism industry would have an exciting new product, the Baikal-Mongolia tour.”

There is also extensive potential for so-called “ethnographic” tourism. Buriats, who make up a significant portion of the local population, are a unique people who have kept many of their traditions and rituals. Buriat shamans, for example, are more than capable of competing on the world tourism market. One shaman in particular who hails from the sacred island of Olkhon has already become very popular with tourists.
To develop tourism in the region, however, Lake Baikal’s image needs to change from a purely summer vacation spot to a place to relax in winter, too. Organizing winter vacations wouldn’t demand much thinking or money on the part of tour companies. Nature has done most of the work for them. For example, ice diving could become the pivotal part of a winter package. Lake Baikal’s ice is not only uniquely beautiful; it also has a complicated structure that allows divers to observe this beauty by swimming through caverns of ice. There is nothing like it, even in Northern Europe or Greenland.

Out of all the tourist regions we visited, only in Irkutsk Province has private business created a long-term strategic plan for the tourist industry, taking the specifics of the region into account. Though the severely continental climate makes tourism risky business, we were left with the impression that the area just might become Russia’s leading tourist center. However, this optimistic assessment will only become a reality if Irkutsk builds a new, modern airport measuring up to international standards. Without an airport, tourism in the area will stagnate.