Listvyanka, seals, and the Taltsy wooden hut village

Listvyanka was originally a stagecoach station and has now developed into a small town. The main composition of Listvyanka is the residential areas in 5 valleys—connected by a 'Gorky Avenue' along the lake. There are many guesthouses and hotels in the town, and you can eat the Baikal lake specialty Omul fish in the fish market by the lake. The largest residential area in the town has a dog sledding base at the very end, where we last got an adrenaline rush. It takes just over an hour to get from Irkutsk to Listvyanka. The road to the lake winds through the coniferous forests of Siberia, with some sections having steep gradients, resembling a ribbon spread out, with beautiful scenery. Halfway there is the Taltsy wooden hut village, which is a collection of wooden ancient buildings relocated during the construction of the Irkutsk Reservoir. Each wooden hut is a small museum, and there are even wooden castles and small churches built in the 17th century, very characteristic of Siberia. The ticket price is only 150 rubles per person, with an additional 50 rubles for parking, which is very cheap. Another place worth visiting is the Baikal Lake Museum, where you can see the legendary Baikal seals. The museum is located at the confluence of the Angara River and Lake Baikal, very close to Listvyanka. It displays many scientific research achievements of Lake Baikal, and the most attractive are the round and cute Baikal seals, which are rare seals that live in a freshwater lake (it is said that the bottom of Lake Baikal is connected to the ocean). They look very cute, but swim gracefully and agilely.