Honorary Russian Citizenship by Association

Lake Baikal - Listvyanka
Originally uploaded by adrianclark.

Quite a night last night.

Have been travelling with a dutch guy called Lucas, who I met on the train from Ulaanbaatar to Irkutsk. He and I went up to Lake Baikal yesterday for the day, stayed overnight in a little holiday cottage by the lake.

We were staying in a village called Listvyanka (see picture right), which seems popular with locals celebrating weddings.
So in the evening, we end up in a restaurant by the lake, and meet a couple of English guys who we have some beers with. The rest of the restaurant is basically a wedding reception for some 20 russians, very very drunk russians, singing very loud russian karaoke.

Lake Baikal is very cold. Its average temperature is something like 4 degrees. Ie. your feet start going numb within about 20 seconds.

A little while after we get there, one of the drunk Russians from the wedding party decides it would be a good idea to go for a swim. I spot him going out (we were sitting on a patio/decking overlooking the water), and thought, that's a bit stupid, its bloody cold. Anyway, a couple of minutes later this guy is getting into trouble, but noone notices (including me). Cue yelling, and we look into the water and this guy has disappeared. A couple of almost equally drunk Russians then jump into the water and try and find him, which they can't at first, but Baikal is a famously clear lake, so they do after a few attempts. I reckon the guy was under for about 2 minutes. He gets dragged back into land and is very blue, not breathing, floppy and looking very dead. Lots of wailing, crying and shouting, and lots of drunk Russians failing to do anything constructive.

Turns out thought that one of the English guys I was drinking with was a medical student, and he runs over, manages to convince lots of panicking drunk Russians that they should let him do CPR on the guy, and basically continues doing CPR for what seems like a very very long time. We were convinced the guy was gone, but eventually it seems he came around (the English guy later said he had a lot of the Russian's vomit in his mouth). Ambulance came and took the guy away.

I'm not sure quite how the same situation would have developed at home, but most of the Russians (at least the men), kept drinking, and our medical student was forced to drink copious amounts of Russian Vodka! as a thank you. Despite my 20 minute association with him, this drinking was then extended to the rest of us foreigners, and there was, as you might imagine repeated exclamation of Anglo Russian friendship, promises to write to the British embassy to thank him, and lots of hand shaking and hugging. And free vodka.

We don't actually know the current state of the swimmer, he was under for a long time, but the temperature of Baikal may have helped. No more karaoke though.