Ulan Bator + Irkutsk: steppe, yurts and Baikal along the Trans-Mongolian
Mongolia is visa-free and not far to fly, and Baikal lies next door — you can come back by train across the border. That is the route.
The idea of the route
Mongolia is rarely taken as a trip of its own: it seems far and complicated. In fact it is visa-free, the flight is short, and Baikal lies beside it — a crossing of the border turns two half-ideas into one whole. A train runs between Ulan Bator and Irkutsk: about a day through the steppe, the border and southern Buryatia.
Mongolia: five days
Ulan Bator is seen in a day: the Gandan monastery with a statue twenty-six metres tall, Sukhbaatar square, and an excellent natural history museum with the dinosaurs found in the Gobi. After that you have to leave the city. Terelj an hour away has rocks, cedar forest, a night in a yurt and horses. Kharkhorin, the former Karakorum and capital of Genghis Khan's empire, is five or six hours away, with the Erdene Zuu monastery on the site of the city. The Gobi needs its own three or four days and a flight.
Baikal: four days
Irkutsk with its wooden quarters and the Decembrist museum, Listvyanka at the source of the Angara, the Circum-Baikal Railway along the water. Olkhon is five or six hours away including the ferry, but that is where Baikal looks the way people imagine it: steppe, Shamanka rock, wind. If the route runs the other way round, Olkhon should come first.
About the train
Ulan Bator to Irkutsk takes about a day, and a substantial part of it goes on border and customs checks on both sides: the train stands for a long time, and that is normal. Carriages are ordinary sleepers, open and compartment. It is an option for those who find the journey itself interesting; for everyone else there is a flight of about three hours.
When to go
June–September. The Mongolian winter is among the harshest in the world, minus thirty in the steppe with wind; yurts are heated, but the trip becomes an ordeal. July brings Naadam, the national festival of wrestling, archery and horse racing — the best thing to catch and the busiest time to travel. September is quieter, the steppe is golden and Baikal is clear.
A night in a yurt
A ger is a round felt house with a stove in the middle, and tourist camps are built exactly like the lived-in ones: beds around the wall, a table, a washstand outside. The stove is lit in the evening and burns out by morning, so it gets cold even in summer — a sleeping bag or a second blanket is not excessive. There are rules worth knowing: do not step on the threshold, do not turn your back to the hearth, take a cup with your right hand. Hosts will not take offence at a mistake, but they will notice the care.
What to eat in Mongolia and Buryatia
Mongolian cooking is meat and milk, with almost no vegetables. Buuz (pozy in Buryatia) are large steamed dumplings eaten by hand, first drinking the broth through a bite in the side. Khuushuur are fried pasties. Airag, fermented mare's milk, is strong and particular; you may politely decline, but it is worth trying. Suutei tsai is salted milk tea with fat, and it is understood very differently in winter than in summer. In Ulan-Ude, Russian and Old Believer cooking is added to all of this.
Practical matters
Mongolia is visa-free for a Russian passport, up to 30 days. Outside Ulan Bator there are no roads in the usual sense — there are directions, driven in prepared vehicles with a driver. Signal disappears in the steppe. A night in a yurt is a normal tourist format with a stove and a bed, not an ordeal. And a household note: cash tugriks are needed everywhere except the capital's chain stores.
Moscow → Ulan Bator → Irkutsk
Route and nights go into the form — adjust the date and passengers.