Summer SPA Tour to Baikal

Baikal residence is the only 5* lodge hotel in Baikal. In 2017 it became the best country hotel in the world according to the international competition World Luxury Hotel Awards. The territory of the hotel is equal to 60 football fields, there is a spa complex, modern equipment and a view of Lake Baikal.

The hotel has three categories of rooms: “premier”, “premium” and “suite”. They are different in size and interior. One of the suites has a living room with a wood burning fireplace and a bath instead of a shower.

Spa treatments are made on the basis of professional cosmetics Comfort Zone, Thalasso.

Onokochanskaya Bay is a place where ancient people lived three thousand years ago. Archaeologists have found ceramics and stone products of the Iron Age here. Findings are stored in the Irkutsk State University, if you want, we can visit it on the way back.

A sacred Buddhist stupa was built next to the bay. Buddhists call such places “obo”. Because of the steep slope it is difficult to climb to it, but if you want we can drive you to the stupa by car. First of all, the bay is interesting with a sandy beach and quiet water.

Boguchansky Island is a small rock between the city of Severobaikalsk and the village of Baikalskoye. The West shore of the island is pebbles and boulders. East and North are rocks. On the southern shore, the researchers found petroglyphs painted with red ocher. According to scientists, they are about five thousand years old. They are painted on a rock in the middle of the island, and you can approach them.

Angarsky Sor is a semi-enclosed bay in the North of Lake Baikal. It is separated from the lake by a ten-kilometer sandy island. The average depth in the bay is only three meters, so in summer the water warms up to 23 °C. A small depth and isolation from the open Baikal create a special ecosystem. There are a lot of fish in the bay: pike, perch, soroga.

Ayaya is a bay that goes into the land for several kilometers and resembles a Mediterranean Coast. Ayaya in the translation from Evenk is “beautiful”. Due to inaccessibility, you will not find many tourists here. But there is an opportunity to see the seal, which is calmly warming on the reef next to the bay.

Frolikha is a glacial lake eight kilometers from the bay of Ayaya. This is the only place on Lake Baikal, where you can see the traces of the glacier — fjord-like bays and powerful boulders on the bottom. In the lake there is a rare red fish for Siberia — davatchan. Except the red book davatchan, there is taimen, lenok, pike, grayling. The depth of Frolikha is about eighty meters, and the length of the coastline is almost forty kilometers.

Goudzhekit is a thermal spring forty kilometers from the Severobaykalsk City. The water temperature is on average 50 °C. The composition of the water is referred to "Dilijan" type — carbon dioxide, hydrogen, sodium. Similar to Borjomi, but with lower mineralization. It is used for diseases of the digestive system and urinary tract. On the territory of this spring hydropathic works. There are wooden pools with thermal water, where you can swim.

Kotelnikovsky is the hottest spring on Lake Baikal. The temperature of the water outlet is 81 °C. There are two outdoor swimming pools and a hotel building for thirty people. The center is completely autonomous, you can get here only by water or ice. The buildings are heated with thermal water, like houses in Iceland.

There is a lot of fluorine and silicon in the water of the spring, you can not drink it. Before the water is supplied to the pools, it is mixed with Baikal water to lower the temperature to comfortable 45 °C. It is desirable to stay in the water for no more than 20–30 minutes, not to overheat.

Irkutsk is the sixth largest city in Siberia with a population of more than six hundred thousand people. It is located on the banks of Angara river, 70 km from Lake Baikal. Since the beginning of the 17th century, merchants conducted trade with China and mined gold. There was an office of the Russian-American Company — monopolist in fur trade in the East of Russia.

There were Chekhov, Fidel Castro, Indira Gandhi, Kim Ir Sen and Tsarevich Nicholas in Irkutsk. Here, the Decembrists served the penal servitude and Admiral Kolchak was shot. In the Irkutsk drama theater actors Leonid Bronevoy, Mikhail Svetin, Gleb Strizhenov and film director Leonid Gaidai worked.

You can spend a day walking through the main streets with historical buildings and the embankment, to drink coffee in the picturesque 130th quarter among the merchant estates. The city has many restaurants, cafes and pastry shops, there are modern shopping malls with brand stores. You should also go to the Angara Chocolate Factory and Angaria Ice Cream Factory. Among the cultural objects of interest is the gallery of Victor Bronstein there are works of the world famous Buryat sculptor Dashi Namdakov.

Kupechesky Dvor Hotel is a modern reconstruction of a merchant's estate. It is located in the historical center of Irkutsk. The windows from rooms overlook a pedestrian street with shops, pastry shops and restaurants. The hotel has fourteen rooms of three categories: “standard”, “junior suite”, “studio”.