Ulan Ude

10 July 2008- Thursday

The train arrived in Ulan Ude at 7:30 and we left at 8:30 for our city tour. This was done fairly rapidly, but this was another day that we would be heading for Mongolia. In the morning, however, they took us out on a bus ride through some pretty good roads to a small village of ‘Old Believers.’ The ‘Old Believers’ were a group of Russians who decided they did not want to switch to the reforms of the Orthodox Russian church by blessing themselves with two fingers instead of three, and, therefore, they decided to keep the old ways, broke away and cause enough problems to where a number of them emigrated to Siberia. This turned out to be a pretty fantastic day as they were all dressed in their local costumes and served us a meal, the highlight of which was a pudding that they called kaasa, which turned out to be rice pudding that they served with powdered sugar and butter – it was absolutely delicious. There was also ham and various other meats as well as some boiled potatoes and cabbage salad. They did put on a performance of singing for us as well as a little tableau using a couple of tourists who demonstrated an Old Believers’ type of wedding and costumed these people as well. It turned out to be a pretty hilarious day.