Olkhon Tours

Olkhon from A to Z: sea and beaches, hotels, motels, hotels and pensions Olkhon, reviews. Shops and restaurants, prices on Olkhon.

Olkhon Island is part of the Pribaikalsky Nature Reserve. It is distinguished by its natural beauty and diversity of landscapes - steppes, dense forests, swamps, harsh cliffs and dunes with sandy beaches. Tourists come here for spectacular wildlife to visit historical and archaeological sites and experience the culture of shamanism.

The outlines of the island repeat the shape of Baikal itself.

Baikal is the only inhabited island, people live here from the Paleolithic era. It is surrounded by many ancient legends and legends - the Buryats consider it a haven of Baikal spirits. Olkhon is now revered as the sacred center of northern shamanism - there is a place of special worship at Cape Burkhan and Mount Izhimei.

Regular communication is established between the island and the mainland. There are no dangerous wild animals and encephalitic ticks on Olkhon, there are almost no mosquitoes and midges.

How to get to Olkhon

Olkhon is almost 300 km from Irkutsk. From June to September, the ship “Barguzin” goes to the island twice a week from the regional center. The journey takes 6 hours; the ticket price is 3500 RUB one way. You can check the schedule and book tickets at the office. site of the East Siberian Shipping Company. Prices on the page are as of October 2018.

From the Irkutsk bus station to the village of Khuzhir (3 km from Olkhon) the regular bus number 507 leaves. The ticket costs 450 RUB, baggage is charged separately. Commercial buses to Olkhon run from virtually any area of ​​the city. The ticket price is 800-1000 RUB one way, the journey takes about 5 hours. A taxi ride will cost at least 6000 RUB.

From May to December, there is a ferry crossing between the mainland and the island - it connects the Malaya Kurkutskaya Bay on the mainland and Perevoznaya Bay on Olkhon Bay. The ferry is open from 7:00 to 0:00, free for all travelers. In winter, when the strait freezes, a natural ice crossing is established.

It’s better not to use the ferry during the summer season - a huge number of cars accumulate and you have to stand in long queues.

Many Irkutsk travel agencies offer rental boats. Renting a vessel with a capacity of up to 8 people will cost 25 000-65 000 RUB per day. Traveling by private car is possible only on an SUV, asphalt is not everywhere, and the primer leaves much to be desired - in some places it resembles a washboard. Travel time without ferry is about 5 hours. You need to go from Irkutsk through the villages of Ust-Orda, Bayanday and Elantsy - the end point of the village Khuzhir.

Transfers to Olkhon and back

You can pre-order a safe transfer to Olkhon on a modern car with a professional driver. The service includes a meeting at the airport or hotel with a name plate, so you do not need to know the local language. The price is fixed at the time of booking on the website, it includes an hour of waiting at the airport and 15 minutes at the hotel.

Transportation

There is no public transport as such on Olkhon, and you don’t travel everywhere by car. Local offer their services as guides, guides and drivers with a car. The tour can be booked at the tour desk in the village of Khuzhir or at the recreation centers. The cost of a summer car tour from 1500 RUB, including the collection of the Pribaikalsky National Park. Cycling is an eco-friendly and fun way to get to know Olkhon. For owning the art of riding suitable option horse riding. Horseback riding costs from 1000 RUB per hour, and rent of iron horses - from 250 RUB per hour. Bicycles are available at hotels and camp sites.

Olkhon beaches

Bathing in Baikal is suitable for physically healthy and hardened people - the water temperature even in the hottest areas does not exceed +23 ° C. A popular holiday destination is a large beach in the Saraysky Bay near Khuzhir. It stretches for several kilometers from Cape Burkhan to the village of Kharantsy. The coast is surrounded by pine forest, and dunes protect it from the wind. Sandy territory extends far inland. This beach offers a scenic view of the gray triangular mountains. At the entrance to the water, small pebbles are poured, and then a rocky bottom and after some distance the sand again. Sunset is smooth - the depth increases gradually. Away from Khuzhir, the entrance to the lake will be completely sandy. A small beach about 300 m long can be found near the Shamanka rock. And he himself, and his bottom in this place - sand. There are no entertainment and infrastructure on the beaches - this is a place to relax and merge with wildlife ..

The best time for swimming on Olkhon beaches is July and August, but even then, bathers are offered to warm up in mobile baths, which they specially bring to the shore.

Hotels of Olkhon

The main tourist base on Olkhon is the village of Khuzhir. Prices for accommodation in it start from 1200 RUB per person per day. Travelers can choose to stay overnight in a guest house, a yurt or at a recreation center. In both cases, as a rule, the toilet and the kitchen are common to all residents. Options with full amenities are much more expensive - a double room in a three-star hotel will cost from 2400 RUB per day, and in the luxury complexes and residences - from 6400 RUB ..

The highest housing prices in July-August, in the off-season you can get a good discount ..

For lovers of wild holidays there is an opportunity to stay in a tent by the lake. Tent tourism, although cheap, is quite risky, it is available only to experienced tourists. The harsh Baikal climate does not forgive misses - even in the warmest weather there can be very cold nights, and squally wind instantly blows off the tent set up in an unprotected place.

What to bring

Souvenirs with the image of seals, which are considered to be a symbol of Baikal, are being brought from Olkhon. Objects of Buddhist themes are popular - amulets, incense, pendants, beads. In the souvenir shops you can find statuettes-charms made of wood, tambourines, discs with Buryat music, as well as products made of charoite, a mineral whose only deposit in the world is located on the border of the Irkutsk region and Yakutia. The local craftsmen make pendants from pebbles, ground by Baikal waters, and draw pictures of beauties in national Buryat costumes ..

As a tasty souvenir, they bring from Baikal omul - smoked, dried and in the form of canned food, as well as cedar nuts, honey and sweets with them, teas from local herbs and plants. Unusual food - Baikal sulfur - so called chewing gum of Siberian larch, it is sold in the form of plates. It is considered a natural therapeutic and prophylactic agent that strengthens the teeth and gums. The taste is, of course, specific, but it’s worth a try.

Olkhon cuisine and restaurants

Buryat manti, the so-called "poses" or "buouzy" - the main gastronomic attraction of Olkhon. They look like ordinary dumplings, molded in the form of a yurt. You can taste them in special “buuza-centers” along with other Buryat dishes - “Shulen”, “Sharbin”, “Huruud”, “Fighting” ..

Local specialty - omul. They love and know how to cook this fish on the island - they make cutlets from it and cook the soup, bake it, dry it, salt it and smoke it ..

Connoisseurs are also advised to try an unusual fish dish "zaguday" - raw fish is crushed, salted, pepper and served seasoned with butter. In addition to the legendary omul, whitefish, sturgeon, grayling and golomyanka are popular here.

There are plenty of cafes in Khuzhir, they look without frills and offer simple and hearty dishes from Russian-Siberian cuisine at an affordable price - a three-way dinner will cost 300-400 RUB. In the villages there are grocery stores, but the range in them is limited, and prices are 1.5-2 times higher than on the mainland.

Entertainment and Attractions

The most important sights of Olkhon are created by nature itself. People come here to admire the marvelous landscapes and feel the connection with nature. The island attracts curious tourists, photographers, naturalists and ethnographers. It focuses on archaeological, cultural and natural monuments, including the remains of stone walls, burial grounds and settlements. On the west coast is the island’s visiting card, the Shaman Rock, or Burhan Cape, as it is also called. This sacred place is considered to be the home of the owner of Olkhon and is especially revered by the Buryats. In ancient times, shamanistic and Buddhist rituals were performed here.

Lake Khankhoy attracts lovers of fishing and swimming. Nearby are monuments of the Iron Age and the Neolithic. 20 km from the administrative center of the island, the village of Khuzhir, in the Gulf of Nyurgan Bay lies the Peschanoye tract. It is famous for its bizarre forms of trees and its rare plant - Astragalus Olkhonsky is not found anywhere else in the world ..

The island is imbued with legends, littered with shrines and places of power, so in any part of it you should behave extremely carefully - do not harm nature and do not scatter garbage ..

At the northern tip of the island, Khoboy Cape, from land, it resembles a canine, and from the sea it resembles a woman’s profile. It is good to meet the sunrises - the solar disk emerges from the Holy Nose Peninsula, reflected in a foggy cradle. In the north, the Uzryr locality is located, remarkable also by the fact that the highway here goes straight to the water. If you climb the mountain, you can see an impressive panoramic view of Baikal.

The deepest place on Baikal (1637 m) was found 10 km from the coast of Olkhon - between the capes Izhimey and Khara-Khushun ..

On the eastern shore is the rock of love, which is legendary, as if it helps in the conception of children. In the mountains lies the Yellow Lake, Shara-Nur, which became famous for its healing properties - salt water and curative mud. "Russian Thailand" is called the Bay of Halzany because of the similarity of landscapes - the abundance of the sun, blue water and white sand ..

Everywhere on the island you can meet "serge" - wooden posts with shreds attached to them. Locals believe when the wind waves the khadaki, the prayers written on them go straight to heaven ..

A trip along the southern coast will lead to the Kurykanskaya wall, the Kobylya Golova peninsula, with which the legend of Genghis Khan, warm lakes and “witch circles” is connected. Majestic deciduous trees grow in the tract of Khalzany, and on the hills you can find real edelweiss. The landscape of the south-east coast is black sand cliffs.

Weather

To visit Olkhon, it is better to choose July or August. October will suit lovers of harsh landscapes - during this period there are no tourists at all, the weather often changes, and the lake is beautifully stormy. In March, the ice fishing season begins, as well as the time for exploring the ice caves of the Small Sea and the patterned ice on the rocks ..

Locals believe that the island itself calls people to itself or, on the contrary, expels them, sending various tests ..

On Olkhon, almost always winds blow mostly from the north-west. Precipitations for these places are rare, they fall as much as in semi-deserts. Winters on the island are mild and snowless, but longer than on the mainland. Spring and summer come here later too.