Irkutsk: The final stop in Russia.

Irkutsk is an interesting destination for a number of reasons, but also because It’s airport, located right in the city (only a 15 minute taxi) offers the cheapest connections to most international destinations in Asia. Moreover, I also wanted to see again a group of nice people I got to know there last year.

This is why while in Saint Petersburg, I got in touch with Yura, a person I met last year and who used to work at the Irkutsk Philarmonic Hall, to ask him about the possibility of doing something together. I called the right person, cause only a few days later called back confirming a concert at the roof top of some place devoted to artistic events.

In Irkutsk I had a decent apartment right in the city center, where I could wash, cook and work with the computer. The center is not so big so every meeting point was pretty much walking distance.

The concert event was very nice and different from everything else, it was a wine / cheese tasting event combined with jazz musicians and later my performance. The audience really enjoyed the concert and I was asked to perform again the next day, unfortunately I was on a 2 day trip to the city of Arshan, next to the Mongolian border, and could not attend again. Unfortunately there was not so many material registered due to the lack of light as it was outdoors, but here’s some video they uploaded afterwards to have an idea of the atmosphere:
https://vk.com/video7946801_456239049

I have to make a special mention to my new friends Lena and Julia which I met during my trip in Olkhon, they came back to Irkutsk on the same day I did and introduced me so many people and had so many good times together.. can only leave a big THANK YOU and hope to meet them and their friends back sometime.

Before leaving the city I wanted to make a special event to thank my friends and be able to meet with those I’d seen only once or wouldn’t have seen otherwise. And that was another concert, a very special one, where with some stops in between I improvised for them for about 2 hours at a local beer bar.

Now it’s time to move forward, maybe leaving a tear behind for the great time spent in Russia during these month and a half..