I am starting to have insomnia thinking about Baikal. The thought of a bike tour around the lake is taking strong roots and I am totally convinced that it is something that needs to be done. In my mind, it seems like a seed is being planted to kick start a nomadic lifestyle.

Baikal, sharp, crisp, bi-syllable, banana shaped fresh water lake seems to be taking over my thoughts. There is something magical and alluring about this lake. When I was on Train-007, something strange happened while passing through Baikal. I guess it was a combination of train fatigue, heat and the extremely annoying change to the direction of sunlight. I was looking froward to the views of the frozen lake and once the lake came into view, the sunlight started playing tricks. The train passed along the coast and was constantly changing directions from NW to SW and back to NW. The cabin was a toasty 30C and the blindingly bright sunlight reflecting off the frozen lake was increasing the temperature and made me squint. When I peeked out of the train, all I could see was the sky and the frozen lake reaching out at the horizon. The urge to get out of the train was at its peak (like I said, It could be the heat and fatigue, but I prefer to consider it the Baikal Allure).

However, a few hours of torture later, the mysterious Baikal disappeared from view and all was normal again.

Now that I am back, I get flashes of light and shadows and constantly see the vast landscape of Ice, sky and Sun. It is as if Baikal has a spell over me. I am forced to check out maps and stare at the lake. I am strangely starting to read Cyrillic. I religiously research about the lake, the people settled around, the weather conditions, climate patterns etc… I dream about biking along rough roads and camping among conifers. I feel the warm sun on my face and I realize I am at home and over slept.

It is difficult to look forward to the daily chore when you know there is a different life out there. It seems like I am getting flashes from a parallel Universe or may be from the future.

I wish to think it is from the future, and if that is the future, I need to prepare for it. I have strategize my life towards being a nomad. Need to find a source of $ to sustain my life. I do not need much money, just enough to survive and a few additional bucks for the rainy day. Generating savings for survival is trivial. I don’t think  that is a concern. What is a concern is that I am afraid the dream may disappear. I want this dream, I have always spoken about being a bike nomad but now I have a strong urge to be one.

I think Baikal is the key. I have a feeling that it is going to open the door to my future.

Here are some abstracts from a recent trip to Russia. You can click through to the picasa web gallery to see them in higher resolution. Enjoy the images.

St. Petersburg is the center of the arts in Russia and fittingly, the grandest and largest art museum, the Hermitage, is located here. I have recorded my impression on the Hermitage here.

Hermitage is a collection of a bunch of buildings and is massive in scale. Photographing architecture is non trivial and I usually don’t attempt them either. But the impressive structure of the Hermitage made me pause. The challenge to capture the immense structure egged me to click away. But I had to be careful what I shoot and how I shoot it. I quickly thought about it, the obvious solution is to shoot a panorama. The light was good (about mid noon) and I had a lens that shoots normal (40mm equivalent). I had to shoot from a distance (of course) and I had enough space as the square was large and due to the winter weather there was no crowd either.

I parked myself in the center of the square, adjusted my stance to the center of the building and shot two sequences of 8 shots each (all handheld). I had to check to see if I had captured the exposure and the framing right. Luckily, the lighting did not change (I shot manual exp of course) due to the overcast skies.

The trouble I realized was that, even though I will get the entire building framed in the panorama, I am going to suffer strange optical distortions. You can observe the building tapering at the far end. I guess I need more rigorous technique to shoot panoramas but I will take what I have.

It is not perfect, but a lot of details and the scale is captured in one image. I have to resort to using deep zoom again for displaying the content. Enjoy the imagery.

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