An account of Issa’s adventure in Siberia

Issa Ibn Battuta, area manager for Nomade Aventure and AKAMMAK ambassador, looks back on his 2015 expedition to Siberia.

In a nutshell, I’m an adventure travel designer and a city-dweller by necessity; I love nature and other cultures. On a day-to-day basis, I spend quite a bit of time in the Nomade Aventure offices, planning and designing trips, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t like the hustle and bustle of the city.

In 2015, when my friend Pavel from Irkutsk in Russia suggested I take part in the first test expedition on the Baikal ice, I didn’t hesitate for a single second. Going to Siberia has always been one of my wildest dreams, and going to Siberia in winter is even more exciting!

Images of the Siberian gulags flashed through my mind, and I thought back to Peter Weir’s film The Way Back and Nicolas Vanier’s documentary The Wild Odyssey. A flood of memories washed over me, filled with vivid, vibrant images, sending a shiver down my spine. There was no room for hesitation; I packed my rucksack with all the gear I needed for the bitter cold and rushed out to buy Sylvain Tesson’s book In the Forests of Siberia. As for kit, I took extreme cold-weather clothing, the technical thermoregulatory base layers from my friends at AKAMMAK, waterproof hiking boots, suitable woollen socks and, above all, high-altitude gloves and mittens – the full kit.

I know the desert world well, having roamed it so often, and my enthusiasm for this expedition stemmed from the unknown, the novelty, the uncharted territory – an old childhood dream. I’d never ventured into the vast expanses of ice during my life as a globetrotter, nor walked on real sea ice, all white and very much alive beneath my feet.

On arrival in Irkutsk, an inexplicable sensation came over me: the cold stung my nose, my lungs and my bones right down to the marrow. At that moment, I checked the temperature on my phone: -22°C. It was as if I were watching a National Geographic TV documentary! There was something surreal about it; I was there without really being there.

To get out onto the Baikal ice floe, we had to take a minibus. There were 12 of us cold-weather adventurers from France, Germany and Russia. Filled with excitement and naturally talkative, I made new friends straight away. We had one thing in common: a desire to throw ourselves into adventure, to explore unusual places that few people have ever set foot in, like a select few drawn to the unknown.

We were accompanied by two Russian guides, Pavel and Dmiri, who told us about the local traditions and customs of the people of Siberia. They showed us shamanic totems and a sacred cave filled with ice stalagmites that looked like temple columns. Then we crossed the pack ice in a minibus, driving right across the ice – for me, it was absolutely mad. The track across the ice that we were following was marked out with ropes and proper road signs, even though we were driving on water!

As we made our way along, the ice grew considerably thicker, the temperature dropped and the landscapes became breathtakingly brilliant and luminous. Everything took on a polar feel and turned to ice. You could make out the waves of Lake Baikal rising towards the sky as if frozen and trapped by the ice. Everything – the trees, the grass and the rocks – became crystalline, almost translucent; the boats were part of this magical scene, trapped in the ice for the whole winter – it’s a bit like a holiday for them!

For the trek across the lake, I had a pulka strapped to my belt, which I pulled behind me, carrying all my belongings, some of the group’s food, a tent and flasks filled with hot water. It was impossible to use water bottles in such temperatures – the water would freeze – hence the need for flasks. In the evening, I’d help Pavel and Dmiri set up camp for the night: tents, sleeping mats, and above all, I loved being in charge of breaking and heating the ice to get water for the group’s meal.

During the expedition, there were moments of madness and hearty laughter amongst the team members, despite the intense, biting cold and the biting wind. We’d lie flat on our stomachs on a sheet of ice and let ourselves slide across the pack ice like penguins, laughing like children.

The colours of the ‘toros’ (huge chunks of ice) bathed in the rays of the fiery sunset were simply psychedelic, and the mercilessly strong polar wind stung our faces. In places like this, you really need to protect yourself from the cold, the wind, the damp and the intense light. As for the cold and damp, I was well prepared with high-quality AKAMMAK thermoregulatory clothing.

The nights in the tents, pitched directly on the ice, were particularly cold. I slept wrapped up in a good ‘Lestra’ down duvet rated for temperatures down to -40°. I kept my ColdWinner® fabric underpants and undershirt on , and I never felt cold at any point. There were seven of us in the same tent; we kept each other warm by huddling close together to maintain a cocoon of warmth. But at night, the pack ice seemed almost alive, and we could hear it cracking and roaring beneath our heads like a dragon. We were riding the dragon whilst we slept – a marvellous delirium. Beneath our crampons, the ice was so dark and yet so clear – a sensation hard to explain – hinting at its thickness. The sun played through all the cracks and trapped air bubbles. The sight was so beautiful that, moved, I lay there for a few minutes simply gazing. It is in these unforgettable moments that I realise how fortunate I am to be able to have these experiences thanks to my work. These are places where we are fully aware of our responsibility to preserve these unspoilt, intact and extremely fragile environments! The only word that came to mind to describe what I felt at Lake Baikal was: ‘spiritual!’

At the end of our expedition, after a long walk of around 67 kilometres, we arrived on the other side of the lake, in the middle of a birch forest, crossed by a long, straight road where we found our vehicles. We ended up in a small Buryat village, where we devoured a proper hot meal. Then came the harsh return to reality from Siberia’s lost cities; upon arriving in Ulan-Ude, the region’s capital, we boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway for the night to return to Irkutsk. This sums up a few days of my life as a travel producer and adventurer – and, above all, a magnificent experience.

Issa Smatti is an area manager and travel producer at Nomade Aventure. A specialist in Central Asia and the Himalayas, his experiences are as varied as they are numerous. He puts these experiences to good use for travellers seeking ideas and advice on getting away from it all.

Watch his account in the video below: