Sakhyurta is better known to most travellers by the initials MRS, for the small fish-processing plant that once stood here. It is the jumping-off point for Olkhon, the largest island on Lake Baikal, and on a summer day there can be a long queue of cars waiting by the shore for the ferry across the narrow strait. The settlement itself is a handful of houses, guesthouses and cafes strung along a bay of the Maloye More, the Little Sea, the stretch of water between the island and the western shore of the lake.
The landscape here is quite unlike the forested shores further south. This is the Tazheran steppe, a dry, open country of grass, bare hills and rocky outcrops, with patches of larch on the slopes and wide views across the water to the island. It is Buryat land, and you will see shamanic shrines, with poles wrapped in coloured ribbons, at passes and sacred places along the road. The light is clear and sharp, the sky enormous, and the wind can be ferocious. The sarma, a violent wind that pours out of a valley to the north, can whip the lake into dangerous waves in minutes.
As the start of a ride onto Olkhon, Sakhyurta sits at the end of a long road from Irkutsk, about two hundred and fifty kilometres through forest and then steppe. The final section winds over low hills, with long views of the lake ahead. The surface on the main road is paved, but watch for potholes and gravel on the edges. On the island itself, roads are mostly unpaved, sandy and rutted, with washboard surfaces that shake everything loose. Tyre pressures and a steady pace matter.
There are cafes, small shops and guesthouses at Sakhyurta, but fuel is limited. Yelantsy, about twenty-six kilometres back toward Irkutsk, has a station, and the smart move is to fill up there and carry extra, because fuel on Olkhon is not always available. The ferry is the next step, and the wait can be long in peak season. Use it to watch the water, the gulls and the island rising across the strait, and to feel the edge of the steppe meeting the lake.