Slyudyanka sits at the southern tip of Lake Baikal, where the old railway turns the corner of the world's deepest lake, and the whole town carries the feel of a railway place. The name comes from slyuda, the Russian word for mica, which was mined in the hills behind the town for centuries and used for windows and later for electrical insulation. The mica pits and the quarries that supplied marble to the rest of the country shaped the town, and the stones around here are a collector's dream, with many kinds of crystals and minerals.
The railway station is the unmissable monument. It is the only station in Russia built entirely of marble, using the local white and grey stone, and it dates from the years when the Circum-Baikal line was being laid, among the most expensive stretches of the Trans-Siberian. The railway squeezed along the cliffs of the lake's southern shore with dozens of tunnels, bridges and retaining walls built in stone, and a trip along it by train or on foot is an experience in itself. The old route is a heritage line today, and you can still find old stone portals of tunnels in the forest.
Baikal itself is on another scale. It holds about a fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water, it is more than 1,600 metres deep at its deepest, and it is thought to be twenty-five million years old. The water is so clear that you can see far down, and the shores here are lined with pebbles, rocky headlands and coniferous forest. The lake is cold even in August, and the swimming is bracing. In winter, it freezes to a thick layer of transparent ice that can carry vehicles, a spectacle of cracks and bubbles.
From Slyudyanka, roads lead west along the Tunkinsky valley toward Arshan, a village at the foot of the Sayan Mountains with mineral springs, and east along the lake toward Baikalsk. The roads are generally decent, with long straights and some gentle curves, and the mountains of the Khamar-Daban range rise behind. In summer, trucks and tourist traffic are heavy on the main highway, and potholes appear in spring.
Slyudyanka has fuel stations, shops and cafés. The famous local fish is omul, a type of lake whitefish, which is smoked or salted and sold by roadside vendors, and it is delicious with bread and a hot cup of tea. The best months are June to September, and by October the cold has returned.