Ferry Listvyanka to Port Baikal to catch the famous Circum Baikal Railway.
You should do it they say, it’s so easy they say. Yeah, right.
You read all the travel blogs telling you this is the must thing to do while visiting Listvyanka by the Baikal Lake…
You should take a ride with Circum Baikal Railway. That’s what everyone tells you to do.
Sure it’s nice, but how to do it? How to cross the River Angara to catch the train if you are staying in Listvyanka?
It’s oftentimes hard to find reliable information about bus, ferry, or train schedules in Siberia.
Search through several websites and they all give you different departure times.
Even the Russian Railways’ official site isn’t always trustworthy.
Another thing is, that if you are booking your trip through any other site than Russian Railways official one, you will end up paying much more than you should.
The good news is that you don’t need to book through any website. The best way to travel in Russia is to do it like in the good ol’ days. Just walk to the station to get your ticket. No need to book weeks in advance.
Ferry Listvyanka to Port Baikal
Schedules also keep constantly changing, so I give you just a rough idea for planning.
The information here is based on how the ferries were running (information given from the port) between Listvyanka and Port Baikal on October 5th, Anno Domini 2017.
This is the ferry you’ll need to take from Listvyanka if you are planning to hop on the famous Circum Baikal railway.
Catching a Circum Baikal Railway
Thus finding the schedules of Circum Baikal Railway – the historical train – is a whole different story that I am unfortunately not able to help you with. Neither are locals.
There should be a steam train leaving at 14.40 (2.40 pm) every Thursday from Listvyanka, but others say that from Listvyanka trains run only at night (leaving around 2 am) meaning that you wouldn’t enjoy much of the scenery.
So the best way to do it is to walk to a train station and just ask. This goes with any route.
At least if you speak Russian…
If you don’t, just say the name of the place you’re heading to and they’ll write the schedules down on a piece of paper.
These were the ferry schedules from Listvyanka to Port Baikal and back at the time we asked:
Ferry Listvyanka to Port Baikal
Departure times
8.15 (8.15 am)
11.15 (11.15 am)
16.15 (4.15 pm)
18.15 (6.15 pm)
Ferry Port Baikal to Listvyanka
Departure times
6.40 (6.20 am)
10.45 (10.45 am)
15.15 (3.15 pm)
17.15 (5.15 pm)
P.S. I still haven’t written any other articles from Russia in English, but I’m pretty sure you’ll love our other posts… Check those out here.