Sights in Ulan Ude
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Historical Museum
The Historical Museum charges per single-room floor. The best is Buddiyskoe Iskustvo (3rd floor), displaying thangka, Buddhas and icons salvaged from Buryatiya's monasteries before their Soviet destruction. Note-sheets in English fail to explain the fascinating, gaudy papier-mâché models of Khvashan's eight unruly sons urinating at one another.
Note the Gungarba shrine table (every Buryat home once had one), the Atsagat medical charts (Tibetan medicine was apparently standard here until the 1940s) and the walnut necklace on grey, clown-faced Sagan Obugen (walnuts were exotic in Buryatiya). The less-interesting 2nd floor traces Buryat history in maps, documents and artef…
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Ethnographic Museum
In a forest clearing 6km from central Ulan-Ude is the worthwhile Ethnographic Museum, an outdoor collection of local architecture plus some reconstructed burial mounds and the odd stone totem. Although lacking the pretty lakeside setting of equivalents in Bratsk and Irkutsk, it features occasional craft demonstrations, has a splendid wooden church and sports a whole strip of Old Believers’ homesteads. Marshrutka 8 from pl Sovetov passes within 1km and upon request will detour to drop you at the door for no extra charge.
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Datsans
En route to the Ethnographic Museum, you'll notice Ulan-Ude's attractive new pair of datsans backed by stupas and trees that flutter with prayer flags; there are services from 09:00 to 11:00 most mornings. The nearby hippodrome is the venue for major Buryat festivals, including the Buryatiya Folk Festival, which features horse riding, wrestling and other folky delights.
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Lenin Head
At one end of ul Lenina the main square, pl Sovetov, is awesomely dominated by the world's largest Lenin head, which looks less domineering than comically cross-eyed.
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Buryatiya Literary Museum
In an attractive 1847 wooden house, the Buryatiya Literary Museum contains old photos and manuscripts. A rare 108-volume Atsagat Ganzhur (Buddhist chant book) is inscribed in multicoloured Tibetan script on special black lacquer made from blood, sugar and pounded sheep’s vertebrae.
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Opera House
A certain 19th-century opulence is still visible in the attractive commercial buildings on and around ul Lenina. Viewed from near the splendid Opera House, this street is given a photogenic focus by the gold-tipped spires of the 1785 Odigitria Cathedral.
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Odigitria Cathedral
The gold-tipped spires of the 1785 Odigitria Cathedral were rescued from near collapse in the late 1990s. It commands an appealing area of the old town, with carved wooden cottages extending as far as ul Kirova.
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Hippodrome
The hippodromeis the venue for major festivals including the Surkharban in early June, the biggest Buryat sporting event of the year featuring archery, wrestling and exhilarating feats of horsemanship.
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Trinity Church
Backed by a park with a Ferris wheel and Gaudi-esque fountain, the active Trinity Church sprouts a series of green bulb-domes.
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Nature Museum
The Nature Museum has big stuffed animals and a scale model of Lake Baikal showing just how deep it is.
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