Ulan-Ude

Ulan-Ude: Amber of Time by Lake Baikal

The prayer flags of the morning sun and the breath of the icy lake.   

When the first ray of light pierces the cold fog of Siberia, Ulan-Ude wakes up in the gentle waves of the Selenga River. The wind from Lake Baikal carries thousands of years of salt grains, sweeping across the golden roofs of Tibetan Buddhist temples and falling into the faded ribbons on the shaman pillars.

Here, faith is a whisper in the wind——

The prayer wheel spins lightly at the fingertips of the Lama, the bronze Buddha statue gazes at the vastness of the Mongolian grassland, and deep in the cave, the ochre-red ancient rock paintings are still telling the fables of stars and reindeer.

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The scent of tea at dusk and the epic of the railway tracks.

  The setting sun dyed the Soviet Square into honey color, and the world's largest Lenin's head cast a long shadow, as if the old times were frozen on the railway tracks.

The cracks in the 19th-century brick walls still seep with the fragrance of the "Tea Road"——

The camel bells, mink fur, and the clouds and mist of Wuyi Mountain pressed into bricks once collided with the melody of vodka and accordion here, brewing the aria of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

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The stars of the dark night and the wrinkles of civilization.    After nightfall, the long songs of the Buryat herdsmen spread across the tundra, and the cracking sound of the ice of Lake Baikal sounded like the gods knocking on the door of the earth.

The rosin crackled in the fireplace of the wooden house, and the silver hairpins of the old believers reflected the parchment scroll of the "Ancient Russian Hymns".

The Selenga River outside the window was crushing the starlight and flowing into the eternal darkness 1,600 meters deep at the bottom of the lake.   

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The twelve hours of Ulan-Ude

Yinshi: The morning bell of Ivolginsky Monastery awakens the winter sparrows, and the butter lamps weave a halo of spider webs in front of the Buddha. Wushi: The herders untie the leather bags to pour out the sour mare's milk, and the omur fish soup cooked in the copper kettle steams the sigh of the lake god.
Youshi: The icebreaker plows out emerald cracks on the blue ice, and the shaman's drum beats resonate with the bubbles under the ice.   
Zishi: The observatory's radio telescope is aimed at deep space, capturing the microwave noise when the universe was born 13.7 billion years ago.

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Collect the soul of this city.

Take a piece of blue ice from Lake Baikal and seal the aurora at minus 40℃;

Take a rubbing of the patterns on the ancient Xiongnu city wall, which is a love letter written by the nomadic people to the earth;
From then on, the wind and snow in Siberia became old friends.

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Ulan-Ude is a crystal that grew out of the fault line of civilization, and a piece of amber that time forgot to take away.   When the train whistle breaks through the frozen soil, you will understand:

Some places exist only to prove that eternity can be so concrete.