Boattrip to Lake Baikal (31.08.2016)
Plan:
09:00 - departure from Listvyanka on excursion ship “Ivan Babushkin”
11:00 - arrival in Sennaya Pad at foot of Skriper cliff
11:00-13:30 - local events (picnic, climbing to the observation deck “Skriper cliff”)
13:30 - departure from Sennaya Pad
15:00 - arrival in Listvyanka
16:00 - dinner at hotel
Excursion ship “Ivan Babushkin”
The ship "Ivan Babushkin" is the largest pleasure boat on Lake Baikal. Its seating capacity is up to 100 persons. The ship has 3 three recreation areas: upper and lower bow decks and stern deck.
Sennaya Pad
Sennaya Pad is located on the coast of the lake Baikal at the foot of the Skriper cliff, 23 km from Listvyanka. At this quiet, secluded and very beautiful place, you may have a good time and enjoy the beauty of the surrounding nature. Gold mining was carried out here earlier. There the picnic will be organized. Also visitors may warm up in the russian vapor bath and fresh up in the lake.
Near Sennaya Pad there is an archaeological and natural heritage - a picturesque cliff Skriper. At an altitude of 200 m there is a cave in which the remains of cultures of Stone and Iron Ages were found. Visitors may climb to the observation deck “Skriper cliff”. Climbing takes 30 minutes. It is necessary to have comfortable (appropriate) shoes.
Trip to Tunka valley (02.09.2016 – 03.09.2016)
After the Conference and excursion to Sennaya Pad we suggest you to visit an astrophysical observatory TAIGA placed in Tunka valley. Buses depart from Listvyanka (1) at 9:00 about and pass through Irkutsk (2) around 10:00. Visitors who decided not to travel to Tunka may stay at Listvyanka or go to Irkutsk with others. Then buses go to Tunka valley. The observatory TAIGA is placed near a settlement Tory (3). It is 150 km away from Irkutsk and travel will take about 3 hours. The first 2/3 of road is mountainous so you may need preventativesfor motion sickness. An excursion about TAIGA and a dinner/picnic will be organized at the observatory. Then visitors have 3 choices:1) Go to Arshan (4) for a night and for excursion next day
2) Stay at Tory for a night (free accommodation, there are about 20 couchettes and suburban infrastructure)
3) Go to Irkutsk
Preliminary plan
| 02.09.2016 | 03.09.2016 |
| Plan for the full excursion (Type I) | |
|
10:00 - departure from Listvyanka 14:00 - arrival in Tory (observatory TAIGA) 15:00 – lunch 16:00 – excursion around the observatory 18:00 – departure from Tory by special buses 19:00 – arrival in Arshan 20:00 – dinner |
09:00 – breakfast in the hotel 11:00 - walk to the waterfall (~ 7 km round trip) 14:00 - lunch 15:00 - departure from Arshan 19:00 - arrival in Irkutsk |
| Plan for the two-day excursion (Type II) | |
|
10:00 - departure from Listvyanka 14:00 - arrival in Tory (observatory TAIGA) 15:00 – lunch 16:00 – excursion around the observatory 20:00 – dinner |
10:00 – breakfast 11:00 - departure from Tory 14:00 - arrival in Irkutsk |
| Plan for the one-day excursion (Type III) | |
|
10:00 - departure from Listvyanka 14:00 - arrival in Tory (observatory TAIGA) 15:00 – lunch 16:00 – excursion around the observatory 18:00 – departure from Tory 21:00 – arrival in Irkutsk |
|
More about TAIGA and Arshan
The observatory TAIGA (the Tunka Advanced Instrument for cosmic ray physics and Gamma Astronomy)is placed in Tunka Valley close to Lake Baikal in Siberia and has an area about 3 km2. The Tunka facility has a long history beginning as radio-instruments testing area. First investigations began in the 1990s with the air-Сherenkov detector Tunka-13 (later Tunka-25) consisting of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) distributed over a square area of 0.1 km2. Later, the modern air-Cherenkov detector Tunka-133 was built. Starting from 2012 several extensions have been deployed. All of them are belong to TAIGA.
TAIGA is a complex, hybrid detector consisting of the following components:
Tunka-133was inaugurated in 2009. It consists of 19 inner clusters, each contains 7 PMTs in a hexagonal grid (one in the center). The inner part has a ring structure: one cluster in the center, then seven clusters in the internal ring and twelve clusters in the external ring. The inner part is dense, with a distance between PMTs of 80 m, is covering area of about 1 km2. Later the array was extended by six satellite clusters increasing the effective area to 3 km2.
Tunka-133 runs during clear moon-less nights from September to April. In summer the array is turned off for maintenance and deployment of new detectors. Thus, the effective time of measurements is about 250-500 hours per year. The array is designed for the energy range from 1015 to 1018 eV. After three years of data acquisition several features in energy and mass composition spectra were found, confirming results by other experiments: a hardening at 3 ∙1016 eV and a softening at about 1017 eV (the second knee).
The Hundred*i Square-km Cosmic ORigin Explorer(HiSCORE) is a new non-imaging air-Cherenkov instrument for the detection of high-energy gamma rays. Moreover, jointly with Tunka-Rex, the knee and the second knee will be measured with the same technique. The deployment started in 2012, currently about 30 detectors are installed and commissioned. At its final stage the size of the detector will be about 100 km2.
Tunka-Grandeis one of the extensions recently deployed in the Tunka Valley. The scintillator plates for Tunka-Grande came from the former Grande array, the high-energy extension of the KASCADE-Grande particle array. The detector layout has the structure: 19 stations placed nearby the 19 inner Tunka-133 cluster centers. Currently, the core (inner 7 stations) has both electron (on ground) and muon (underground) scintillators installed. External stations (from 8 to 19) currently have only on-ground detectors, but soon will be also equipped with underground muon detectors.
The Tunka Radio Extension (Tunka-Rex), deployed in 2012, is an array of antenna stations, interspersed with Tunka-133. With a spacing of antenna stations of about 200 m, it covers an area of 1 km2 and measures cosmic rays with primary energies above 1017 eV. In 2014 the Tunka-Rex array was upgraded with additional 19 antenna stations, each of them connected to the data acquisition of the corresponding Tunka-Grande station. Starting from end of 2015, after commissioning of Tunka-Grande, the entire Tunka-Rex array (44 antennas) is triggered by the particle array, i.e. enabling measure round-the-clock detection.
Imaging air-Cherenkov telescopes
Finally, for the TAIGA facility, new air-Cherenkov telescopes for high-energy gamma rays are deployed. Together with Tunka-HiSCORE they will study high-energy gamma quanta and search for sources of gamma and cosmic rays.
Arshanis a mountain health resort located in 60 km from Tory. Arshan is known by mineral water sources and also is called Siberian Tibet. During an excursion visitors may see mountains and lakes, rivers and waterfalls, sacred grove and Buddhist temples.
There are 35 rooms reserved by API ISU in a hotel “Irkut” (www. иркут-аршан.рф) at Arshan for a night (~ 20-60 Euro).
Other possibilties for excursions
The Taltsy Museum of Architecture and Ethnography (the Wooden Architecture Museum) is appraised by decree from the President of the Russian Federation as a highly valuable object of cultural heritage of the peoples of Russia.
Founded in 1969, the Taltsy museum is conveniently situated on the road to Lake Baikal, 47 km of the Baikal highway. Its 67-hectare territory is surrounded with a protected area. There are over 40 monuments of architectural heritage and 8,000 exhibits of high historical value. Two architectural-ethnographical areas - Russian and Buryat - show a large variety of housing and life of the Siberians.
The most valuable monuments in Taltsy are the Savior's gate tower of the ostrog (fort) of Ilimsk (1667) and an active Kazan Chapel (1679). Both of them, as well as the houses near the Angara floodlands, were transferred to this place from the flooded areas of the Ust-Ilimskaya. Take the opportunity to see and be acquainted with the life of old Siberia.
Baikal museum
The Baikal Limnological Station opened in the village of Listvyanka in 1928 (since 1961 - the Limnological Institute) and the museum was established too.
The unique exhibits tell about the origin and the history of the lake, its flora and fauna, geological structure, climate and tectonics of Pribaikalye. Stuffed birds and animals. Collection of minerals. Models of the lake bed showing its history, the peculiarities of its shoreline and bottom. Baikal fish (omul, golomyanka, kharius, sturgeon, taimen, pike). Microorganisms inhabiting Baikal waters and destroying everything that might pollute the lake. Exhibits found in scientific expeditions. You can watch 20-minute film "The Planet's Well" with unique shots made with the help of a deep-sea submersible vessel "Pisces" at the deepest point, 1637 m, of the lake.
