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face value came to three major and 10 minor units of their money. I have forgotten the units of their money, but it would be like three francs, 10 centimes, or three pesos and 10 centavos. However, the post office itself, yet, was selling them for six and 20 or twice as much. When I tried to buy one stamp of the set, the answer was no buy them all or none. That is really the height of something when the post office itself sells its own stamps at twice the printed price. They don't even pull rip-offs like that in New York.

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Well, after Mongolia, back to Irkutsk, a city tour and the next mor- ning a boat ride to Lake Baikal. Irkutsk is built on the banks of the Angara River, about 40-50 miles from Lake Baikal which is drained by the Angara. Baikal has more water in it than all the five Great Lakes together and a rather tremendous surface area, so the Angara, which is the only outlet (though there are something like 300 streams running into it), is a very fair sized river. So the Russians built a hy- droelectric dam right at the edge of the city and by this time it has backed up enough water to raise it to the same height as the Baikal waters so that in effect it becomes a 40-50 mile extension of the lake. We boarded a hydrofoil for the trip to the lake. These boats go like a bat out of you know where about 42 miles an hour and that's fast on the water. They are streamlined and the passenger space is inside with a small open area on the fantail. From there a stair goes up to the captain's cockpit which is on top. Well you might know that I was outside in the air and not inside with the softies. I finally climbed up on top and sat leaning against the back of the cockpit. It was cold! Finally a couple of young Russian men and a woman came up too. They sat down beside me also in the lee of the cockpit. One of them could talk a little English. They were all physics students at the Univ. of Moscow and were out in Siberia for the summer helping to build a railroad. They had this weekend off and were going hiking and cam- ping on the shores of the lake. So this was one more instance of having to redo one's thinking. We've heard of these students going to the coun- try to work on some sort of social project and it is always assumed that they are being forced to do it almost conscripted because we can't imagine students in this country giving up their summer vacation working on some government project out in the sticks for no com- pensation other than transportation and meals. So we figure if Americans wouldn't do it then the only way the Russians would do it would be some sort of government force. Instead, because it is a socialist country, such summer activities are quite common, almost to be expected, and the whole thing is a big adventure. Think what we

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