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Published: August 7th 2008
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Sheffield to Moscow
Tracey’s bit
4 August - St. Pancras
St. Pancras has a new European feel to it. The cakey shop has very exciting cakes with fruits and berries laden on top of the rich chocolate cakes. The station is like a cattle market though with everyone pushing and no one wants to help anyone. It seems strange to me.
My lovely daughter slightly alone at the check in desk for the Eurostar. Words in texts flying through the air and last glances saying everything. My parting reminders to her - do this, do that, do the other…
At Brussels I share food with 2 Arabic women and a young boy. I cannot understand them. I wished I had learned some Arabic from Jackie. The only word I know is ‘butterfly’. When Chris returns from getting us a drink, the older woman puts the ends of her fingers to her lips and kisses them then gestures that he is nice to look at. I laugh. We feel relaxed. I do not want any of their sandwich. Whilst on the platform, I eye up the distance between the kerb of the platform and the first step
of the train. It seems a great distance for a wheelie bag with a day bag fastened to it which seem to be the size and weight of a small car. I calculate 1 mild hernia, 1 large sweat and a big look of anxiety but I’m getting used to it.
On the Thalys train from Brussels to Koln, our seats have been taken by 2 French women. I tell them that they are in our seats but I know that there is not enough space for our bags in the bag hold so they have to stay in the corridor at the end of the carriage and it’s best if we stay with them. We give up our seats. Chris sits in the phone booth, I sit by the door on the drop down seat surrounded by our bags and opposite a very large man who speaks a language I cannot understand. His knees touch mine. I cannot move. I think he is Nigerian. I start to read ‘Red Dust’ he eventually gets his book out and looks at me. I smile and ask what he is reading. He shows me the cover ‘Sexual Intimacy Within marriage’ there
is a picture of a couple making love on the cover. I look at him and say, ‘hmm, interesting…’ The book is written in English but he whispers it aloud in French. I do not know why. I am not going to ask. God knows why but I did ask him if he was married. He Said, ‘yes’. I thought of how to ask him in Chinese. ‘ Qing wen, ni jie hun le ma? But why speak to a large Nigerian man whispering an English book aloud in French, in Chinese? Funny how my brain works but I like to get a little Chinese practice where possible. He is laughing at the book. I will not ask why. I strain to see the cover, I think it is written by Reverend Prince Odinkemere.
5 August - Train Koln to Moscow.
We board the train and are in a tiny Russian Cosmos travelling through Eastern Europe. The train has 15 carriages, all sleepers. We are the only Russian Carriage - 183. It works like this. The train gets advertised as going to Berlin and Prague. But we are not going to Prague. It is only
after at least 4 conversations with different people that we realise that we NEED to be in the middle of the train because the front and the rear get disconnected at various points and go elsewhere.
I remember Berlin at 4.30am - the station all glass and huge and multi layered and void of people.
Our carriage is maintained by 1 attendant. He doesn’t want to smile. The carriages are like terraced housing in Sheffield. During the day time everyone has their doors open. Everyone looks inside everyone else’s little homes and there are families and grandmas and gramps in their own houses for 36 hours. There are no other English on this train.
Warsaw. We have stopped for a while. People understand what is happening. Chris and I do not understand. We dare not get off the train in case it leaves us behind and no one can explain what is happening or for how long. The carriage attendant is in the next compartment with 2 women. They got on at Warsaw station with long extension finger nails, cigarettes and a large take away meal. The attendant has closed the door but we can hear them through
the walls. The station platform looks tired. As we pull away from Warsaw, the ladies stay on the train with their arms around the attendant’s neck but it is his lunch break, after all.
5 Aug - Belarus.
A very unnerving checking of passports and visas. The officials are very official and grunt shout commands in Russian. They take our passports, the train shunts backwards and forwards, changing tracks and moving into the garage to change the wheels for a different track size. People selling stuff enter the train. We buy a beer from a very old lady. I cannot understand how much she wants so I put 1 Euro in her open palm. The palm remains open so I place another 2 Euros in it. She repeats thank you over and over again in Russian. I smile. I made someone happy.
6 Aug - Somewhere in Russia.
The ladies that entered the train at Warsaw left sometime in the night at one of the stations before the Russian border. The landscape has changed from the bleakness of Poland and Belarus to endless forests of Silver Birch and Fir. I read somewhere
that people hid in these forests for the duration of the 2nd world war. The forests thin to reveal small holdings, tiny houses made of tin with chicken sheds and outbuildings. I could live there, I think. As we near Moscow, the large sky rise blocks start and then the capital buildings. We arrive in Moscow at 10.30 am and argue the price of a taxi. I get the pen out and we start haggling because I will not pay the man $100 for a 4 mile ride to the hostel.
Chris writes his bit on Moscow…
I’m not sure what it is about the people of Moscow that makes them all so bad tempered.
Yet with prices higher than the centre of London, it’s understandable that may be a little hacked off! I’ll admit we were even a little upset when the taxi driver quoted us $100 for the 4 mile taxi ride to the Hostel.
Capitalism has well and truly sunk its teeth into this once communist city, with inflation pushing the cost of living sky high. I couldn’t help but scowl when the till read 790R (£18) for a beer, a loaf and couple of
yoghurts! Even a wee in a urinal will set you back 15R (30p) per go.
The city sights are amazing yet you couldn’t help but notice an air of tension, as if corruption spilled from the officials over into the crowds, almost like they were looking for a reason to corner you. We’ve heard stories of the police confiscating passports and entry cards until a considerable “contribution” was made to forget why they booked you, like a jay walking offence (not like you would want to tackle these roads) or jumping over the shin-high barrier (we cleared off when the police headed our way) or looking lost in the wrong place. After all who would argue with the man with the gun?
We found ourselves retreating into the safe haven of the hostel, watching the only English Channel (Vh1 Classic) and updating blogs to avoid the chaos of the city. Although we’re still frequently reminded of the Russians tolerance to the English by our “warm and polite” hostel staff. Tracey and I felt like we had won a battle when the man at the hostel’s face cracked into a smile (or maybe an upside frown) but this was only because we helped him connect his IPOD to wifi.
The outside temperature (despite being on the same plane as the UK) is about 13 Degrees and for the first time this summer the fleeces and warm socks came out. The perfect weather to remind us of a city that sends an occasional shiver down the spine.
Roll on Trans-Siberian, roll on China!
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