Trans Siberian Train Time

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It’s March 26th, as I am writing this, and I’ve seen so much the past week, that these events seem months away, so forgive me if I am vague on the details. I would have liked to write on the train, but it’s not a good idea to flash your laptop around in Siberia if you want to keep it.

The night before I left Russia, Olyesa made a nice dinner and invited the other teachers from the GCC. She made this wonderful cheese/garlic spread and cutlets with berries, cheese, an onions (the dish is called “beef in Russian”). Dinner was nice and relatively uneventful, personally I was starting to get a little nervous/anxious to leave. To be quite honest, I was ready to leave and excited to get to France. I was tired of greasy food, soviet architecture and garbage everywhere. The weather was also less than pleasant in Russia, as the winter was giving way to the birthing pains of spring, so there was frozen slush, unfrozen dog poo, and a general dirty, damp mushiness draping everything in an aura of unpleasantness.

The next morning, Margarita and her friend drove me to Barnaul. There we dropped my luggage off at the storage area in the train station and picked up my visa invitation. I said goodbye to Margarita and spent the rest of the day wandering around Barnaul, as I had about 10 hours till my train left. I caught a film at the movie theater and walked around. The restaurant I ate at tried to blatantly rip me off, my meal should have been about 250 rubles, and when I went to pay, it was totaled as 650 rubles. Right. When I pointed it out, the waitress just shrugged and changed it to the correct amount. I wandered around some more, picked up some supplies to eat on the train at a grocery store, and went to the train station to wait (it had gotten dark, and I didn’t feel like wandering around alone).

The train left at 11:45pm, and aside from my luggage being a bit too excessive to fit comfortably in the under the seat compartment, I had no problems. For the time being I was alone. On Russian train there are two classes (1st class - kupe, 2nd class - plaskartye). A seat in kupe is really a bed in a closed room with four beds. Plaskartye, on the other hand, has no doors, only compartments (4 beds, two lower, two upper, with luggage storage above and below the beds). Both Margarita and my mom strongly advised me to bump up into kupe, but upgrading my ticket would have cost something like 6,000 rubles, so I stayed in plaskartye.

Before I left Biysk, my students had thoroughly scared me. Whenever I told them I was taking the train to Moscow, their response was “Oh God, why?” I was braced to endure filthy toilets, no running water, crazy drunk men stumbling up and down the aisles, screaming babies and general chaos. I was actually looking forward to a bit of craziness. After all, you can only say things are “nice” or “pleasant” for so long before your audience dozes off.

Plaskartye on a Russian train certainly provides an environment where this kind of chaos is viable. I have to report; however, that my Tran-Siberian train ride was actually quite pleasant and enjoyable. I liked the train, and I am soooo glad I didn’t upgrade to kupe. Kupe wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting. In fact it probably would have been very boring and a waste of money. I’m traveling to live, not relax, after all. That said, Russian trains aren’t a travel destination for the easily squeamish, cleanliness obsessed, or self-conscious. People get changed, clip their toenails, fart, etc. right in front of everyone else. Also, while the train stewardess gives you new clean sheets and your own towel, there’s no way of knowing whether the last person to sleep on the mat had lice, bed bugs, etc… just better not to think of it and hope for the best.

My compartment mates were quite nice which is probably one of the reasons the trip was enjoyable. There was one older man (50s) and two 60ish grandmas. The man (Viktor) in particular was very friendly. He has a daughter about 2 years younger than me and was generally very curious. He was a soldier and then an instructor for the Army (yes, this would have been when the curtain was still down, cold war and all) and very open-minded and highly-educated. He actually traveled all over Russia and to several of the surrounding countries when he was working for the army. Russian soliders aren’t paid particularly well, but they do get to travel for free (free train/planes and free board) for something like 2 weeks a year.

On the train, I spent a lot of time sleeping. A lot of time sleeping, a lot of time reading Harry Potter, and a lot of time staring out the window. There really isn’t much to do on the train if you are by yourself. At the same time it feels like you are accomplishing something because you are in a new place every time you wake up or the train stops. I also found myself mentally planning an excursion on the train with friends. I enjoyed the train, but if I had had one or two of my friends with me it would have been a blast. You can drink, have a “picnic,” play games, converse with natives and see the Russian countryside. It’s generally very relaxing and the people watching is exceptional. Plus the upper beds are like a jungle gym and look really fun to climb in and out of (I was in a lower bed, which was good because it meant that all my valuables were stored in the seat under me). I will say that planning to go more than 2.5 days is probably inadvisable. By the last day, for about the last 8 hours I was ready to get off the train. My butt hurt from sitting too long and it was no longer comfortable to lay and read because I could feel my kidneys and shoulder blades filling with blood (yes, strange), and generally I was very stiff. Furthermore, you don’t really have much more than ten minutes at any given train stop to walk around or explore.

The only other interesting thing that happened was that a somewhat drunk late 20s Russian guy solicited me while I was walking to the bathroom. “Hey krasavitza (pretty girl)! Hey krasavitza, talk to me!” He had a thick southern Siberian accent and was therefore difficult to understand, so he figured out I wasn’t Russian pretty quickly. From there on he occasionally tried to stop by my seat and talk to me, asking me rude things like whether or not I’d tried sex with a Russian man, and that I should because then I’d never want to go back to American, or that I should marry a Russian man because then I wouldn’t have to worry about a Russian visa, and if I was interested he is single and won’t slap me around when we’re married. Generally he was harmless and almost entertaining because he was good-natured, just really rude and a little tipsy. I probably could have learned almost all the Russian swear words and rude slang from him if I had felt so inclined. I also didn’t feel particularly singled-out or in danger of anything because there was another young girl traveling by herself one compartment over, and she got the same big talk, rude banter from him.

All in all, I really liked the train.

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