Japan to England, Overland - Step 4: Pоссия

---

"Byegaaj!"

At first I didn’t understand what she was trying to say to me and I smiled and handed her my ticket again. Then, with a look of distain, the large, lips ticked provodnitsa pointed down at my bag and I realised that she was demanding my luggage. This rotund lady, dressed like a pilot from the 70’s in a blue, winged uniform was to be the first of many to set me off on journeys on the largest leg of my journey to get home. I began to feel rather overwhelmed by this seemingly humourless lady, the big, dirty train, covered in words I could not read. The dark station in Ulaan Bataar, where men scuttled around with large bundles and smoking soldiers all around stared out of shadows at me seemed to take on a rather apocalyptic, end of the earth feel to it and the I wanted to board the train quickly, and escape into the night.
I felt slightly as if I had stepped back in time as I pulled myself up the ladder onto the enormous, wide train, and squeezed down the brown, carpeted, beige walled narrow corridor, bundling over stocky Mongolian women who were finding it even more difficult to navigate than I. Finally, I found my compartment and took a deep breath before knocking on the door.
I exhaled quickly and probably let out a bit of a rude sigh of disappointment as I was actually sharing the first leg of my "Trans-Siberian" adventure with a Canadian girl.
I wanted Russian Soldiers, babushkas pouring food down my gullet and red-faced
rail workers regaling stories of the ‘good old days’ over copious amounts of vodka and gherkins.
However, I got along well with the girl I was happy to accept that for the first part of my journey I would be able to relax a little and the phrasebook could stay in my pocket for the time being. I would look back on this first leg as definitely the easiest, and certainly the least memorable, but on the whole, as all part of my some 6000km journey by train across Siberia, from Asia to the Europe. I was going home the long way round, and I had decided to spend the vast majority of my time in this country. I was feeling ever so slightly nervous about it, but at the same time, I had a feeling that something significant was about to happen. Like a great storm was brewing somewhere over the horizon. I was about to enter the Russian Federation.


Россия

The line itself, commissioned by Alexander III and his son Tsar Nicholas II is the third largest continuous line in the world after the Moscow-Pyongyang (no longer in service) and the Kiev-Vladivostok, but is really the artery of Russia and my route to home. Russia, since I was very young, had always held a particular fascination in mind.
When I was at school, we learnt about WWII and the number of Russians who gave their lives during the conflict, some 27milion, and figure startling and almost unimaginable to me at the time and still now. These hardy people, who lived in freezing temperatures in the winter and then sweltering heats in the summer. Who endured almost 100 years of Soviet communist rule, and who were decimated and spread across the country to Gulags in Siberia, or who simply disappeared. A country that was feared and hated in the west for decades and who for a time was winning the space race and who seemed to have the upper hand. A country that had had survived war and revolution, had once claimed 15 countries as its own and many more in Communist puppet states. The first ever experiment in socialism, collapsed leaving it economically devastated and at the beginning of a new era with out the safety net it had enjoyed for 70 years. Now it was seemingly just beginning to pick itself up and dust itself off, and with the largest amount of natural resources available in one country in the world, it was beginning once again to become a superpower.

Russia. Mother Russia. At fancy dress parties, whatever the occasion, I always seemed to want to go as a Russian, I don’t know why.

On my original journey to Japan, I had sat next to a guy , who had once travelled around Asia and taken a train home. "A train?" I asked. It was along the Trans-Siberian. Not an actual train as some people believe but a line, completed almost 100 years ago, without which the war may not have been won and in fact perhaps most Russians may never have settled in Siberia.
I decided at that point that that was the only way that I would, neigh must return. It was an opportunity sitting there waiting and I spent a good couple of months, and perhaps years to prepare for this journey.

I am now sitting at the computer in Riga, Latvia. A country I am learning about as I go and that until now I barely knew existed. I travelled by bus from Tartu. Estonia and am still thinking and talking about Russia.
Whatever profound effect my journey to the Russian Federation has had on me yet I do not know, however, I am positive that I will in years to come still be thinking about Russia, and that perhaps although I will never understand quite what it was that took me to Russia or what exactly I understood about the country, the people, the events that occurred or the different worldly feeling that I sometimes had there, I am sure that it will have a lasting impact on my life. What a country.


Ulaan Bataar is a strange city, really. Somewhere between Asia, the West, it is a bombsite, a modern cosmopolitan city, and a campsite all in one, and it sits in the middle of a green desert in Mongolia.

I had travelled around the country for 2 weeks and was rolling on a high from the people the stunning scenery and the overall uniqueness of the country. Yep, it was going to be hard to beat Mongolia.
Mongolia is almost the terminus for the Trans-Mongolian section of the railway, which cuts south at the city of Ulan Ude stopping in the Mongolian capital before ending in Beijing, China. So I had met my fair share of travellers all coming off the back end of the TSR experience. I have to say that reactions were mixed, if not a little black and white.
In fact I ended on the back on of one girls gripes for and hour as she condemned the Russian people and just about everything Russian after taking the train west to east the previous week. On the other hand some people I met seemed to have loved the experience and looked off dreamily into the distance at the mention of the place.
However, all of the people I spoke to about the ride began by saying
"How was it? How was it?!!", and a glassy look would appear in their eye, a look that seemed like whatever had happened in the federation, good or bad, had left a lasting impression. Despite a number of so-called, bad reviews, I still just had a feeling. A feeling like I was going have a great time in Russia. Positive attitude. This is a message to anyone reading this and planning on going to Russia. Don't go there with anything less than a good to great sense of humour and a realisation that the tourist industry is small and that you are not necessarily going to be helped around as tourist like you would in other countries, and welcomed with open arms. 70 years of communist dictatorial ship and a general lack of foreigners has seen to it that you will definitely have a much more hands on, independent experience. For me this was just what I wanted, and I as I crossed into the EU, to Estonia by bus I was glad to be back in the comfortable arms of Europe, but it wasn’t long before I began to have a giant come down from Russia, and I spent a few days wandering the streets of Tallinn, a beautiful medieval city, feeling, well like I wanted to go back.

It all started about a month ago...

Ulan Bataar to Ulan Ude

Before I had boarded my first train I had been told to be nice and make a good start with the provodnitsas who tended the train as you were at their mercy and they were generally rather moody and to be wary of. This was not the case on this train, or in fact on any and I found that they were in general all rather pleasant, and if I didn’t bother them, they didn’t bother me. So I decided not to bother them - with anything.

After settling in on my first train, almost straight away our lovely attendant came in and introduced herself and her rather rotund crew friend who had been interested in my baggage as Liana and Tanya, and she tried her best to speak English with us and find out everything she could about our country, jobs and love lives. The rest of the journey I became her cigarette vendor and thus the friendship was solidified. In fact it was a very quiet start to my long journey, and it would be this way as I creped closer and closer to the metropolis of Moscow for some time.

At the boarder, however, which all in all took about 5 hours to cross on both sides, we were both fined 20dollars by customs for not having our stamped declarations forms. Not much you can do when you didn’t receive one but it was not a massive problem I guess, but it the second time I was fined in Mongolia. They have to make money somehow I guess!
The boarder crossing itself was much the same as the China-Mongolia one except for a much more snappy Russian inspector who seemed to make a point of snatching things instead of just taking them. Also, after crossing the boarder into China, and seeing the size of the military style caps get even larger I was disappointed to find that they stayed about the same size in Russia, and possibly got a little smaller, perhaps owing to the Mongolians inferiority complex.

However, the most interesting aspect of the boarder crossing was it was the first one I had made during the day when I could see the whole process going on. We reached the last border hut of Mongolia, a brightly painted red and yellow wooden building with the Mongolian flag flying triumphantly above it, and had arrived after a day of seeing nothing but uncultivated, beautiful grassland, mountains and cliffs, and to roll over this physical line was like almost crossing into another world.
As a line of Mongolian soldiers, straight backed, chins to the sky, saluted the train as we rolled off along the 20 or so metre boarder, we were greeted on the Russian side by pale, young Russian soldiers, caps tilted cockily back on their heads, smoking and lounging around. Gone were the uncultivated fields to be replaced by fences, wooden houses, electricity pylons and warehouses. It is funny how normal it seems to have all these things until you see such and untouched land as the Mongolians exist in. It made me realise what a wonderful and rare thing it is to not have the hand of man all about the place. Mongolia really was a wonderful country.

My Canadian cabin mate was headed for Irkutsk further on but I was to spend a few days in the Siberian town of Ulan Ude, almost a halfway town between Asia and European people.
I stepped off my train at 1000pm that night. In Siberia. In the dark. Alone. I felt that nervousness coming again, but instantly I was greeted by a Mongolian looking man named Mikhail standing on the platform waiting to meet me.

Buryattia, consist of a spill over area north of Mongolia in Russia. Buryat people look similar to Mongols and their language and culture are also extremely similar. In the town of Ulan Ude, some 50% of people are ethnic Russians, whilst the rest are Buryat, Mongolian or others. And in general it seems like everyone is getting on fine, which I attested to the number of Buryat and Russian couples wandering the streets of the city, hand in hand.

The tourist industry in Russia is young. This must be due to a number of reasons including that the country was clearly a no go zone during Soviet times, but these times have also left a rather sterile environment towards tourist, at least at a service level, and have given rise to a rather pricey visa, with equally annoying and pricey registration system (you must pay to have your visa registered in every place you stay for over 3 working days) and so in certain places there is simply no where to stay and hostels are a new occurrence. Luckily in Ulan Ude, the recently opened Baikal Ethnic hostel, provided cheap accommodation, with friendly helpful staff and an interesting location in the suburbs of a city - for me a great chance to see how many people live in Siberia, that is in wooden houses on dirt roads that look pretty worse for wear, but I was glad for the chance to see it. What’s more the place had a banya (Russian sauna) and was located close to the local place of interest in the form of the only Buddhist temple in Russia (I think) and so I took a trip out there on my first day.
Having recently travelled to Mongolia, not to mention my 2 years in the East, I was beginning to become a little numbed to the sight of temples, but it was interesting to see this variant of the Tibetan style Buddhism with a Siberian mix. And it was very cold. In fact at one point, the rain was beginning to sleet, and this was in September, but hey, Siberia, right?
The previous day I had been greeted at the house by Vladimir, and man who looked like he had been a boxer in his day and who had a heart of gold. He showed us around the site whilst another man (also Vladimir), the Buryat owner of the newly built hostel told us about it and the first Vladimir translated.
That evening I spent the night in the hostel as we were far from town and the Banya became very inviting in the cold.
I got dropped off at the super market on the way home and waltzed in. It may seem, like a small thing to you the reader, but to march into a shop for the first time in 2 years where I was not the only white man was quite exciting. Anonymity. Sweet sweet Mr nobody. White people everywhere. I certainly wasn’t home yet but it felt more so than ever in the last 2 years, and people did not look up and do a double take when I walked past and I loved it. And the food! Oh the food! Cheese, olives, pickled gherkins, real soup, and bread, REAL BREAD!!!!!! This supermarket, as insignificant as it sounds, was a landmark place and one I can never forget.
It’s hard to convey the excitement I was going through everyday for a little while back then but it is fair to say you sometimes don’t quite know what you miss until its gone and even then you need to be reminded of what it was. I think that in some ways Russia was like coming home for me and the way that some people may have experienced a more gradual and possibly shallower experience of the country coming from the west of Russia, I tasted, enjoyed and savoured every moment. It really was like seeing it all for the first time again, but with the knowledge that you know what you want this time. I would strongly recommend this experience to anyone and especially in the order in which I did them.
However, I was not quite as anonymous as I thought in this land of tall blonde people and no sooner had I arrive in the country than I was a suspected criminal, because as I left the shopping centre I was stopped and my bag was searched to see if I had been shop lifting. WORD FROM THE WISE: In Russia you cannot take backpacks into supermarkets, you must deposit them in the lockers provided to combat shoplifting!!!!
Well no big problem really but when you have only been a country for a few hours then its not a great start. I would not be phased, however, as I had olives and cheese, sausage and vodka….

After a day on the periphery I decided that it was time to get a bus in to the town of Ulan Ude.

I still felt slightly like I was in the wild west as I stepped out of my hostel on the morning after the almost snow had fallen. The weather in Siberia was as beautiful as that in Mongolia. Everyday the sky was blue, without a cloud and the air was crisp. I walked down the dusty, mud caked road and as the sun grew a little in the sky I watched as hundreds of skinny cows were beaten down the main street with all of the people of the neighbourhood coming out of their beautiful, multi coloured, wooden houses to cheer on the cows and make sure that they didn’t all drift into their front gardens. A truly communal affair.
Russia. Siberia. This was a place where you could sometimes feel very alone. I had awoken that morning to be the only person in the hostel and thus for all intents and purposes I was the only tourist, stroke foreigner in the entire city.
I managed to catch a bus, a small van, where instantly we had piled in together and I was being handed wads of Russian roubles to give to the driver, and for the time being I was a local. In fact I looked so out of place in my typical Chinese made, fake North Face jacket that if there was any reason for a foreigner to be there in the first place then I would have been pegged straight away. BUT as a Buryat boy climbed into the minibus, and, smelling of booze, leaned over and mumbled something in Russian to me, to which I replied in a gruff voice, 'Da!" to which he subsequently exited the vehicle, thinking that I had confirmed that this was indeed the place where he could buy bananas or something, I felt a sense of pride that I, Nick McGrath, after 2 full years standing out on an island, was just another average Joe, a Russian, living the life in Siberia. I had fooled them all!! The I suddenly wondered where I had sent the boy off to, but my sense of achievement was to high. I was a secret agent I the heart of Siberia, fitting in, and purveying the land and the people. Again it is hard to convey the feelings and emotions that I experienced in my first few weeks of being in Russia, and it will come as no surprise that it is probably not in the least bit interesting, BUT to me it was an exhilarating experience, where everyday I felt so much more at home, and a massive sense of relief in both the anonymity and sign of comforts of the west.

I confided in a friend who had recently migrated to Estonia, and who could not believe how amazed I was by my surroundings, and found that again that it was difficult to express the feelings that I was going through in being back in a western society. But is Russia a western society? And to my friend, Estonia seemed years behind to her life in London, but to me? Oh, to me it seemed like I was crossing back into a life I once new as a child and was rediscovering when being reintroduced in later life. To be home. Home. Home. What a feeling!

This is perhaps why I felt such affection to Russia. To me it was like seeing those first soldiers coming over the crest of the horizon waving the flags that would set me free from ....(well not that dramatic but it was certainly something, something..). Don’t get me wrong, I loved, loved Japan, and my experiences in Asia were amazing, unforgettable and almost entirely positive, but it is something, oh something wonderful to be reunited with those who you once grew up with and placed in the surroundings you once had.

As I rode in that bus into Uln Ude, the only man in the city (possibly) I felt as if I was travelling into the unknown and a place where certainly I was not to be recognised.

For those contemplating taking the so called 'Trans-Siberian' rail way I would strongly suggest taking it from East to west as opposed to West to East as most people do. Instead of beginning with the grandeur of St Petersburg and then the contrasting wholly Russian city that is Moscow, I would suggest to start first in the small, wooden, cold, bleak yet colourful and bursting with character cities of the Siberian East. Ulan Ude seen after the mighty churches of the west will seem but a trifling place, but when I arrived there I was quite simply in some kind of euphoric state, and amazed by this very Russian town.

The reader must understand that it had been 2 years since I had been in a so called European city, and just to walk around Ulan Ude, with its stone, European looking buildings, gold church spires, light up by the blue Siberian skies, and leafy streets after the mess of Ulaan bataar and the concrete, white tiles of Beijing, it was like jumping across a sea back, or perhaps, forward in time.

The first thing that most will witness from the bus, is the town square, which is dominated by the worlds largest Lenin head. This head is some, 10 or so metres in height, and certainly a sight to see. It is also fair to say that every city in Russia is adorned with at least one statue of Lenin (for example, Yekaterinburg, Siberia, 3 Lenin statues) and that this was certainly the most memorable. I was stepping almost into the west, but at the same time I was walking into something I had never witnessed before. A post Soviet city.

Enough of the dramatics. I was hear as a tourist, and be a tourist I would be. I had luckily spent a few evenings on my computer trying to master the basics of Russian and this would proved INCREDIBLY useful in the coming weeks and especially in Siberia.
NB - if you are going to Russia, learn as much Russian as you can. Don’t expect to absorb it, but absorb it you will, you need know a few of the basics and certainly have a go at trying to read Cyrillic.
In fact, on leaving the country I have pretty much decided that I want to learn Russian and I am now fairly good at reading Russian Cyrillic.
Its hard to explain but aside from wandering round and witnessing the first churches I had seen in many years, with their sparkling gold, onion domes, and wooden house, brightly painted with beautiful colours, I generally spent a full day re acquainting myself with something like the west (and soon I would think differently about this appraisal) and just being someone in Russia. A no-body. Another average Joe, walking and looking and just living there for the time.

Actually, one of the first things I noted was that I didn’t really actually fit in. In my mind, I could pass for every race in Europe (I have quickly come to realise that I stand out like a sore thumb in E.Europe, especially because of my rather pale and Irish complexion) but in fact first off fashion wise I was definitely not in line with the status quo. In Russia, for men, the bouncer look is big, as in all prevailing. Every bloke wears black leather and in fact all black is best, is tall and incredibly pale, and looks tough. Goddamn tough. The kind of tough that says '' Ill kick your arse, and then drink a bottle of vodka and forget it ever happened. The fashion accessory in Russia, especially Siberia is a bottle of beer and as a man to be seen without one is almost unheard of. On top of this, smoking is paramount. I did not meet one, not one Russian in almost one month of travelling and meeting Russians, up close and personal, who did not smoke. Men or women. This is possibly why I am now battling with a heavy case of déjà vu as I dip heavily back in the world of smoking, just as I hear, (its happened since I’ve been away) smoking is now basically banned every which where in Europe and the UK.
Women wear boots, skirts and small jackets. Primarily black leather, knee length boots would be the predominant item of this list, and smoke thin, feminine cigarettes which seem to define them, but at the same time it is ok for men to smoke these but no visa versa.
The women are predominantly stunningly beautiful and this is coming after 2 weeks in EEurope, and yet still if feel that I am dreaming of the Russians, and men are predominantly tough, thin face and don’t quite live up to their other half’s in looks, but on the whole friendly and no where near as aggressive and the Britsh (even thought they are genuinely hard as Russian nails. The other big look in Russia is the army look and aside from the countless variations on the military uniform, and people who are actually IN the army, it is very popular to just dress in full camoflauge, army fatigues, men and women, and the only give away is a full set of paratroopers gear, revealed by a pair of loafers at base.
The further west out you travel of course the more, emos, punks, and skateboarders appear. But skin heads do not prevail, and instead the general dress seems more to do with the cold and a general attempt to at least look tough (as if they needed to), and the girls look well, mighty fine!
I enjoyed the city for its architecture, laid back atmosphere and European style pedestrian streets which were incredibly clean and well kept. I did little in the town that just walk around and gaze at the people around me, constantly having to pinch myself that I was here, unbeknownst to most, in the middle of Siberia, just kicking around.

After my adventures in town and generally enjoying fitting back in I headed back and would remain from that point on the only foreign tourist in Ulan Ude for a number of days, but getting on a bus through the elbowing and pushing old ladies took me about 3 minibuses, and I arrived back to a pitch black, cold and quiet Siberian night in the suburbs.


Ulan Ude to Irkutsk

The following morning I took the same bus to the station for my next train to a city called Irkutsk, famous mostly for its local to lake Baikal, the largest clear water lake in the world.

I stumbled on again and entered my carriage, waking up an elderly lady, who turned out to be the wife of a University professor in Tomsk, returning home after a trip to the east. She had been on the train already for 4 days and would remain for another 3.
Elena, throughout the trip gave me her fish dinners, of dried Baikal caught omuhr, and we actually did pretty well at communicating with my Russian phrasebook, but soon I began to tire and fell asleep.

This particular stretch of railroad, rolls around the southern perimter of lake Baikal, and through the taiga forest, which at the time had a stunning, vivid yellow and orange autumn hue and a non-stop feast for the eyes. The yellow leaves striped with white birch trunks conjured the picture of tiger fur and I wondered if in fact this is where the name came from. The deep blue, clear Siberian sky against it made the whole ride hands down the most beautiful and certainly memorable ride of my life, and as we began to traverse the lake, and an almost unreal, deep, dark blue Baikal appeared around a corner, my decision to take the train, especially at this time, was sealed as a success. We climbed up cliffs and through wide valleys and curved around the lake, where from every angle it was simply stunning, amazing. Added to the fact that Elena, my roommate, was just as thrilled to be seeing the beautiful lake and scenery as I was, it was a perfect marriage of silent enjoyment for a number of hours.
All that time, Elena sat up right, in a very proper way, and seemed incredibly shy and reserved, but at the same time kind and interested in this Englishman in her carriage. A proud woman of 60 or 70, I wondered what she had seen in this changing country over the years, and whether there was still any kind of resentment or fear towards foreigners. However, all I could see in this woman was kindness, and curiosity, and perhaps a tinge of disbelief. I wont forget her.

Иркутск

Many people had told me that Irkutsk was nothing special, a small Siberian town developed mostly due to its location to Baikal, and supplied by the Trans- Siberian. The station itself was beautiful and again I would experience all the exciting feelings of being back in a somewhat European/western town that I had in Ulan Ude. In fact my week or so in the town/city would be one of my most memorable and relaxing times in Russia. Days of blue skies, and bright white church walls, couples dancing on the riverside to brass bands, and young men and women gathering everywhere to drink on the streets.

The hostel I stayed in was named the Irkutsk Downtown Hostel, and was overall a great place (I think it was about 500 roubles if I remember - about $20) and in a pretty central location, although the town itself is small enough to see in a day from wherever you stay. It was the usual standard hostel which consists of simply a rented flat with beds, but the owners and staff where friendly and you felt as though you were staying in a Russian home, and in away you were.

My plan was to take a bus out to a place called Olkhon island in the centre of lake Baikal. A quiet, scenic place to enjoy the lake and I had heard of a place called Nikitas Guesthouse, setup by an ex-Russian table tennis champ on the island where you could relax and enjoying Russian fish dinners at a slow pace.

I received some mis-information and so missed my bus the next day, and so decided to check back into the hostel and spend a day walking around the town.

Irkutsk, to me, symbolised a real Siberian town. much like Ulan Ude, but on a larger and more established scale, it was a place where the Decembrists many of those who took part in the Decembrist Revolution of 1825, had been exiled to and a tribute to them and their wives who followed them into exile was to be found in their restored houses. But everywhere history abounded, from countless old colourful wooden houses, to beautifully kept churches, with brightly coloured onion topped domes. An old tram rustled along, which looked like had survived the second world war, and everywhere the black leather and beer bottles prevailed. I liked it. It was old and well kept, very cut off from the world but perhaps happy to be so.

Eventually after a few more missed attempts I finally managed to make it onto a bus to get to the lake. It would be an 8 hour ride but it would be worth it, and as we rounded the corner to see the blue 'Sapphire of Siberia', next to rolling, autumn brown hills and cliffs, the views were simply amazing.
We waited for a time to get onto the only ferry that existed for the island of Olkhon, and gazed out into what felt more like a see than a lake. It is massive. People say that if all the water in the world ran out, that Baikal could replenish everyone for 20 years. Bigger than all the American great lakes combined, it is truly something everyone should try and see once in their lifetime.

That evening I watched the sun set to a peaceful autumn evening with a few Belgium friends I met on the bus and a couple of local dogs, too. I had a room to myself for the half the price because of the low season and I settled down to the best nights sleep I had had in months.
The next day it was back to the Mongolian styles as a load of us boarded a Uwaz Russian tank van, and set off to tour the island, and have lunch in the forest. The fine Siberian weather had succeeded to rain that day, but it was still simply stunning to see the red algae coloured cliffs and lake, and the beautiful yellow and green forests of the island. That evening we managed to come up a with a game involving national geographic animal cards and mountains, and deciding which was better than the other over a couple of bottles of vodka. Good times.

Perhaps a few too many bottles as I arrived back in my bed at 3 and whilst trying to focus on the corner of the room, drifted off to awake just as my arranged taxi was to leave. I rushed out of bed leaving a bundle of swimming trunks, clothes and other treasured items in the hut, and joined Sergei, and man who would drive me back to Irkutsk. Just me. Good service. And seeing my still alcoholic state, he took me straight off for Russian soup, and dumplings, bringing me back to life for an hour or so before I slept off the journey, arriving back to a typically beautiful day, as if to mock my overindulgence.

Sergei bid me a gold toothy goodbye, and a nice Russian smile and I returned, once again to the homely little hostel in the centre of town, where I would be once again banished to the creaking fold away bed, but at a reduced price. I wasn’t complaining, just creaking. There I took the first of many vows in Russia to calm down on the vodka intake but I would realise quickly that Russia is obviously the last place to take such oaths, and soon the vodka would flow in rivers.
I slept the day away and managed to just about make it to the shop where I was still revelling in the ability to purchase real cheese and sausage so spent the last of the money I had getting myself ready as the following day I would be taking a just under 72 hour train half way across Siberia in surely the most epic chapter of my journey.
Its a small world after all, and I bumped that evening into an Australian chap who I had shared a room with in Gyeong-ju, Korea, and who at time was heading to Japan to try and get a visa to Russia. We had made jokes about splitting a camel in Mongolia if we bumped into each other, but here we were in Siberia. This comes from the fact that almost everyone attempting the so-called ‘Tran-Siberian Railway' stops off at Irkutsk to view lake Baikal and split up the massive journey. Thus again that night the vodka did flow as my Aussie friend had also been fully Russified and actually come from the furthest east point on the coast of Russia, Vladivostok where he had been taken down to the border of North Korea and had spent an evening necking vodka and getting worried about all the guns everyone was carrying. The stories went on into the night and everyone joined in regaling there adventures so far. Coming from the other way (East to west) we became a little more like celebrities as almost every other person was coming from the other direction and had opted to spend very little time in Russia on the way to this point and thus had not got quite so much info to share with us.

The following day was if I recall, Thursday October 2nd, and the day my Trans-Siberian adventure really kicked in.

I was to head to a city called Yekaterinburg. This sits north of the eastern half of Kazakstan and on the border of Asiatic Russia and European Russia in the near east of the country. This is described as a very Russian city and I would spend my time there in very Russian style, but first I would have to make the largest part of my journey. The TSR is some 9288km from Moscow to Vladivostok and this was would be a large bulk of that journey (although its hard to work out how far, I estimate between 3000 - 3500km). I happened to be joined be a Korean from my hostel who was heading off to Moscow and would take the journey all the way through, some 5 days (!). For those of you wishing to take use the TSR to cross Russia, I would suggest to break it up as much as possible as 5 days on a rain can't be that enjoyable after a while.

After about a half an hour delay, the boarding number for our train came up and everyone poured onto this busy train. My Korean friend didn’t speak much English but I have to admit that it was nice to have someone else there for this mammoth trip. We were the only 2 foreigners I saw on this train for the entire journey (although it depends how you look at it).
As on every journey, I started by being very polite but stern to my Provodnitsa, and then squeezed down the narrow hallway to my numbered carriage. And as on every journey, I was nervous as to who it would be this time. We got into our typically brown and beige cabin, with all the hallmarks that it was built many year previous, and admired the frilly doily on the table, where lay an open pack of bread, a pot of fresh cranberries, jam, various makeshift pots and containers of sugar, salt and coffee and teas, spread out. Someone was again clearly already nicely bedded in here, and I instantly had images of the disappointment and resentment that would cross our roommates faces when they found a couple of wet behind the eared tourists coming to spoil their lovely picnic.
I seemed to have the bottom bunk again this time, and was slightly peeved as this would mean that my bed became the lounge for the remainder of my journey, but I made myself at home, stuffing my bag under my bed, pulling out my large bag of supplies and treats to distribute to my fellow passengers

"Zzdrastwitye" I greeted the first large middle-aged man who came in, and tried to put on my most nonchalant look possible.
"Zzdrastwitye" he replied, not smiling. Thank god I took to learning some basic Russian before I came. And in fact for those of you who are thinking of going to Russia, I believe it is essential if you want to get on the good side of the Russians.
The general lack of smile from the Russians is as cultural refreshing to me as I can imagine. The Russians will never smile at you on first encounter, and unless they have a reason to or know you, and this can at first make one believe that the Russians are somewhat grumpy, and this maybe be certainly be true of some by I found almost all of those who I met and interacted with, once getting past the initial wall, were extremely warm hearted, generous, friendly and kind people.
The man would prove to be no different from many of the countless people I met in Russia, and turned out to be a lovely old man who I had many a broken conversation with over the next coming days. He was a "Vrach" or Doctor from Blagoveschensk, one of the oldest cities in the Far East of Russia, sitting in the Amur river region and in fact on the border of Russia and Chinese city of Hei-Hei. It is also one of the hardest words to pronounce in the world. The Doctors name also, sadly, was too difficult for me to pronounce and thus remember. He was travelling to Moscow and had already been on the train for 3 days and had over another four to go. I did my normal attempt at introducing myself, and then took to my phrase book and began asking all manner of questions, from how many people he had in his family to what was his favourite movie, anything the book threw up, to which he smiled and answered and seemed to find generally quite entertaining. At which point walked in our other roomy.
"Zzdrastwitye" I announced to the toothless rotund tough guy who was standing in front of me.
"Minyazavoot Nick" I cried and thrust out my hand, and I got a rather forced stiff handshake back, to which I realised that his hand was broken and motionless.
"Vladmir", he replied, again unsmiling and sucked air through his tooth, and announced something to his Doctor companion along the lines of "Who the hell are these people", and so I quickly let out, "Turist! Ya Turist!!".
This seemed to satisfy him, and you couldn't help but notice him smile. He saw me looking at his broken hand, and pulled it up to me and twisted his hand around to show a massive scar along the inside of his wrist.
"Army. Boxing!" he said with another toothless smile, and shoved some bright orange caviar and his warm can of beer into my face.

I found out later that he said he had sewn it up himself. He was officer in the army, about 26, and took a liking to us after the initial introductions. He took a particular liking to Mr Park, my Korean friend and in time to come would wake him up at all hours to come to the restaurant car and drink. For the time being as the sun went down, I sat and poured through my phrasebook asking every possible question, however ridiculous, to which Vlad (Volomir, Vavan, Vadim....too many variations in Russia) and the Doctor sat and found all quite amusing. As it got darker we all began to eat and the food was shared out. Russians will always share everything they have. I cannot help but find this an amazingly wonderful piece of cultural survival, and however poor they may be, or little they have they will share out and enjoy together. I tried also to share out what I had but for some reason no-one really wanted my cakes or bread, but finally my pepper and pickle bread dip won them over, which was a relief. Volomir was as everyone seems to be in Russia, an 'Engineer' a byword for anyone who seems to work in almost anything, and almost every male I met in Russia was an Engineer. He was 25, the same age as me, and an officer also stationed in Blagoveshensk, where as I type is already -20 degrees according to friend I made on that trip. It sits across the river from China and is heavily militarised as a bastion against any possible Chinese invasions. He was tough. I wondered if this toothless boxer was going to give me trouble on this journey. As we talked, Volomir sucked the hole where his tooth once was and harangued the Doctor who laughed and slapped him on the arm and called him a "Raasshan Gangstaa! Da!?", but soon I could tell that this Volomir was a good guy and far from wanting to cause trouble he had found himself some young drinking buddies with whom to pass the time.
After a couple of Baltikas, he dragged us down the carriage to where another soldier from Blagoveschensk and his wife were.

Igor and Olga

Igor and his beautiful wife Olga were returning home from Blagoveshchensk to Yekaterinburg due to Igor’s annual 3 month leave from the army. He was 23 and from Yekaterinburg and she was from Blagoveshchensk, a real Siberian girl. I fell instantly in love with this couple. Igor spoke a little English and was very excited to have us there and the vodka came out. We toasted to new friendships, international relationships, to Russia, and Korea and Britain and then again to ourselves and to VODKA!!! The vodka, again flowed, and the sausage and bread followed each hearty shot until we were on the second bottle, and the new toast was followed by pickled gherkins and a hearty swig of the juices below, when this ran out, out came the instant noodles (the TSR travellers best friend) and we chased the vodka with oodles of MS.

This is where I have to make my only complaint about these wonderful, nostalgic, exciting trains, they are too bloody hot!!! As is the general case I found around Russia and Eastern Europe, the heating goes on at a certain time of year and is cranked up to full volume from there on in until the winter has calmed. On the trains it was no different, and what with all the people in close proximity to each other and machinery, it was like a sauna. And as the vodka continued so went the layers of clothes until we, and every other guy on the train was walking around in only a pair of shorts and slippers, and still it was hot. Mr Park, having retired earlier after only a few shots of vodka, left me to try and describe everything aspect of the UK from the price of a pint to the number of people in our army to the age of the queen. I in turn wanted to know everything about what it was like to be Russian living out here in Siberia and with seemingly excited, alcohol fuelled enthusiasm, we bantered along to the rolling clunk of the slowly progressing train.

On this train the Provodnistas seemed to have taken a liking to our little carriage and particular to the charms of Russian army gangster Volomir, and she poked her head around the door excitedly every so often to see what was going on with this Englishman carriage, occasionally to tell us to keep it down, but at the same time to sell us more beer and supplies - it was a real Russian party atmosphere and as I was too find out later on in life, we became quite close on our chance encounter in our little beige carriage that night. At around 3am we rolled into our first long stop where were could get of the train and stretch our legs, and buy yet more beer, this time enormous 1litre cans of Baltika, and as everyone milled around in the dark, clothed in pyjamas, hair in rollers, I suddenly began to feel like this was it. This was what the Trans-Siberian was all about. We were all in it together, whether we liked it or not. We would be spending the next few days cramped together in a hot train getting to know each other and somewhere in all that mess something great about the human spirit was beginning to reveal itself. I may have been cold, dark and in the middle of no-where on that platform, but it was the road to somewhere, and we were all on it, trapped in a time capsule moving away from the east on toward the ever inviting west. For hundreds of years these people had slowly spread east, trickling along as those Europeans had once done across the great plains of America, colonising as they went. Along this line had popped up villages which had turned in towns and then cities, and now we were heading back. Back to where it all began. But in this case it was like I was heading into and out of time for a small while. In American, travellers had eventually landed at the pacific, and great tales, movies and wealth and had followed them. Here in the centre of Siberia, a land so large that even if it annexed European Russia would still be vast enough to house all of the USA and Europe, the tales had disappeared, had never made it out, were enclosed in and only a few people had bothered to come and hear them. Here in Siberia. The Wild East.

By about 4am every piece of available paper had been scribbled on with numbers and pictures. Igor had played every song on his mobile phone, and we had gone out into the corridor to smoke more times than I dared to remember. Here it was, my trans-Siberian train ride I had envisaged, and it was one big party! But the best memories I will have are from communicating with Igor and Olga. This wonderful couple embodied everything great about life I could see. They were young, in love and had each other. I suddenly looked at them and looked backed at my 2 years in Japan. Had I been missing the point all this time? Was this what it was all about? I felt in awe them - the romantics. He was young minesweeper in the army, stationed out to far Siberia where he had met a beautiful Siberian girl, fallen in love and married at the of 19 and 21 respectively. Now they were free for 3 months and were being paid to travel 2nd class home by the Russian military. It didn't matter that Igor earned $500 a month to clear mines that could kill him any day and that she worked for much less in a shop in the middle of no-where, where they could rarely see each other, as today they were going to Yekaterinburg. Today they were free, and they were together.
The night rolled on and I discovered that they were both much like me or anyone else. Igor liked punk rock and played lead guitar in a fairly descent band made up from people from his army platoon and sat dying of boredom in his station in Blagoveshchensk going out to drink and party whenever possible. Olga read the same fashion and celebrity magazines and dreamed of travelling to Moscow and abroad. However, there were some key differences in our lives and up-bringing. Igor had at 18 had to join the army and was sent 5000km away from his mother and sister in Yekaterinburg to Blagoveshchensk. There he was trained as a mine detector and sent to Chechnya for 2 years. I asked him about this time in his life after we were particularly inebriated in the corridor smoking. He looked out the window and the orange passing lights caught his profile.
"Its very very bad place. My friends...." and he made a cutting motion at he limbs motion with his hands.
“And the people?” I asked.
“What?” He replied, puzzled.
“What were the people like? The Chechnyans?”
“ Oh! They are very difficult peoples. They ask you, ‘please come to my house, you are welcome’. Then they shoot you in back.”

Aside from anything else, political or not, who should have been there, who shouldn’t, what made these problem Igor’s? Why did he have to go and see such terrible times? There was the difference. Igor had been sent off to fight someone else’s war. I would never be asked to.
Despite this, Igor had stayed on in the army an extra 2 years and was now a lieutenant and could not see how he could get out of his $500 a month job, which he did not like.
It was strange and disconcerting to see someone so like me, with the same aspirations, but happening to born in this part of the world and so having to have lived, seen such terrible things, and to be left to such a situation for lack of any alternative. Everyone must serve. Being all soldiers or wives of, at one point I was questioned as to how many people were in the British army, to which I replied about 200,000 (a figure which is true when I asked later - ish). For Russia, Igor scribbled 20,000,000 in the and cried with joy "Hah!! We kill you!!!! But don't worry, we’re friends", and he slapped my back, and laughed.

The following 2 days were spent, recovering, sleeping, drinking and sweating to the still uncomfortably stuffy and over heated carriages. The scenery on this particular leg of my journey was not paid much attention to but as I had expected was quite uniform as we progressed laterally westward through the Taiga forest, a band of forest stretching around the globe through Siberia, Northern Europe and onto North America, like a green headband on the world. The train trundled with a hypnotic rhythm and it became quite strange to stop.

When finally we arrive by night in Yekaterinburg I felt saddened that this leg of my journey was over and that a bond had grown between not only my fellow passengers, provodnitsas, friends, and me but for the train I was travelling on and the journey it would make time and time again. I said farewell and wished well my Korean travelling buddy, wondering what was in store on his journey. Then I shook hands with and took a final photo with the doctor and Volomir on the platform, and with a smile from the red haired provodnitsa, bayed everyone a final ‘dasvidanya’. I took a final look at the faces I now recognised from the last few days, chain smoking away on the platform in slippers and pyjamas, and then I was off.
Igor and Olga had offered to walk me to my next hostel as they deemed Yekaterinburg a 'dangerous place’ and we set off power walking down the main prospekt passed by late night drinkers, and revellers and along typically massive roads, teeming with traffic.
When eventually we couldn't find the damn place, we jumped in a taxi and found the apartment block, much to the distress of Igor and Olga who believed that I had been tricked by and internet scam and that no such place existed in Yekaterinburg.


I checked in and said a heartfelt farewell to my new friends and chaperones, promising to meet again the following day. Before I go on, I must mention that Igor and Olga trekked around with me for almost an hour just to get me safely home to my hostel, an act of kindness that I began to find typical of many Russian people.
At the hostel, again come apartment, I found the only inhabitant was Kate, the Californian I had ran into in Irkutsk and we then and there realised that this could become a common occurrence. However, I had no energy left in me after the epic trip and scramble at the end to find the mysteriously located hostel, and I collapsed into bed and was asleep before my head hit the pillow, with a smile on my face, owed to Igor and Olga and my first epic journey across Siberia.

Екатеринбург

Yekaterinburg was a place that was described as a truly Russian city, where soviet graceless design was overshadowed by the cities unpretentious nature. Surely here in the day I spent wandering around the large square and over the slowly ebbing river, I found out what was meant by that statement. In the way that earlier towns were boasting something Siberian, exotic and altogether slightly left behind in the timelines, Yekaterinburg seemed to be modern and vast, as well as spotless, largely uninfluenced by the west and at times a little confusing.

The city famous for its natural resources and for being unvistable during Soviet times’ main draw was the Romanov Death site. The house of Romanov being the last Tsarist family who occupied the throne of the Russian Empire and whose German bloodlines cost them much popularity during WW1 (perhaps the reason why the Windsor’s changed their names from the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha around the same time). After the February Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II was forcibly abdicated from his thrown, and on July 17, 1918, Bolshevik authorities shot Nicholas II, his immediate family, and four servant members in the cellar of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. The "Church on the Blood" was recently erected at the site as it has become acceptable to morn the deaths, and thousands come to pay pilgrimage to the dead Tsar and his family who have already been elevated to the level of saints. It is a typically dazzling gold top affair of which I was becoming used to. Which dwarves over a tiny, simple wooden church and cross, symbolizing where they died.
More recently, a massive memorial to those fallen in the Afghan war of 1979-88 has been erected which could not have had a more powerful impact than now with the resurgence of the war, this time the lessons of the past being ignored by ourselves and the US. The question that bothered me as I gazed at the war torn iron solider, head bowed and surrounded by names of those fallen, was, why did we think that we could win this current 'war' when even the mighty Soviet Union retreated after 9 years of occupation, destruction and displacement, which left the country one of the poorest and least developed in the world and started the collapse of the Soviet Union? Would a cast iron monument soon be hidden away in some city in the Midlands of Britain one day when there was nothing left of the country?
At the rear of the monument was a smaller one dedicated to those who had died in the ongoing war in Chechnya. There was room for names waiting to be filled.

I returned that evening to my hostel to find Igor and Olga parked on the swings outside my enormous apartment block and downing beers to keep off the cold. In most of Russia where I travelled (except Moscow) it is too expensive to drink in bars for most people and so the streets are littered with people drinking the night away, catching up with friends and fighting off the cold.
So what better way to spend my night in Yekaterinburg, a truly Russian city, than in a park with friends drinking in truly Russian style. As the night wore on more and more of their friends and girlfriends arrived and I had a great night answering yet more questions and enjoying their company. When I had to return to my hostel, hugs and kisses were exchanged and truly it felt more than ever than my reason for travelling and for all travelling seemed right and worth it. I would truly miss these most hospitable of people. My friends from Yekaterinburg.

Москв(Maskva)

I walked briskly through the bitter morning, the sun still rising above the great statue of Lenin of the main square. Silhouetted in the deep red of the early morning light and ever so ominous, he once again towered over me and the city as I climbed down into the metro to my next train. Now to the city whose name was bathed in history and to which images of onion topped domes, Peter the Great, Tsars and Tsarinas, of the KGB, of pigeon stepping Soldiers, of Red Square, of Stalin, of Lenin, of red Kremlins and chandeliered metros were conjured - Yes, Moscow was calling.

My companions for this ride began as a surprise, as a kind smiling man whose name I forgot whose wife was an English teacher and who thus spoke to me in English welcomed me onboard this early morning train. Also, there was a young guy named Rost who worked on oilrigs and was on his way to Paris for training and who spoke almost perfect English. No problems here then I thought and I settled myself in for an easy ride, and pictured us discussing everything from the fundamentals of Russian politics to what Putin liked to eat for breakfast. No such luck, however, as I was turfed into the other room by an elderly lady who wanted to be seated downstairs and so I swapped with her to the higher bunk in the other room. This did gain me some automatic respect from provodnitsa though.
I entered the other room to find an old or possibly young couple, which looked like they could be either late forties or early seventies, and certainly did not receive me in the highest regard either. My typical break the ice banter seemed to draw blanks early on too and the man (Sergei?) and the woman (Alexandra) were bored of my general chit chat early on and had already begun quizzing me with questions that weren't in my book (shock horror) and were not particularly keen to mime it out with me. During all this time I wondered to myself in the dusty, brown carriage, where the 4th member of our gang was.
Pacing up and down the corridor for some time, dressed in a leather jacket, jeans and sunglasses, with long grey hair, making him look like something of a Russian Lou Reed, was Yuri, the fourth musketeer. He stared out the window until eventually invited in with reluctance and he plonked himself down opposite me, starring, motionless, arms crossed, through his sunglasses.
After a moment, he leaned over lowered his sunglasses and said very slowly and suspiciously,
“Where are you from? America?”
“ No England.” To which he seemed surprised, but yet he gave an unimpressed huffed to.
“England eh? Rolling Stones! Beatles! Ok!!” God the amount of times that one has come in handy. Thank god for the ice breaking Brit bands, I thought.

Yuri worked for Gazprom, the state owned energy giant and was on the way to the Ukraine to visit his son after visiting his other son in Moscow. He quickly diffused the boredom, especially as he spoke English and liked rock n roll. However, after a short while I realised that at 1pm already, I was exhausted and I used the fact that I had the top bunk for the first time on the journey to my benefit and climbed up to doze off in the rising heat of the cabin.
I must have been dozing for little more than half an hour, when, on cue, I heard Yuri call,
"Englishman! Would you like little Russian traditional vodka?”
Well, it was gone lunch time and we had a long journey ahead of us. I dropped down and we toasted some of the finest vodka I had ever tasted to the Beatles or something and that was the kick off for the party. Now they wanted to know everything about me and to tell me about themselves. Sergei was another 'engineer' I'm not quite sure in what and had served in the army for many years in Far East. He and his wife were on their way home to Moscow and so were genuine, bonafide Muscovites. In between smoking Sergei’s rather nasty cigarettes between the carriages and wondering how long this old/young geezer could survive on 40 a day, I also gathered that Yuri had served in the army for 16 years and had been stationed in the Ukraine, Moldova and Belorussia. He had married a Moldovan woman and had kids there who, when the USSR collapsed had moved to Russia but his wife had gone to live in the Ukraine. Because of his moving around for many years he had been sent to the UK to learn English, in somewhere like Bristol or Bath, but as the vodka flowed and my throat ached with the cigarette smoke and the sweat began to pour down me, the details began to be irrelevant. Yuri was a good man. But he was an alcoholic. Sergei was most definitely and alcoholic, and was beginning to shine in a father like role, and began to constantly compliment me on my youth and ambition but at the same time scold me at drinking with a bunch of old geezers like themselves. The fact was, however, I enjoyed it. None of us knew each other and we would only know each other for less than 24hours and thus we were all willing to get along and drink the woes of the world away. There were certainly ups and downs in our conversations. When I produced a bottle of vodka to drink, Yuri took a look and refused to let us drink it because it was made in Beslan. 'Wasn’t that area part of Russia in his opinion?' I inquired, to which he shrugged and replied that actually his son’s wife was from the Caucuses, and that he didn’t know either way. Confusing. But we didn’t drink the vodka in the end. I also had one of the first confrontations about the rather icing relationship between Russia and the UK to which unfortunately or fortunately, I confessed I knew nothing about and that all I knew was that I was in Russia and having a great time and loving the people. All in all however, the sausage and vodka flowed quite easily the time passed until the old dudes were passing out and I was wondering if I would be boiled alive by the heat of the carriage.
Sleep. One of the worst nights sleep of my life. Lying on the top bunk the heat was roasting me alive and I was again stripped down to my shorts, but it was unrelenting. I realised at once that I had not bought any liquid refreshments apart from alcohol, and I spent a large portion of the night, going back and forth to the toilet to douse my body in water to cool myself down. When finally I would fall asleep we would arrive at a small stop and I would be to paralyzed to escape the wagon to buy some liquid refreshment. It was like a dry heat furnace and all around me I felt the hot beige walls cooking and sweating.
Eventually, however, I must have fallen asleep, and almost miraculously I awoke to the first rain I had seen in weeks. Perhaps in the whole time I had been in China, Russia and Mongolia it had rained only once or twice and it was relieving to see it after my sleepless night. Another thing that occurred to me, made me sit bolt upright. With only and hour or so until we arrive in Moscow, we must crossed over the Asia-Europe border during the night. It had been over 2 years since I had officially been in this continent and that was surely one big leap closer to home. When you have been away so long and made such a slow and sometimes arduous journey, little symbolic moments can get you very excited and this was certainly one of them. It was up there with seeing my first mars bar in Malaysia, years before and feeling that a little bit of home had been boxed packaged and sent miles away purely to make me feel at home.
Europe. European Russia.
Sergei and Yuri had awoken before me at around 7am and had instantly cracked open beers and were already on their way. Yuri elected to help me find my correct metro station even though it was incredibly easy to get to and we set off out of the station into the rain to the Moscow Metro. Those of you who know, the Moscow Metro is something that has to be seen to be believed, and being a nerd when it came the London underground I was pretty excited to see what all the fuss was about. But on first impressions I found that it was actually much more crowded than the London Underground , but at the same time it was bigger, and made entirely of white, clean marble, around which were great brass hammer and sickles designs, and art deco posts and designs making you feel as though you were somewhere between ancient Rome and the movie Metropolis. We arrived at Kitay Gorod (China Town) and a confused Yuri bid me farewell and wondered how we had got to this station when he was sure I was coming to meet his son who was meeting him. I thanked him and realised that I would never forget him. Kitay Gorod itself was hung with enormous bras and iron chandeliers, above which were very old and very detailed mosaic Soviet Murals, depicting the worker in the factory, the farmer in the field and the soldier parading to glory. In many ways the metro itself was simply an integrated museum/Soviet Memorial, and it really packed a punch and you wandered around, enclosed in it.
It was easy to see after a few days, travelling and seeing many different stops, all completely different, that at one point, the USSR truly had been mighty economical world power.

Anyway, travellers tip if any travellers have actually managed to read through this although I truly accept now, at nearing the about 10,000th word that this isn't a great blog to learn how to ride the across Russia on the TSR, but if you read the Lonely Planet (2006 Ed), please note that for Moscow and a lot of other cities, take the info with a pinch of salt. Russia is one of the worlds fastest growing economies and what was here today is gone tomorrow. I needed an Internet cafe and of the 4 mentioned in the book, 2 had closed down and the other seemed to have never existed.
It rained how it rained, and Moscow is a vast city and takes the prize as the largest in Europe. I won’t go into it but I spent a day wandering and wandering trying to find some way to look up a hostel that had been mentioned to me earlier. In the end as it began to grow dark I settled on one of the hostels on the edge of town from the LP book. This took even more time and when I arrived I found the hostel had turn into a hotel, which was full of the rudest staff you could ever imagine. I had been told about this customer service problem, especially in hotels and had tried everything possible avoid it by staying clear of hotels but here I was being shouted at by a beast about how much she would charge me for a single room. I was literally only asking the price but you would have thought that I was being disciplined in a Russian jail for stealing all the Borsch!
Luckily the Russian chap standing next to me felt sorry for me at the hands of this banshee from hell and gave me directions to an Internet cafe. By very fortunate luck and a lot of asking I finally found it and managed to get the address, and an hour later arrived at the 'Napoleon Hostel' one of the best hostels I have ever stayed in.

Here the party never stopped and for an original 3 day venture, 8 days had to be put aside to enjoys the many delights of this epic, and unmissable city. I met up with my friend Kate who was couch surfing with a local and became good friends with a guy from India, who was travelling the world himself, and between us we made sure we made the most of this massive, Russian beast of a city. It would be easy to say that I saw a lot of this city in that time, but with such a history, and being so vast, I feel another trip will be in order again one day. However, I managed to fit in the epic Red Square and Kremlin, my favourite landmark site on this trip to this day, lunch at Pushkin’s restaurant, a whistle-stop tour of the backstreets of Moscow and to be out in the thick of it almost every night. Yup, Moscow was a celebration in everyway and even though from the moment I got off the train in European Russia it remained grey for the rest of my journey home and barely stopped raining in Moscow itself, I will never be able to look back on the city without smiling and giggling to myself slightly. Sometimes like something from a Batman movie, and other times like the label of a cheap bottle of vodka, and yet others a crisp wonderland full of the powerful history that it bragged about, to a clear massive economic power city that packed a punch not only in its size and numbers but also in it ability to seem like a London built by steal giants from the future. Yes Moscow, on the surface at least, seemed to have it all. I liked it. And did I mention the underground? Surely if it was in Britain, the entire thing would be listed. At times certainly I saw the stressful side of this city, to get anywhere, one had to go under underground shopping malls or risk being flattened by speeding BMWs or being heavily fined by the police, but I was used to the enormous roads from hell from Japan already and I found the contrast that was to follow in St Petersburg made this city all the more interesting as a Soviet memorial to efficient, giant design and quite frankly in the largest city in Europe, in the largest country in the world, the idea of anything less just would not do. Most importantly, just as every place I had visited before this had done, Moscow contrasted every place I had been to on my travels in Russia. Suitably the largest country on the globe seems to have it all, and this was city to easily rival any of the big boys out there.
I made the rather rash decision, however, after all this to leave after eight days as the most expensive city in the world was beginning to take its toll on my funds and I still had St Petersburg, the so called gem of Russia to visit with only a few days of my rather pricey visa to go. Thus I reluctantly said goodbye to a few new friends, some I would find resonating in my head as I write this months later, and the city that had been a literal non-stop joy to be in and with Kate pretty much on board as my new travelling buddy, I set off to the station to catch another overnight - and sadly the last of the old Ruski dinosaurs - to the city they once called Leningrad.

Санкт-Петербург

I stared up at the tall bronze statue of Lenin in the aptly named Leningradski station, and saw Kate running over to tell me that we were actually in the wrong station and so we had to jump back on the metro, which I was perfectly happy to do, and we just made it in time to the right train. By this time luckily I could read the Russian Cyrillic and the stress of hunting for the right tracks and times was reduced. Again I think its better going east to west. This train was to my surprise the oldest and least well kept so far, presumably from its heavy usage between these two great cities and it was in a way a fitting ender.
We were sharing with a middle aged tough looking Russian Businessman, and after a few minutes an interesting looking guy with a golden beard and friendly smile entered our carriage.

Iliya

Never being one to mess around and familiar with the routine, I grabbed this golden bearded wonder and dragged him out in between the carriages to smoke and introduce myself. He spoke back in English, and I thought once again I had managed to hit a lucky break, but how lucky I could not have known.
Iliya was a movie photographer heading home from the Ukraine where he had been working on Russias most expensive big budget, Hollywood style movie up to that date. He had purchased a large quantity of Ukrainian and Georgian wine whilst he was there and we shared a bottle out in the corridor whilst the other passenger bustled around us, curious at the scene going on but more interested in sleep. Another Russian, a lady who had been living in Holland for 15 years, returning home to visit her family joined us but said her goodnights early, and we drank and swapped stories until the bottle was gone. Iliya was a Russian-Israeli, who had lived in Israel for 7 years serving in the army and had returned to pursue a career in photography, and was now living in arty St Petersburg, and going home to see his girlfriends after working in the Ukraine and the Crimea for the first time in 3 months. Iliya was a very laid back guy. He spoke slowly and with somewhat of an Israeli accent and never stopped smiling and asking questions about English. He had big red-sunburned cheeks, golden curly hair, and big blue eyes that complemented his cheeky grin. He instantly offered us a place to stay in his home. I accepted but said I had already booked places in a hostel in the centre of the city, and I needed to catch up on some sleep first, but he insisted that we meet his friends at the station and drive us to our hostel.
His friend, a radio presenter for St Petersburg radio, who had also lived in Israel for many years, and Iliya's tall short bleach blonde haired girlfriend, met us and drove from a considerably more modern, station into the city and at once you saw where this sprawling town had got it reputation.
A very European looking city it was indeed, small, old sand yellow stone building rowed streets with cobbles here and there winded around the city which here and there was intersected by slow flowing rivers bridged by ornate gold statues of horses and golden Greek heroes. In fact, St Petersburg’s architecture was designed by Italians and looks it. With grand pillared cathedrals and wooden riverboats cruising the winding rivers, you did feel like you had for the first time stepped out of Russia, and into Europe. Asked about it, many Russians, claim that St Petersburg is not a Russian city, and some even feel that you should feel no pride for the city that was designed to be an outpost to the west. I, however, would be inclined to disagree. St Petersburg is as, many put it, a treasure to the world and still a very Russian city. Poking out from those golden steeples and boulevards, are treasures such as The church of the spilled Blood, a Russian revival church, which mimics the Church of the Blood of Christ in Red sq, and everywhere you seem to see the best of the Russian people in this laid back, beautiful and charming place. Grand in a European way, and kept clean tidy and polished by Putin for all his diplomatic ventures, it is simply another ace up the sleeve of a country who managed to not only do the massive modern Metropolis well in the form of Moscow, but get the grand but yet laid back feel of a Rome-esque city right too.
At first I missed Moscow. I had had such a great time there, and met such great people, and when we arrived in our hostel, it was empty and lifeless, with only a strange, but nice, university linguistic professor (that seems to sum up St Pete’s so much somehow) for company. When we first set out around town, Kat got bundled and only luckily managed not to lose her massive, expensive camera, and I felt that we had left Russia for a luke warm version of a European city. However, soon I realised that this was a city like no other and that I could not ignore what an incredibly array of amazing grand palaces, historical buildings, cool bars, trendy Russians and sense of intellectual history there was in the air. This was also the furthest city north with a population of a over a million in the world and the place where over 1 million civilians starved and froze to death in temperatures of as low as
-30 during WW2. A place that had been soaked in so much destruction and creation that it made your head spin and where the Russian double headed Eagle truly started to lean west. This was a great city.
After reuniting with Iliya and his friends late that evening, he fixed me up with new mobile phone and after a bite to eat in a very reasonable French wine bar, he took us on a late night tour of the city, done in the style of St Petersburg, to the rather more sophisticated selection of brandy and chocolate. No more sausage and vodka for me, I had leaped up the intellectual ladder in style.
It could not have been better, and as we downed cognac and chocolate to fend of the cold and rain, we toured from the hermitage to St Isaacs cathedral, Menshikovs palace to the winter palace. Eventually, we arrived at his friends club and spend a few hours there before I threw in the towel and decided to call it a night as it could have got any better. A very memorable night and all down to one man.

The following day we moved in with Iliya, to his spacious flat just outside the town centre, where he cooked us breakfast and then sent us out on our way to explore the town more.

The Finale

Imagine all the parts of Russia I have mentioned up until now, thrown into one and add lots of very cool trendy bars and clubs and tea houses that wouldn't look out of place in London’s trendy east end or Berlin's Bauer house art districts. That is Saint Petersburg. Add to it, people drinking branding on the streets and eating chocolate in the city that Fyodor Dostoyevsky called home and you have Peter, as the locals call it. Looking back. I always went against the masses and said I preferred Moscow, but that's more because of the great memories. St Petersburg is a truly magnificent city, and one I could much more realistically see myself living in. It is no more a copy of a European city than Kyoto is a copy of a Chinese one. It is unique, Russian and heart warming. A truly world class place to call ones home. Go there.

Kate, Iliya and I spent the following days doing much the same and I desperately tried to do all I could in my last remaining days in Russia as the clock was ticking and I really just did not want to leave. We ate more Georgian food, drank mulled wine, drank in Laundrettes, visited the hermitage - for free!, and ended the trip in one of the best bars I have ever been to where every night was new years eve and we counted down in Russian to the voice of an old Soviet broadcast, and the waitresses all dressed in white jumpsuits. We were the life of the party and we knew that this truly was going to be the night to remember and that there was no holding back. Iliya had given us a truly fantastic send off and as I woke after an hours sleep and creeped down to the front door at 4a the next morning, Iliya hugged me and I felt I might never meet such a man again. What a smile. What a city.

До свидания Россия!

From Ulan Ude to St Petersburg. Asia to Europe. Some 7000km and 5 trains. Deserted islands to Metropolitan beasts. Taiga forests to urban jungles. Buddhist temples to towering gold topped cathedrals. My journey through the heart of Russia had moved and amazed me and left me still in wonder at such vast and humbling nation. It had instilled into me what I had really been searching for on the journey I had set out on months earlier. A sense that I had been on a true adventure.
For those willing to cast aside the latent paranoia of the West towards Russia and embrace this truly unique and awe inspiring country, then the Trans Siberian Railway offers a truly epic intercontinental, multi-ethnic grandiose opportunity. For those cool headed enough to venture into Russia, I believe that Russia gives and gives in so many ways, but at the same time, to venture here without and open mind and a good sense of humour, you will find that Russia be a big fat dose of reality.
Russia did not feel like Europe. Nor was it Asia. In fact, I still have so many unanswered questions about this place and cannot possibly hope to have them ever answered, but I took away with me some of the best memories of my life and a sense that I had been touched by the goodness of the human spirit, and that was good enough for me now. I could not help but love Russia.

And so sadly, on that cold, hazy morning, and with more than a lump in my throat, I boarded my bus to Tallin, Estonia.
I wondered if it had all been a dream.

A strange, colourful one.
With lots of trains and vodka.

A good dream.

---

Photos

Я люблю Россию!
Kicking it Russian style: in the cold, in the park with beers, Yekaterinburg

Sunset
Olkon Island, Baikal

Autumn Clours
Olkon Island, Baikal

Worn
Memorial to the war in Afganistan, yekaterinburg

Buddhist scarfs
Lake Baikal

Me in Red Square
Moscow

My dream couple
Man, I loved these guys - Igor and Olga - young love, with the great Siberian kindness to boot. I miss them.

Blue Baikal
Lake Baikal - Central Siberia

Old architecture
St petes

Moscow Metro
Work of Art and sadly, better than the London Underground. Sorry. Its hurts me to say so to.

The White
Irkutsk - also the man who claimed Alaska for Russia.

Siberian style wooden Houses
Irkutsk

Lenin
The Big man himself, and of whose stutes are mandatory in every town in Russia.

Little venice
With a russian twist. st petes

Multi coloured church
Irkutsk

Still in the USSR
st petes

Beautiful Church of the Blood of Christ
Irkutsk

Bars bars bars!
st petes

Green Church
Irkutsk (I will go back and look up the names of all of these later).

Church of the Blood of Christ
Irkutsk

Lake Baikal
I've never seen such deep blues like it.

Peaceful place
Baikal, Olkon Island

Down by the riverside
Irkutsk

Yellow Church
Irkutsk

Gazing out into the what seems like and ocean.
In fact, in Russian and Buryiat, the lake is called a sea.

Tank train
It just went on and on and on...but someone told me that they were very old...

Lunch in the forest
Olkon Island, Baikal

Waves on a lake
Baikal

Friends from UK and Germany
Olkon Island, Baikal

Autumn colours 2
Olkon Island, Baikal

Cliff and me
Olkon island, Baikal

Piling on for the longest trip yet
Leaving Irkutsk Station

Train/vodka buddies
Irkutsk to Yekaterinburg

Station somewhere...
Siberian style, Irkutsk to Yekaterinburg

Exhausted. No Soviet glory here. Afganistan, the war that financially cripple the USSR.
Yekaterinburg. The memorial also mentions other who have given their lives in Chechnya.

Kazan Style Church
Red Square, Moscow

The Tsarina and son
Who were murdered on this site around 100 years ago.

Tank train 3
Actually not that inteersting but if they saw the pics on my camera at the border then I would be screwed so I uploaded them.

Church dedicated to the Romanov death site
Yekaterinburg

Autumn colours and church
Yekaterinburg

Those who gave their lives as I was being born
Momorial to the war in Afganistan. Poinyent.

Kremlin wall
Moscow

Marshel Zhukov
Moscow

Entrance to Red Square
Moscow

Highest denomination I will ever again see
$400 in 2 notes. Dangerous.

Lenins Tomb
Red Square

St Basil Church
Red Square, Moscow

Kremlin Church
Foregt the name but beautiful, and very old.

Pushkins restaurant
Moscow

Gorky theatre
Soviet design, Moscow

Nightlife
st petes

Things you cant do at peter and pauls fortress.
st petes

A momnet with Karl
Moscow

Ukranian cuisine
Moscow

Pondering
The Hermitage, st petes

Tsars Cannon
Kremiln, Moscow

Church spires
Kremlin, Moscow

Going off in the club
st petes

One of Stalins '7 sisters'
Like something from gotham city. I liked them. Moscow

Church of the Spilled Blood
St petes

Brandy and choclate on the streets of st petes
no more vodka and ghekins for me.

Towering church spire
Peter and Pauls fortress, St petes

St petes walruses
very cold day

Rivers of St petersburg

Bright lights
st petes

toilet art
st petes

Russian Cemetary
st petes

Walking the Hermitage
st petes

Comments

[Andrey]

Hi! I'm from Yekaterinburg. Nice trip and colourful story! It was highly interesting to read this thread.

[denis]

Your pictures are really really good I must admit. I couldnt read it all, but i read the last paragraph and was a little bit moved. However, I couldn't help but snigger at the bit where you said you 'had more than a lump in your throat'. Childish. I want to come on the cycling extravaganza.