Train 56 - Moscow to St Petersburg

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It was like a scene from the battle of Waterloo in compartment 12 - 16 on train 56 due to depart Moscow at 2040hrs.

I was first to arrive at the station after an uneventful journey and made my way to my cabin on carriage number three. Seated on the bottom bunk was a gloomy looking Russian man in his late fifties holding his head between his hands. The Aussie sisters soon arrived and we began the well practiced process of arranging the beds and stowing the luggage. Suddenly in the door way two well dressed French woman waved their train tickets in the air, they were quickly joined by a short French man wearing a tweed jacket with long side burns and a goaty beard. They insisted that we were in the wrong cabin and we move, goaty beard pulling a small square suitcase pushed into the cabin followed by the two ladies who had clearly been at Mocow fashion week. All squeezed into one cabin they were claiming their beds, you could cut the tension with a knife. Hold your ground Austrailia! don't give up your beds under any circumstances I shouted. Russian man remained seated unaffected by the stale mate.

Sadly the French had made a terrible error and were on the wrong train, with 9000 train kilometres under my belt I finished unpacking and headed for the dining car.

The cork popped on the Aussie sister's champagne as we pulled out of Moscow on our final leg of the trans - Siberian journey. The dinning car was for the first time the place to be. Canadian John was sitting amongst the locals unable to escape and join us. Up the far end of the carriage a short blonde Russian woman having an identity crisis performed the caterpillar across the wagon floor followed by an inverted pole dance, minus the pole and fortunately with her clothes still on. We enjoyed the warm champagne before retiring for the last night on board as we thundered towards our final destination St Petersburg.

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