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Published: April 20th 2010
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In Moscow, my route joined the Trans-Siberian railway. Mainly for price reasons I decided to travel platskartney (third class) as I ventured across Siberia. My guidebook told me that this was a bad idea but the writer must be a bit of a wimp because in reality it was fine.
There are number of trains that go east from Moscow. The concept of the 'Trans-Siberian express' is a bit of a mis-translation however. There is no train by this name, although many trains follow the route of the Trans-Siberian railway.
Siberia used to be a very harsh and inhospitible place. Actually it still is. There have been settlements here for thousands of years as well as a booming fur trade but it was not until the Russian exile system in the 1800s that it really became populated. It seems that big powers like to have far away places to send their criminals to. It's all the rage. The English had Australia, the Americans Guantanmo Bay, the Russians, Siberia. In the last case, Convicts were marched across the Urals to work in Siberian mines and die in overcrowded prisons. According to my guidebook, In the 19th Century over a million
people were subject to this fate. Later, the common criminals were accompanied by numerous political exiles. The railway was started in the 1980s, largely built by convicts in climates as low as -40oC. It was opened in segments, as it was completed. When trains arrived at a frozen lakes that was yet to be bridged, rails were simply laid across the ice and frozen into place. By 1901 there was a through line to China and the Sea of Japan.
The original trains had a church car, a restaurant car with a piano and marble baths designed not to spill as the train went around corners. Its a bit different today. I was on one of the smarter trains, train no.10 but my carriage consisted of open plan bunk beds, toilets at each end, a samovar for hot water and a carriage attendant. The good thing about open plan bunks is that you can stick your feet off the end, thus negating the short bunk dilemma.
The days on the train passed quite pleasantly. After wandering the streets of Berlin, St Petersburg and Moscow my legs were tierd and just lying down and reading seemed like a really
appealing plan. The journey was 77 hours (four nights), during which time lots of people got on and off. The first night there were some friendly russian men who drank vodka out of plastic cups and fed me bread and cheese. By the time I woke up in the morning, they had been replaced by a middle aged gym teacher and two little gymnasts, on their way back from some sort of competition. There was also a nice Russian girl who was the only person I managed to properly converse with; She spoke German, so once again my schoolgirl knowledge came in useful, and we passed the day with silly stories until our vocabulary ran out and we just watched the stars go by! For the final two days there was a sweet old man and two Russian women, one of whom crocheted incessantly. None of them spoke either english or German but my russian phrasebook helped me work out that we were all going to the same place- Irkutsk. I also learned 'mozhna'- (as far as I know) meaning 'can I?', which, accompanied with pointing satisfied most of my enquiry needs.
I didn't try the train's buffet car,
which was rather empty. Instead I lived, as everyone else seemed to, off noodles, fruit, bread and cheese. Perhaps one of the best inventions in the history of train travel is instant porridge, which russian supermarkets stock in excess. For this journey I had tropical flavour; rather odd, with chunks of pinapple but still a really good breakfast. I'd read lots in advance about the platform food. At each major stop, locals come along with things to sell. On my journey, this didn't seem a reliable source of nutrition. At one station the platform was crammed full of people selling enormous dried fish. At another were fifty old ladies selling pink and blue teddy bears.
Travelling on the train was much lonelier than the rest of my trip so far. In each of the cities I'd found people who could either speak a language I could or who would put up with my attempts at charades. I walked the length of the train but found no-one willing or able to talk so I got through a lot of 'War and Peace' and spent a lot of time just gazing out the rather dirty window at the desolate but beautiful
landscape. There were days of silver birch forests and as we crossed the Ural mountains (more lumps than mountains due to eons of wear) into Siberia there was some satisfying looking snow. In some places it was feet deep and the colourful tumble down russian villages scattered the white landscape like confetti.
The trains are all heated which I guess is fortunate but it means that unfortunatly, the windows are all locked shut. This makes photo-taking rather difficult. On the third day I found that the very top of one of the bathroom window opened just enough for me to be able to stick my camera out and take some shots blind. So apologies for the grit, glare and bad composition of the photos on this page!
All in all, I am impressed with the Russian trains. I didn't really know what to expect but this journey was really quite comfortable and after five days we arrived (on time!) into Irkutsk, 'the Paris of Siberia'. For $100 I'd travelled 5185km from Moscow and looking at the map, a very long way from home.
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Mummy
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time differences
see you are shrtly leaving russia - trains no longer on Moscow time - hope you catch your Mongolian connection OK! wonder if you saw Baikal seals? xx