Siberia!

---

So we had finally begun our journey on the Trans-Siberian railway. I was sharing a cabin with John, Adam R and Sarah. After a relatively uneventful afternoon and evening, we had our first of many pot noodles, made our beds, chatted a bit and went to bed.

The sleep on the train was surprisingly comfortable and uninterrupted except that there was an inbuilt speaker system in our cabin which had been left on full volume and, unbeknown to us, it began playing music at 8am, meaning we woke up to the most awful sound of Russian pop butchering our much-needed sleep. Fortunately John was pretty quick to turn it off but nevertheless the damage had been done.

Also by this time, the heat generated by 4 bodies in a 3x2m space was reaching dangerously high levels so soon enough we ended up as pretty much 4 half naked bodies but in distinctly unerotic circumstances I might add. Needless to say, I got out of the cabin as soon as possible and stuck my head under the cold tap in the toilet. The toilet, by the way, left much to be desired (such as loo roll and functional taps); the toilet seat and cover was made of splintered wood and there wasn't an inch of floor that wasn't wet with what I can only hope was water from the sink.

Anyway after cooling down, I was able to take the time to really appreciate the magical scenery that was passing by me. I have to say the views truly surpassed my original expectations. Before I left home, a lot of people said why would you want to go to Russia in winter but if anyone saw just a few seconds of what we saw for 4 days, I would be genuinely shocked if they asked the same question - I mean it is ridiculously beautiful. I'm sure it would also be stunning in the summer but I couldn't be happier with my decision to go in January. I suppose that it just feels more Russian to see everything under a few inches of snow. There are also hundreds of villages sporadically dotted along the line which are intensely isolated and just consist of wooden shacks reminiscent of centuries gone by and you can only wonder, what do people do here? The simplicity but ultimate insignificance of a life here is daunting. In a few words, it was like we were travelling through a completely different world made all the more surreal by the encroaching cabin fever from spending 4 days literally in cabin.

Typically we spent our time looking out the window, listening to music, reading, sleeping and playing top trumps. Although the 4 day stretch from Moscow to Irkutsk initially seemed intimidating, the company of 6 others made the experience a lot of fun and of course there's the benefit of going forward in time across 5 timezones. One day we had a lie-in until what would have been 10am Moscow time yet the sun began to set only 3 hours later - to be honest, we never really knew what the actual time was.

Train life is never boring when sharing a journey with locals, foreigners and other travellers but it becomes especially interesting when a translator for the Russian army refuses to leave your cabin or when a Russian construction worker tries to have sex with someone in your group or even when the train attendants think waving around sparklers in your cabin is a good idea.

I'll start from the beginning...

On the second night, Nicola, insistent on trying to speak Russian at any available opportunity, began a conversation with 'Vitali' - the most dodgy-looking Russian on the entire train. He was heading off with 3 equally dodgy-looking mates to far north-eastern Siberia to do some sort of construction work in the back end of nowhere. Now these guys were real Russian men, the kind you'd imagine would kill you if you looked at them the wrong way and here was Nicola trying engage them in conversation. Unfortunately for Nicola though, Vitali seemed to take this as an invitation for perhaps more cosy activities and at one point he actually reached out and stroked her face. As she flinched away, he gave a deathly stare to John and Adam W. Luckily though he then retired back to his own cabin but it would certainly not be the last we would see of him. Later that night, I had just got ready to go to sleep when I heard shouting outside in the corridor. I opened the door to see an old Russian woman shouting and Vitali holding her arm. The attendants rushed down and pulled him away to the other end of the corridor. It was clear he was utterly wasted but it seemed like the attendants had calmed him down so I shut the door again. Only 20 minutes later did I hear some more banging noises and opening the door again, I saw Vitali stumbling down towards my direction. He glared at me to which in response I very rapidly shut and locked the door.

Now it might be hard to believe but that was the tame night on our journey. The following evening was simply surreal - a word I've used a lot on this trip but this night truly deserved the label. It began when I was standing outside the toilet when I heard Adam R and Sarah talking in the section between the carriages so I decided to join them. I opened the door and saw them but then realised all 4 of the Russian construction workers were also there. We began talking with them and although they couldn't speak English or we Russian, the atmosphere seemed quite friendly. They let us try some of their beer and then one of them started saying something totally incomprehensible to us. Suddenly he then began to wack his head and punch the wall with massive force, making us feel extremely uncomfortable. However then Vitali started to say something in Russian before exclaiming in stilted English, "Sorry, sorry, sorry!". It then became clear that they were trying to apologise for their drunken antics the night before. Despite feeling a bit less intimidated, the tension was still in the air and at one point Nicola opened the door, saw Vitali and very quickly backed out, shutting the door. Adam, Sarah and I then made our excuses and quickly exited.

Later in the evening, Nicola, undeterred by the near catastrophic results of the previous night, began speaking to another Russian called Alexei. We talked with him for a few minutes before he suggested we have a beer or two together. So after buying 6 beers for us, he came into our cabin. Apparently he was a translator for the Russian army going to Vladivostok to meet some Burmese people. His job will be to translate Russian into English for another translator then to translate the English into Burmese. Interestingly though his English was pretty poor and sometimes he even seemed to struggle understanding other Russians. Also the idea of having two translators produces a situation similar to Chinese whispers with the end message being potentially very different to the original, so if Burma suddenly declares war on Russia in a few months time, we'll know why.

Alexei seemed quite a volatile character. He would be very stern then break out laughing hysterically and then serious again before joking around again - very unpredictable. However Nicola made the situation even more complicated when she decided to try some more Russian phrases and after browsing on a page of quotations from James Bond's "From Russia With Love", she chose perhaps the most inappropriate phrase to say to a man in the Russian army in post-communist Russia. Seemingly oblivious to Russian history and recent political events, she said "You're plans for world domination are sadly mistaken!", quickly making the situation very tense. Although at first he seemed to awkwardly laugh, he later said that that had greatly offended him and said that Russia was not looking to dominate the world, at which point he started to attack USA and asked, "don't you think the USA are far more like that?". He then began to defend Russian actions in regards to the Georgian crisis and the recent conflict over gas lines. Soon after, though, he was joking around again and after a very up and down few hours, we said we were getting pretty tired and wanted to get some sleep. 15 minutes later, whilst we were getting ourselves ready for bed, he came back and seeing us up and thinking that we might have been lying to get rid of him, he approached us and seemed again very offended. Nevertheless that didn't stop him sitting right back down in the cabin to re-start the conversation. After humouring him for another hour or so, Nicola said that we really did need to sleep but Alexei stated that he wouldn't go and that we needed to kill him if we wanted to get rid of him. He began shouting around, "Nicola will you kill me? John will you kill me? Rolf will you kill me?" Half way through the conversation, I made a sneaky exit and managed to get to bed in the other cabin. Apparently though, Alexei stayed for a bit longer and after finally getting rid of him, the carriage attendants came into their cabin waving around sparklers shouting "Happy New Year!" because it was Russia's Old New Year's Day.

In the midst of all of these crazy conversations with crazy Russians, I did actually meet one very cool Russian girl called Julia, who was a student from a town just west of Vladivostok. She had been visiting family in Moscow over Christmas and was making the trip with her 5 year old brother. Interestingly she could speak far better English than the translator, Alexei. However, similar to Alexei, she also seemed to full-on hate Americans - something I found quite common across all of Russia, Mongolia and China. She was very friendly though and talked to all of us. On the morning we got off the train, she even followed us off and just as our new honcho was about to take us out of the station she ordered him to stop and went round hugging all of us before rushing back onto the train.

So in conclusion train life was certainly not as boring as we originally anticipated. The scenery we saw, the food we ate and the people we met were all out of this world. Our 4 day train journey had been extremely eventful, and especially so when you consider that we spent literally the entire period within one 10m long carriage.

---

Photos

Cabin
Me on the top bunk

Cabin
Things got pretty hot and cramped in here

Toilet
This picture doesn't do it justice...

Station
Some random place in Siberia where we stocked up on noodles and smash

The Russians
Vitali is the man on the left staring at Nic

Nicola
The attendants didn't seem too bothered about health and safety

Julia
Nic and Julia

Comments

[Nikki]

Haha Love how you sneak away when stuff gets hairy! Very good idea! Remember always run and hide if there's trouble and if you can use a kid as a shield even better! xxx

[Andy]

Catch-Up
Hi Huwie - you seem to be well in the saddle already - when's the next update comming? How does China compare with Russia? I hope you are OK - look forward to speaking with you when you get a chance to call. Dad xxx