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Published: August 11th 2009
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Mike is drinking tea from a traditional "train" glass Russian trains are nothing like other trains. Journeys take days. A train trip is a part of your holiday - after all, you spend a lot of time reading or playing cards. There is a number of traditions that Russian people follow when traveling by train - even the most smartly dressed people usually change into a track-suit and slippers. As soon as the train departs, people get hungry. They usually bring food with them - roast chicken, boiled eggs, tomatoes and cucumbers and quite often, vodka. At every stop locals come up to the train selling food - most often "pirozhki," pastries with different fillings.
There are generally three types of tickets. The first, and the cheapest way to travel is in "platzcart", where a train is separated into compartments, but without doors. There are also seats in aisles. It is cramped, noisy, lacks privacy and was discarded without consideration.
Then there is a ticket which buys you a seat in a closed compartment. There are four seats, which at night serve as beds, two at a normal level, and two above. This was what we chose, and we had one lower and one upper seat (or "shelf"
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Inside of the train - doors to compartments as they are called in Russian).
The third way is a more comfortable 2-seat compartment, where you could find AC, shower, TV and other things, depending on the train.
We got on our train at 9 pm on Wednesday. Our compartment companion was a young man traveling to Chita. He had a family there, although originally he was from Novosibirsk. How do I know all that? Oh yeah, that's another train tradition - baring your soul to fellow travelers. Now, I am a reasonably sociable person, but I do not want to hear somebody's life story just because we happened to be in the same compartment! Luckily, a half-hour of talking exhausted the guy and he went to sleep, and after a while, so did we. Sleeping on the train is really comfortable, and the constant rumble of wheels and swaying motions are very soothing. They leave a dim ceiling light on at night, but it's quite soft and ensures that if you need to get up at night (to go to bathroom or get off the train) you are safe from tripping and falling.
The next day passed very pleasantly - we napped, we read books, we
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Passing time looking out of the window read jokes and did crosswords, napped again, ate, got out during longer stops and looked around... Our compartment neighbor was behaving lovely- he went out to a restaurant car, got plastered, and didn't come back until 11 pm only to pass out quietly, so we felt like we were traveling alone.
We arrived at 3 am our time, and even though the conductors wake people up an hour before their stop if the stop is at night, I set my own alarm, and then actually couldn't sleep at all, listening to my audio book and looking out of the window. Lucky Michael, who can sleep on any sort of transport, including cars, planes, trains, buses and I suspect even helicopters, horse carts and boats, was happily snoring away (Literally - he and our neighbor were doing a synchronized snoring piece, where one snores in the gaps left by other's snoring, which amused me to no end). And then 3 am came, and people started waking up, and forming queues to the loo, and generally fidgeting, and it was time to get off....
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Mom/Colleen
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Beautiful!
Great first installment! Enjoyed the photos and the stories and all the funny comments. The pretty drinking glasses are an especially nice touch. They look very old. Also, I'm curious about the books you two were reading along the way, though I don't know how you could concentrate on reading with all that lush countryside streaming by. Can't wait to see the second installment. ~~~Mom/Colleen