Advertisement
Published: November 12th 2010
Vladivostok station
the 9288km marker at the end (or in our case start) of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The loco behind was part of the Lend-Lease Act of WWII and commemerates the co-operation of USA & USSR in WWIIThe biggest challenge when catching a train in Russian is getting to the station on time!!
Russia spans 9 time zones but irrespective of where you are the railway runs on Moscow time. So when our ticket says the train departs Vladivostok at 13:20 that means we need to be at the station at 20:20 local time. This is going to make it interesting as we go across the time zones on our way to Moscow - unlike planes there is no little screen telling us what the local time is. At least with 2 of us we can have one watch on Moscow time and the other on local time, although, there's nothing to tells us when we have crossed into a new time zone.
Anyway we manage to get to the station on time and there is the Trans-Siberian Express waiting for us and it will be our home for the next 3 nights - it takes 6 nights to get to Moscow but we are hopping off en-route for some sightseeing. Rather than a private 2 berth cabin we have gone for a 4 berth cabin so we can mingle with the locals. We are sharing with
boarding the Trans-Siberian
with the 2 provodnitsas standing guard over their carriage a very helpful Russian lady who looks like she is a member of the shot put team and is supporting a fine moustache. She knows the ropes and shows us all the hidden place to stash luggage, how the beds fold down and most importantly the location of the samovar with its constant supply if boiling water for tea and coffee. Its surprisingly spacious and quite comfortable.
Each carriage has it own provodnitsa who is absolutely in control of what happens in that carriage and under no circumstance must you upset her. Ours seems to have a penchant for frilliness: embroidered doilies on the table and seat backs, dainty net curtains covering the windows and heavily tasselled window drapes swept to either side in a very precise manor - its like walking into your grannies house. The precisely positioned window dressings give the carriage a homely, looked after feel, however, they do rather obscure the view so all the passengers (us included) keep sneaking out into the corridor and drawing the curtains back. Then the provodnitsa comes along and re-positions them - its an on-going battle for the whole 3 days.
For many hours we travel along the
our 4 berth compartment
a rare moment: Edwin is reading the guide book. Note the net curtains tucked up for a better view. China/Russia border and not so long ago they closed the curtains in the carriages carrying foreigners so they couldn't spy on the border posts. Not so today so we get to see the mile after mile of deciduous forest that trundles sedately past the window. Its very, very green and very scenic: maple, alder, willow and elm trees interspersed with patches of open grassland and wild flower meadows. There's not much sign of habitation, an occasional small village of colourful wooden houses.
Every couple of hours we stop at a small rural station and a mass of locals appear on the platform selling the local speciality: strawberries, smoked fish, boiled potatoes etc. etc. - each station has a different product on offer. Our fellow passengers all jump off the train and a frantic round of purchasing ensues, its rather fun. Half the time we have no idea what we are purchasing but it must be good as its selling fast. At one stall the lady adds up the bill on an abacus then uses a calculator to convey the price to us. The length of stops varies considerable from 2 minutes to 30 minutes and the Russian passengers all
the corridor windows complete with their drapes and net curtains
a constant source of battle between the provodnitsa and passangers seem to know what is going on. This is because there is a very comprehensive timetable in the corridor which lists all the stops with arrival times, departure time and length of stop. Very useful but just two small problems: it's in Cyrillic and, of-course, Moscow Time but after some cross-referencing with the guide book and a lesson in the Cyrillic alphabet we are up there with the Russian's knowing which station we are pulling into and how long we have got to explores. This is great as the guide book points out interesting bits and pieces scattered about the various stations like soviet era murals, old steam locos, great architecture and now we know how long we have to dash around the stations and find them.
For some reason I assumed that the engine at the front of the Trans-Siberian Express would take the train all the way from Vladivostok to Moscow. So at one of the 30 minute stops I dash along the length of the train to take a photo of “our” engine only to find it being uncoupled and swapped for another!! Seems this happens a couple of times a day, its very upsetting and
Our 1st Full Day on the Train
its all incredibly green - a mix of decidious woodland full of familar species ..... totally shatters my romantic image of the train/journey.
After another good nights sleep on the train we wake to find the deciduous trees have mostly been replaced by fur trees (larch trees). Nothing much else has changed: there are the occasional clearings with views across rolling grasslands to distant mountains and we can go for hours without signs of habitation. Then very excitingly, after 36 hours and 2214km, we cross from the Russian Far East into Siberia. I always thought Siberia stretched all the way from the Urals to the Pacific Coast but this is apparently a very old fashion view and for the last 4 days I have been in the Russian Far East and the locals like to tell you so - they think the Far East is totally different to and better than the rest of Russia. There's no great sign to mark the border and no great change in vegetation just. I only know that I'm in Siberia as the guide book tells me that this happens at kilometre 7075 at the km post has just flashed past the window.
The km posts are very handy for keeping track of where you are, especially
Our 1st Full Day on the Train
... interspersed with rolling grassland and majestic trees when you are sad enough to have a guide book that uses them to locate weird and wonderful things along the route e.g. “a steam engine graveyard with photogenic piles of rusty wheels” “this town is famous for soya bean oil and soya flour”. The guide book is alos very informative and tell us all sorts of interesting things about the oblast (province) we are in, why towns are where they are, the history of the area, the type of vegetation etc. The only tricky bit is that as usual we are doing things backwards from km 9289 to km 0 and, rather unsurprisingly, the book starts at km 0. So we tend to learn all about the area as we are leaving it!!
After 48hrs on the train there's another exciting moment as we see our first livestock - 3 brown cows. Given all the rolling grasslands I'm amazed we haven't seen more livestock. Then we see a road and a car and somehow it really jars, they just don't seem to fit in this vast sea of greenness. Its strange, something we would normally take for granted seems so alien. Waking up after the 3rd night there
the timetable
once we get the cyrillic alphabet and use of Moscow Time sussed we are ready for action are definitely more signs of habitation amongst the continuous stretches of forest and grassland. We pass several villages composed of colourful wooden houses with front gardens jam packed full of potatoes. There really are an incredible number of potatoes, its really is quite impressive.
Finally after 62 hours we pull into Ulan Ude, our first jumping off point. That's 3648 km covered and 5642 km still to go. Its surprising how quickly the time has gone, how comfortable the journey has been and with all this local produce on sale there's no chance of starvation. Its been like a giant game of eye-spy with the two of us acting like overgrown kids peering out of the windows trying to spot everything listed in the guide books. The first 4 days on the Trans-Siberian have definitely been great fun.
P.S. Apologies for the quality of the photos - they were taken through grubby train widows
Advertisement
Tot: 0.09s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 13; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0572s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mandy
non-member comment
A Great Train Journey
Superb - a journey I would love to have done but can now enjoy through your writing and photos. Thank you x