The Flying Scotsman is a locomotive. The Orient Express is a train. The Trans-Siberian is a route: the longest continuous set of rails in the world, linking Moscow and Vladivostok (in the Soviet era, when Vladivostok was a closed naval base, civilians ended up somewhere else, but nowadays any passenger can go to Vladivostok). A little shorter, but equally epic, are the Trans-Manchurian (Moscow to Beijing via Harbin); the Trans-Mongolian (Moscow to Beijing via Ulaan Baator), and the little-used BAM (Moscow to Vladivostok via a more northerly route through eastern Siberia). The passenger trains riding these rails (they also carry much freight) are identified by numbers - odd-numbered trains run west, even-numbered run east - only a few have names. The Trans-Siberian route belongs to numbers 1/2, the Rossiya, the Trans-Mongolian to numbers 3/4.
Depending on direction and route, it takes about a week for one of these trains to complete a single trip, but I didn't fancy that many consecutive nights without a shower, so I planned for five stops and 20 days on the Trans-Mongolian route to Beijing, starting out from Moscow on train 16, the Ural, for Ekaterinburg (a.k.a. Yekaterinburg, a.k.a. Sverdlovsk).
In addition to my backpack and day pack I carried the green paper bag I acquired when I bought wine in Krems, outside Vienna. Now it held a couple of books (I hadn't seen a used bookstore since Budapest) and food supplies: instant coffee and soup, orange juice, bread, cheese, salami and the apples I had bought on the road back from Yaroslavl. Grocery shopping in Moscow had taken longer than I expected, as the supermarket near Red Square was being torn down, and I had to trek over to one uncomfortably close to the former Lubyanka prison, which looked like any other big concrete office building.
My taxi zipped easily through the light mid-afternoon traffic, much unlike the rush-hour gridlock, and delivered me to Kazansky station in plenty of time to watch the crowds and locate the departure board. Most times, the departure board is the first thing you see when you walk into a station, but not here. I finally had to ask for help before I found the platforms and the missing board.
Like most European capitals, Moscow has multiple train stations. I had arrived from Novgorod at the Leningradsky station, most eastbound trains leave from Yaroslavsky, and the Ural would leave from Kazansky, next door. Unfortunately, this meant that the "Trans-Siberian Handbook" I was carrying, with its kilometer-by-kilometer listing of sights, was useless for this leg, as we followed a different route to Ekaterinburg, and the young Dutch couple sharing my compartment were carrying the same book.
I traveled across Russia in kupe, or second, class - two tiers of two beds per lockable compartment, with metal bins under the lower bunks, and extra storage space over the door - but the trains were not all alike. I approved of the Ural, with its friendly provodnitsa (female carriage attendant), who kept the carpets well-vacuumed, with its white tablecloths and its special china teapot and matching cups and saucers, the name of the train emblazoned in gold on red. Hot water, very hot water, was constantly on tap from the boiler at the end of the carriage, although no hot water was available at the sinks, unless carried from the boiler. My only complaint was that the sheets were damp, which allowed my silk sleep sack to justify its (light) weight.
One of the high points of travel on the Trans-Siberian routes, according to the guidebooks, is the ever-changing assortment of goodies available on the station platforms. Alas, in general I found the pickings slim, but at Wekowka, our first stop, the offerings included cut glass, outsize ceramic urns, taxidermy, cranberries and drinks. And then there is the view. With three tourists in my compartment there was no question but that the door would stay open during daylight hours. The Dutch couple stretched out facing each other on one lower bunk, and I had the other to myself. I enjoyed talking with the couple, although the woman's delight in finding someone of "my age" still traveling did make me feel more elderly than usual.
Once we cleared the Moscow suburbs and dachas, trees closed in on both sides. The ground stayed flat until we reached the Urals, when the other end of the long train came into view as it snaked up and down the low hills - hardly impressive enough to mark the border between continents. Most villages consisted of wooden houses like those I had seen north of Moscow, most roads were dirt, and at least some of the field work was still done by hand. Both cows and goats were visible, but this was definitely not sheep country. Haystacks and big, covered, piles of wood showed that preparations for the long winter were well in hand.
My Moscow grocery shopping had been a precaution I was not sure I needed, so as dinner time neared I trekked through the train in search of the restaurant car. One of the wait staff spoke a few words of English, and with her help I ordered chicken with mushrooms and fries, delivered to my compartment. Alas, the precaution did turn out to have been necessary: while the chicken was OK, the potatoes were greasy and undercooked. In general I did not eat all that well in Russia, and finally lost a little weight, although this was at least partly a language problem. My skills had progressed to the point where I could transliterate Cyrillic to European letters quite well, and it was surprising how often I recognized the result - Internet, supermarket, souvenir - but this was of little help in reading menus.
Although the train arrived in Ekaterinburg on time, I had quite a wait for my welcoming committee (another black mark for G&R International), and the driver had trouble reaching my homestay - well out of the center of town, and with a sea of mud blocking one approach. The apartment was fine for one person - small kitchen, bathroom and bedroom and a large lounge - but not for two. I slept on the sofa, opposite the doorless doorway to the hall, and my back was starting to protest at all the sofas. Although my hostess spoke fair English, and had traveled to England, France and Spain, she seemed little interested in talking with me. She did lend me a scarf against the cold and rain. Bright yellow and blue, it contrasted strongly with the dark colors worn by most of the Russians.
Ekaterinburg, a big town with a clean metro system, was known as Sverdlovsk during the Soviet era, and for some reason is still known as Sverdlovsk by the Russian railway system, which has otherwise kept up with name changes. Sverdlovsk was the Communist responsible for the assassination of the Romanovs. The house where they were killed was torn down in 1977 on the order of Boris Yeltsin, then party boss in Sverdlovsk, but a Russian Orthodox church, the Church of Blood, stands in its place. The church is new, big and conservative - I was presented with a tie-on skirt to wear over my trousers and a board outside proclaimed in Russian (front) and English (back) the scriptural foundation for this demand.
Russian Orthodox icons portray saints, along with the Madonna (often associated with a particular place or event), Jesus (often just the face, known as the Mandylion) and sometimes the "Old Testament Trinity" (the three visitors to Abraham and Sarah). Well, the Romanovs are now saints -- and the most important icons in this church feature Nicholas, Alexandra and all their children, complete with halos. I could hardly believe my eyes. I can think of several reasons why the Communists would have wanted the Romanovs dead, but religion is not one of them. Still, there they were, martyrs for their faith, rather than for their incompetence.
A couple of blocks from the church I visited another remarkable monument. Commemorating those who died in Russia's Afghan misadventure, it spoke of the cost and not the glory of war. A soldier sits cross-legged on the ground, head bowed, his weight resting on his rifle. Behind him, in a half circle, rise ten tall, dark slabs, engraved with the names of the dead, one for each year. As I stood, staring, in the rain, a small group of live soldiers arrived, armed with cameras.
Further downtown I visited museums. While the local history museum proved a dusty disappointment, the Museum of Decorative Arts delighted me. In the center of a big room displaying cast iron objects stood a huge pavilion, adorned with Chinese junks, fish, hunting scenes, and even two of the horses from St. Petersburg's Anichkov bridge. Examining the well-filled cases surrounding this early 20th century fantasy, I was especially taken with a goblin holding a Kodak camera. The Geological Museum also held my attention, after I finally tracked it down (it had moved since the Lonely Planet researchers were in town). Although all the labels were in Russian, many of them transliterated to the English equivalent. Amethyst, malachite and pyrite dominated the collection.Ekaterinburg kept me occupied for a busy day, but the town itself did not impress me. Its wide, muddy streets were filled with cars mired to the windows, and lined by unmemorable buildings, and its river, channeled beneath a bridge adorned with one of the few remaining busts of Lenin, smelled of pollution. Finally, I had to get up in the middle of the night to catch the 4:00 am train to Irkutsk - 4:00 am local time, that is. Russian trains run on Moscow time, no matter that Russia spans ten time zones.
The provodnitsa on this train, the Baikal, had considerately rearranged berth assignments to avoid waking existing passengers. The three Russians in my compartment, an elderly couple and a man traveling on business, shared a lack of English and an apparently total disinterest in the countryside - and in each other, never mind me. When they weren't eating, they were sleeping, while I admired the view. Just outside Ekaterinburg I had left Europe for Asia, and now was crossing taiga marked by drunken, sunken telephone poles and reed covered swamps, and decorated in autumnal colors - bracken painted brown, gold and red and a sea of yellow-leaved trees. Tier upon tier of white clouds rose to dizzying heights, the sky stretched to a horizon that seemed much further away than usual, and the sun shone.
By the middle of the second afternoon I had the compartment to myself until, well after a stop, the provodnik (male attendant on the day shift) came by to announce the arrival of another passenger. A youngish man with only a carrier bag for luggage, he leaned over me to declare that he was going for vodka. I was annoyed: it seemed likely that I would be woken by a drunken return in the middle of the night. In fact, he reappeared in about an hour. He shut the door, which I promptly reopened, sat down and leaned across the table, talking in a persistent and over-friendly manner. When I failed to respond in kind he reached over to touch me. I lost my temper and told him to get out, then hunted down the provodnik to insist that he be moved - I felt that the lone German man next door would be a more appropriate companion.
At first I thought that I had overreacted. Then I found that he had bothered the young Aussie men further along to the point that they also threw him out, I noticed the waitress in the dining car telling him to get lost, and the last I saw of him he was wearing handcuffs and being marched off by two security guards. I recovered over beer with the Aussies, and spent the evening splitting a bottle of wine with a woman who taught English in Irkutsk.
Irkutsk, the gateway to Lake Baikal, is the most popular stop on the Trans-Siberian. Originally, trains crossed the lake, the deepest in the world, on ferry boats, but this proved too slow, and the line was extended around the southern shore with much engineering ingenuity. The main line has since been rerouted, but I had arranged to ride the old line on my way to the village of Listvyanka. With two guides and a young couple returning to New Zealand to get married, I rode a packed commuter train (with the worst toilet of the trip so far) out of Irkutsk, then trekked past trees with thin white trunks and yellow leaves to the lake to catch the tourist train. A true train buff would have bribed the driver to ride on the ledge at the front of the engine, but I thought it too cold, instead admiring the big, blue lake and rocky shoreline from inside.
Listvyanka village proper is a scattering of pretty wooden houses either side of a small stream. One kilometer west is the local museum, mostly housing stuffed dead animals, with a few live fish and the fattest seal imaginable. One kilometer east is the tourist enclave, with souvenir stalls, smoked fish vendors, and places to stay. My "homestay" was more of a guesthouse. A ten minute hike from the lake, with seriously sagging beds, it also provided good food and good company.
I headed back to Irkutsk via a missable open-air museum to find I had been moved from the warm and friendly homestay where I had spent my first night - in a room equipped with TV and an aquarium - to a small apartment in yet another concrete block. My meals were delivered to my room and I ate sitting on the bed. I could hardly complain that this one sagged, as the mattress was a board. I was beginning to regard Beijing, still over a week away, as a haven of comfort.
I had come to Irkutsk expecting to admire the wooden houses, elaborately decorated, that featured in the glossy guidebook photos. Alas, while a few, like my first homestay, were well cared for, many were sadly decrepit. One of the exceptions was the home of Princess Maria Volkonskaya, who had elected to leave her young son in St. Petersburg and follow her husband into exile after the 1825 Decembrist revolt, by young officers seeking democracy, failed. While the house looked plenty comfortable to me, I suppose it was sadly basic after a St. Petersburg palace.
On the plus side, a trip to the markets (indoor and outdoor) yielded a new watch (the strap had broken on my five euro purchase from Porto) and a tin cup for coffee and soup on the trains (on the Baikal I had borrowed a thin walled glass beaker and metal holder from the attendant, but it was safer to carry my own). I also ate quite well (outside the homestay), including a chicken salad with (red) caviar. The only other time I had eaten (black) caviar I thought it far too fishy, but this was delicious. Alas, another expensive taste!
It seems most people travel round Lake Baikal to Ulan Ude overnight, but I was determined to see as much of the lake as possible, and, after studying the online timetables, found a day train. We left at 13:00, and the three Russians in my compartment promptly went to bed, and apparently to sleep, not stirring until they woke for dinner at 18:00, followed by a lively discussion featuring "democratsia". In contrast, I couldn't get enough of the view - to my left, the blue lake waters, only feet from the train, to my right, snow-dusted mountains. The occasional fisherman to my left, clear, fast mountain streams to my right. Only the bridges were utilitarian - no-nonsense red girders on masonry piers.
Ulan Ude is the capital of the Buryat Autonomous District. The Buryats are one of Russia's many minorities, and those living on the eastern side of Lake Baikal are predominately Buddhist. The next day I stopped by Buryat Intour to inquire about a tour to the nearby monastery. None were scheduled, but a young woman abandoned her desk to act as my guide, her office mate drove. I found my guide as interesting as the monastery - Putin had just announced that in future he would appoint the regional governors, previously elected by the people. A cautious inquiry about this elicited enthusiastic support. She had no doubt that more central control was needed to combat terrorism.
Driving across the flat ground north of Ulan Ude, past cabbage fields and scattered villages, I was even more conscious than on the train of how big the sky appeared, and even more appreciative of the unexpected sunshine. The monastery belonged to the yellow hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism, and suddenly I felt that I had indeed left Europe - Tibetan horns, thangkas, guardian deities, monks in purple robes (over warm clothes) and a complete circuit of prayer wheels all spoke to me of Asia. While the monastery appeared somewhat poverty stricken it was unquestionably functioning.
I was staying in another concrete block. My hostess (48) and her mother (82) slept in the main room, while I occupied the single bedroom, along with what I suspect was a rat. My hostess' sister, a professor of English at the university, made extra money from work as a translator. I agreed to help with the current project, and she arrived with a bottle of Georgian red wine, a box of chocolates and several pages of stilted English. It appeared that the Russian she was translating was equally stilted. I felt a little guilty about the wine, as she confided that her salary was only 5,000 roubles a month (about $180 US), and with costs going up she could never afford to eat out, never mind travel.
Ulan Ude was another drab Russian town, with over-wide streets, crumbling pavements and blocky buildings. The long main square was dominated by a truly enormous head of Lenin (said to be the largest in the world). Nearby I visited the local museum - a remarkable collection of 19th and 20th century Buddhas and arhats, shaman robes, teepees, gers and wooden houses, flint arrowheads and early pottery. While one reason I travel is to appreciate diversity, I was struck by how similar our basic needs are: shelter, water, food, clothing, some form of spiritual life, and how silly are the arguments over our different solutions. I had just discovered that the split between the Old and New Believers in the Russian Orthodox Church, which had led to vicious persecution, centered on whether two or three fingers should be used to make the sign of the cross.
I ate well in Ulan Ude, at the Theatre Cafe, and I ate very, very badly, at one of the hotels. I tracked down two laptops with Internet access, in the cinema cafe. And I continued to think longingly of Beijing. But first, Mongolia.
Originally sent from Bangkok, Thailand, January 13, 2005
Site design and content Copyright 2001 - 2010, Wilhelm's Words
Contact: wilhelmswords.com
Home