Russian trains are a great way of getting around, especially when you
have vast distances to cover. They vary in style and quality, but are
the same basic layout: 4 beds to each cabin (in second or kupe class)
in 2 bunks. During the day, you can sit on the bottom bunks and put
the top ones up to make more head-room. There's luggage bins under the
bottom bunks and over the corridor, so plenty of storage space, and a
small table in the middle. you are provided with a pillow, bedding and
a small towel. In the nicer ones, the table had a tablecloth and there
was a carpet on the floor. sometimes the top bunk has a kind of
harness so you don't fall out in the middle of the night. Inside the
temperature can vary wildly depending on whether the windows can be
opened and whether the heater's on, as well as whether the sun's
shining. The Russian ones were mostly too hot, while the last one,
into China, they didn't use the heaters at all, and we were freezing
during the night. There's a toilet either end of the carriage, which
is locked before and after each major station, since the contents are
deposited straight onto the track, and at international border
crossings, which can take several hours. the unpleasantness of the
toilets depends on how diligently they are cleaned. This is one of the
jobs of the provodnitsas, who also give out and take in bedding, check
your ticket as you get on the train (a helpful way of ensuring you
don't get on the wrong train) and provide hot drinks etc. for a small
charge.
The other key facility in the carriage is a hot water dispenser. This
means that if you have you've planned ahead as we had and brought
provisions and receptacles, you can get tea/coffee whenever you like,
and make up cupasoups, instant noodles, porridge oats, etc. So it's
actually very easy to feed yourself on board. This is helpful, as the
restaurant cars are typically expensive serve pretty mediocre food,
and usually only about 3 of the 80 menu options are available. On the
plus side our Mongolian one was beautifully decorated with carved wood
panelling. the other source of food is at the longer station stops (up
to half an hour), locals often turn up selling snacks, drinks, and
even freshly cooked food, like pastries, chicken pieces, hard-boiled
eggs and boiled potatoes. so we ate reasonably well, which given that
several journeys were 24 hours or more, and one was 52 hours, was
pretty important. A couple of times we got food provided, but it was
always a surprise, and we weren't sure if we were going to be
presented with a big bill at the end.
The scenery in Russia was a little on the monotonous side, to be
honest - trees, trees and more trees. Russia is a land of vast
forests, and they were the dominant sight, punctuated by occasional
villages of wooden houses, the odd big city and sometimes a river or a
lake. But if you're going to be looking at trees all day, the best
time to do it is in September, when the silver birches turn gold and
red to contrast with the evergreen firs. Mongolia was largely desert
or plains, sometimes with mountains and the odd camel or herd of
sheep. Only in China was there much to look at, including few
glimpses of the Great wall. so we passed the time with reading, games,
writing journals and chatting. On our first couple of trains we
shared with Scott and Gill, so that was good fun. On the later Russian
trains, we had a succession of Russian cohabitants; no-one was ever
going as far as us. They were all decent people, but once they
realised we didn't speak Russian, there wasn't a lot of conversation.
This often meant they decided to sleep and usually snore. A couple of
times we ended up with the cabin to ourselves, and could spread out.On
the train to Mongolia, the rest of the carriage were Mongolia traders.
This was the liveliest train. At the stations, the normal pattern was
reversed and they got out to sell to the locals - mostly clothes -
some even had mannequins with them, but we saw a lot of boxes of other
stuff. In between, the spent the whole time going up and down the
corridors moving stuff around -not sure why, perhaps they were trading
amongst themselves. They were a bit more friendly -several of them
peered in to our compartment to say hello. At the Russian border
several of them did a runner before the immigration officials got on
board.
The border crossings were pretty lengthy - there was always two sets
of immigration, customs and health officials to deal with. When
entering china, we also had to wait while the bogies (i.e. wheels)
were changed, because the Chinese tracks are a different gauge from
the Russian and Mongolian ones. On the plus side, we could stay on the
train while all this was happening and they came to us. At the Russian
border we were able to get off and stretch our legs. After a while
with nothing much happening, I went down the road with a fellow
passenger to spend our last few roubles. Unfortunately we picked the
time when the officials came back on to do the immigration check, and
so they'd locked all the carriages. We got shouted at a bit, but
someone opened up and let us back in. At the Mongolia/China border, we
couldn't get off, so by the time all the formalities were compete and
we could, we were happy to see the restrooms. The Chinese like to
welcome visitors, and as we got off, the station PA system was playing
"The green green grass of home". The whole process was around 6-7
hours each time.
Next instalment, I'll tell you about the places we stopped at on the way.
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