The fast 76-hour train to Irkutsk

[My photos from the train ride are here. Most are crap, as they were shot through the dirty windows of a speeding train. But at least there are a lot of them!]

Vowing to learn from my previous mistakes with trains, I arrived early (again) at the station in Moscow on Tuesday night, and triple-checked my train number versus the platform number when walking to the train. There’s no way I could have repeated my cross-platform dash from St. Petersburg here, as this train was incredibly long (30 wagons, many of which were cargo-only), and I was booked into the wagon furthest from the waiting area.

Happy to be arriving early and at the right train, I handed my ticket and passport to the attendant for my wagon. She looked confused, and turned the ticket over a few times, held it up to the light, and generally scratched her head. She blurted something at me in Russian. “Ni Russki. Angliski?” I replied. “Nyet” she said. Uh oh. She handed my ticket to her assistant, who went scurrying off with it.

During the ensuing 10 minutes waiting for the assistant to return, I met several friendly Germans, who were going to be in my wagon. We chatted for a few minutes, and then the assistant returned. She conversed in Russian with the attendant, and then the attedant came over to us and spoke in German to my new friends. After a few exchanges, she turned to me and said “Nyet ticket!”. Panic. The Germans said “She says ‘incomplete’”. “Wait, I have more papers!”, I said as I frantically dug through my bag, searching for the envelope that contaied my future tickets. When I produced the cover and extra sheets for my future trains, the attendant reviewed them and smiled. “Billyet!” (ticket) she said. Phew. Apparently when you book and international or multi-leg ticket in Russia, you should always give the attendant everything, and not just the “boarding pass” for that leg, like you would for a flight. Another lesson learned.

I boarded the train, and found my cabin and seat. Happily, I was booked into a lower bunk for this 76-hour marathon trip. And this was train #10, one of the best, fastest in use in Russia. On slower trains this is an 85+ hour journey. My cabin was occupied by 3 Russian men, one about my age, and the other two appeared to be in their late 50’s. They scowled at me. When I put my bottle of Russian Standart vodka on the table, one chortled (we’ll call him Nikolai; I didn’t get his actual name, even though I offered my name, and he rode almost the entire trip to Irkutsk) and the others didn’t react. This was not going to be a party cabin.

We turned out the lights about an hour after departing, and went to sleep. I again slept on and off throughout the night, even though I was much more comfortable in the wider, longer lower bunk. At 5am, the two men in the top bunks prepared to get off. And at the stop 15 minutes later, I awoke to some commotion and cries of “mama!” and “doodoo!” in my cabin (fortunately “doodoo” meant “train”, not what it does at home…). Nikolai was getting the boot to another cabin, in favor of a mother and her 18-month old son. Delightful. I tried to catch some more sleep while they settled in, but Denis (”Dyenis”), as he would later be introduced, was relentless in his squeaking.

Later in the day we were joined by “Coughing girl” and her boyfriend. Oh, and “The Friend Who Has a Bed Down the Hall But Who Spends All Her Time in Our Cabin”.

Rolling through a time zone per day, the next several days were spent napping, getting to know the very fun Germans, reading, napping, and making Denis giggle. Denis would crack up any time he waved at me and I would wave back. It was a simple game, and I was good at it. His cuteness won me over after starting out way in the negative.

After a few hours, he started saying “dyadya”, which sounded like “dada”, which was a little scary. Natasha would later explain that “dyadya” basically meant “uncle” or “friendly man” in Russian. Phew. Natasha spoke a little basic English, so we’d chat a little every now and then. When “Hotel California” came on over the loudspeakers, she said “Scorpions?”. “Close, Eagles.”

The music selection throughout the trip amused me. Between Russian rock and “standards”, Akon, Rihanna, and Enrique would make appearances. “I wanna lick your ice cream and you can lick my lollipop” was the chorus of a song in English with a dance beat that I hadn’t heard before. Pure genius.

As birch forests, defunct factories, and small, bleak villages rolled by, I spent some quality time chatting with my new German friends. Manfred was the elder statesman of the group, and the mastermind of the tour. A retired forestry man, he had been doing conservation consulting in Mongolia for several years. He enjoyed train travel, so he always took the Trans-Mongolian route. And his wife and friends would occasionally join. This time 5 friends (his wife Brita, Heide, Baerbel, Peter, and Joerg) were along for the trip. Manfred educated me on the evolution of the forests around Russia, saying that the birch forests we were seeing now were not native; they were planted in the 1900’s, and that in 40 years the next generation of native trees, the pines (”needle trees” as he called them) would reclaim the land. We also talked about rivers, to which I was able to contribute a little, as I’d just finished reading “Lost In Mongolia“, a book about 3 guys who raft the Yenisey River from Mongolia to the Arctic Ocean (Thanks IQZ!).

By Thursday my body was starting to get a bit sore from inactivity and laying about. We were only able to get off the train a few times per day, for about 20 minutes while at various stops. My buddy Nikolai would give me tips in rough English and grunts (and groans when I didn’t understand). At most of these longer stops, vendors were on the platforms, selling various foodstuffs and toys. Some stops also had alcohol stands. Thursday night we took advantage of this, and knocked back a good bit of vodka and beer. I slept better Thursday night. I also tried some smoked fish from the platform. I ate about 1/4 of mine and donated the rest to the cause. Not yummy in my tummy.

Natasha, Denis, and Coughing Girl and crew all got off at Novosibirsk late Thursday night, and I got a new batch of roomies. This time it was a family of 3, with a 7-year old son. English was very limited, but in an exchange of pointing at maps with the father, I gathered that he had grown up in extreme northeast Siberia, along the strait across from Alaska. And he had been stationed with the military in Kaliningrad at some point.

For reasons unkown to me, Friday found the train conductor laying on the horn far more than previous days. We also got a change of scenery, with the flat plains of previous days giving way to rolling hills and more picturesque villages.

We found fresh raspberries on one of the platforms and made some tasty “raspberry vodka soup” for an evening treat, and called it an early evening.

Long-distance trains in Russia all run on Moscow time, even when you’re 5 time zones away like we were now, or 10 like you are in Vladivostok. Our train was to arrive at 4:15am, Moscow time, on Saturday.

I woke up at 1am as my cabinmates prepared to make their exit from the train. I finally had the cabin all to myself, but only for the final few hours of the trip. Ah well, it had been sort of fun getting to sort of know people with whom you can sort of kind of barely communicate. The wagon attendants woke everyone up an hour before Irkutsk to make sure people would be ready to get off (and not miss the pre-stop 30 minute bathroom lockout window…). After packing my things I compared notes with the Germans, and confirmed that we’d be on the same train together again in a few days, heading from Irkutsk to Mongolia. So as we de-trained, we said “See you later” (insert your own rendition of the “Auf Weidersein” song here), and I headed off into Irkutsk to try to find a way to Olkhon Island, on Lake Baikal.

Popularity: 34% [?]

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.