if you are at all curious about what we have been looking at out the windows of our nine-day long train journeys, well.....here it is.
water brush taiga swamp and for a change, some silver birch trees....
Well of a sort. We are in Khaborovsk, a mere 15 miles from the Chinese border, in a bustling city that we both like the best in all Russia. Young, prosperous, and not quite so many hanging jaws when we walk by.
Its a beautiful city, quite old for Siberia (149 this year) and it's a stunning 30 degrees out today.
I have decided that the worst possible job in Russia must be....doing voiceovers on Russian television. Most of the shows are foreign (American) imports and all they do here, right, is have one guy simply read out the script over the original soundtrack. Drama, comedy, action, romance, whatever - it makes no never mind to the bored, lugubrious guy who REALLY hates his job, he just. reads. the. script. In the most stilted, monotone you can imagine. I even got to hear him cough once (and no it was not in the script). If we are really lucky, they sometimes have a woman read the female parts. Its just mind numbing to listen to, so at least I have no trouble being lulled to sleep.
Two days here in the lovely city, then Vladivostock. Our visa runs out on Saturday night, so we are rushing to the end of the Trans-siberian now....
This is officially the furthest East I have ever been - 7 hours ahead of and roughly 8350km due east of Moscow.
Stalin had a brainwave in 1932. Send all the pesky 20 year olds in the Young Communist League who had too much education and with too much time of their hands out to the farthest eastern reaches (but not the coast, right, that would be militarily too risky) of deepest darkest Siberia, to found a new City of Youth on the River Amur.
So here we are, newly arrived in Komsomolsk-na-Amur, where they are brushing things up nicely for the 75th anniversary of this great big social experiment.
For Siberia, it's a really nice place. Huge wide roads, lots of birch trees and of course loads and loads of cement tower blocks. But after 55 hours on the train from Tynda, trawling through mile upon mile of rocks and brush, everything looks good :)
The trip over was actually quite pleasant. We shared our kupe (4 berth sleeper) with a nice unilingual Russian who was very quiet and polite. We taught him how to play the card game Skip-Bo and within three hands was hammering Chris. I have always said that people who live in the lands of loooooong winters make the best card players.
We were briefly joined by a Ukrainian lad who spoke halting English, which was huge excitement for all of us. It was the first lengthy English conversation I have had with someone other than Chris since leaving.
We really went through the back of the back of beyond the last few days. Damn isolated. Even more than the village I grew up in (ha ha ). Funnily enough, though, I felt really at home as it was quite a lot like northern Saskatchewan landscape wise.
Some places looked so poor. And others abandoned, still with the glorious Soviet slogans and murals, crumbling away...
People stared at us wide-eyed tourists like we had unicorn horns. And wearing tutus. But they are generally very nice, unless you want to buy a ticket. The Russian do tend to yell at you and talk really really fast as soon as they see you are a foreigner. And man, these people can spot a foreigner at a half mile.
I continue to be amazed by the women's hair. I have seen dye jobs and 'do's' unlike anything since drag shows. Or the high days of punk. And on women older than me, I might add, so I doubt it's some national nostalgia for late 70s street style.
Our hotel, in a giant grey high rise of course, has a lovely floor lady with white hair cut over pink and gradating down to burgundy. Zowie! By the way, this is a great thing in Russian hotels. Each floor has a very competent dragon lady who cleans, keeps the keys and basically watches everyone. You do feel really secure with them around - I would dread having to mess with them!
Having already scurried around the great Soviet era mosiacs and statues, we are going to leave tomorrow for Khaborovsk. This is a departure in many ways. Firstly, we are finally turning South to China. And, we are taking the boat!
Ah, beautiful Tynda. Headquarters of the BAM - the northern trans-siberian line.
The highlight of this place is definitely all about the train. The station is quite possible the most beautiful I have ever seen, some sort of Star Trek / Soviet hybrid vision. We had planned to sleep in the train 'rest rooms' - you rent them by 6/12/24 hours, but they were sold out (naturally) and in a cloud of 'nyets!' we took a room in a 'kupe' (second class) train compartment that they had parked up next to Platform one. So just like being back on the train, but not moving! It was great, very convenient. And the station has fantastic massive pipes that lead out, overground, to town - presumably with water, sewage, gas, etc. and lovingly cared for as the swathes of asbestos peeling back from them attest to. Pictures of the above, with the ubiqitous smoke stack, to follow.
They don't get a lot of tourists here. And with this beautiful 1970s Soviet architecture, you have to wonder why! Tall crumbling apartment blocks, huge wide roads with massive ditches that have boards or slabs of concrete thrown across so that you can scramble to the stores, Soviet era public sculptures, and beautiful silver birches trees just starting to bud.
The locals stare in shock and horror at us. I am betting on causing a car accident.
We went in search of a restaurant, and after a lot of hemming and hawing came to Midina. Above a Russian casino, they had turned off the lights in the stairwell to discourage customers. Needless to say, we were the only people there, and the waitress was right pissed off to have someone show up. Asked if the place is open, we get a stony faced 'da' and gesture to the empty room
We buggered off.
Off to the BAM museum next, want to find out just how many Gulag prisoners built this train line.
Next up is a mere 55 hours on to Komsomolsk. We are going second class, in a compartment with four beds, and a door, hurrah. This will be our last super big slog, after that we are going to be doing just one or two day journeys. For which my back is very grateful :-) We do need to stock up on food, though, as unlike the earlier trains there are not hordes of babas selling things - from beer to kapusta perishky - on the side of the platform. Rather, here, the train brings in the supplies to the towns on the way.
I was going to go get whipped by birch branches in the Banya - I could really use a sauna - but it's 7C out, raining, and we are cold, wet and hungry. This is great! I love Siberia.
Internet access here is weird. You have pay for the computer time, and then you pay more for the number of megabytes you download. On the one hand, it's great because if you aren't online you don't have to pay up but jesus does it ever add up fast
We are managing to exist with the net thing being our only English language anything, other than each other and guide books.
Most of the older types speak Russian only or German if a second language at all. My pidgen Polish is only helpful for nouns and numbers but Chris is picking up Cryllic like a native.
Me I just swear in Ukrainian, so a belated thanks! to all those old farmers back in Wishart Saskatchewan
We have washed up on the shores of Lake Baikal, on the Northern, less visited (hillbilly) end of the lake.
Damn is it quiet, and is it ever isolated. The lake is surrounded by ice capped mountains, and the trees are only just now starting to bud - Spring is just about to spring.
We arrived today via Krasnoyarsk, after a mere 26 hours on the train. This time, we went 'kupe' or second class, so we had a cabin with four beds, better mattresses, and after I kicked out a baba trying to freeload up a class, we had the whole room to ourselves! It was great, a real change after the 57 hours in third class from Moscow to Tomsk.
We are having some serious language and communication issues, mostly because the Russians in their inimitable dour, sour, stony way just love to say NYET NYET NYET. We 'think' we should be able to get a ticket out of here to Tynda tomorrow or the next day.
We are still 4 days straight travel to Vladivostock, and our visas end June 2 so we have to pick up our skirts and fly...
Otherwise, I think we would both be happy to just spent a week or two hanging out by this lake.
Imagine. 20% of the world's fresh water in one lake. I can't wait to pee in it.
We left Moscow on Sunday, after staying up way too late watching the outrageous Eurovision. I was very outraged, as France should have won, and I thought England's entry was fab.
At least the vodka was good.
Sunday we just chucked our bags into left luggage - in this not-so-paranoid/careful part of the world you can still leave your bags everywhere! Then we raced off to see Lenin, and of course the entire Red Square was closed (at least we got to see the famous Red Square gates)
Then we spent hours roaming around the Kremlin. I was especially thrilled to see the Black Madonna icon - or copy of - and the Jesus of the Fiery Eye icon. They aare are pretty incredible. Like, really, what the were the artists thinking??
After lunch at My My (Moo Moo - for which I want a franchise) we saddled up and went off to Yaroslavl station with our knapsacks on our backs, and boarded with supplies on the Tomya train
Three. Days. On. The. Train....
She does it all.
And runs the car we are in with an iron fist.
Shushing the drunk army dudes, checking that errant English tourists are still on the train when we leave a station, stoking up the samovar, keeping the sellers that crowd every platform at every stop at a reasonable distance, keeping the place spotless...and generally just being Big Boss.
Providenistas rock
Chris had some fans on the train. These are the two intensely bored, seriously giggly girls who were supposedly serving in the dining car.
The dining car was run by a fussy, irritating little jobsworth that instantly disliked us foreigners. And this is the guy that didn't let us just sit in the car to play cards or games - very desirable when you are stuck in a tiny space with six people.
The dining car was horribly overpriced, you couldn't smoke and couldn't just drink
No one went, needless to say.
Also needless to say, I was not so popular with the gals.
I really really cannot believe I didn't buy the KISS matruschka doll.
It had Gene Simmons with all the other members inside leading to a naked groupie then a tiny bottle of JB. Sigh
This market seller had variations of everything and everyone you can think of, from the Blue Jays to Baywatch.
No wonder woman or Star Wars though, but judging by his interest, i am fairly confident of gettting those when next in Moscow
