The soldier and the scientist

Trains are a great way to travel.

You're forced to deal with other people, it's the best and worst of humanity. All across Russia on the Trans-Siberian we travelled in four-berth carriages. Each carriage has a Provoditsna (conductor), usually female, a toilet at each end that's extremely basic and a samovar for boiling water.

Vladivostok to Irkutsk: The Eastern marauders
Hoardes of drunken 20-year-old Russian navy boys stuck on the train for 6 days as they return to their homes on the other side of the country. Nothing to do but drink and congregate around anything that's vaguely novel, ie: Australian tourists. On the other hand, we had the 4-berth cabin to ourselves almost the whole time and Vera, the provoditsna, while shy with us (language barrier), was extremely effective at getting rid of drunken sailors by yelling and physically throwing them out of our compartment when things got a little out of hand.

Irkutsk to Ykaterinberg: Provoking the provoditsna
On the 'Baikal' - regarded by many as the finest train in Russia - we were also fortunate to have the cabin to ourselves the whole time. As we'd been used to on the previous leg of our journey, we clipped the upper bunks back against the wall to give us the feeling of a bit more room in the tiny space. Big mistake. The provoditsna came rampaging in, indicated that we had slept on the upper bunks because we'd tampered with them and started angrily remaking the upper beds, indicating that we would have to pay a fee for using two sets of sheets now! With hand gestures and indignation we tried to explain that she was wrong but it didn't really help things. The rest of the journey she ignored us, and the other Aussie tourists next door, only offering tea & coffee and other benefits, such as the shower (!!) to her fellow Russians in the carriage. Thanks lady.

Ykaterinberg to Moscow: The soldier and the scientist
This train, the 'Ural' is another good one but certainly not as new or schmick as the Baikal. We were sharing our compartment this time with two Russian men, a military guy and a medical scientist. Both of them had paid more than double what we had for tickets, and consequently had all their meals provided in the cabin. At the first stop, the military guy, perhaps thinking we were povvo travellers with our no-frills tickets, got off and bought us beer, vodka, sausage, bacon and smoked fish, isn't that lovely?! He wouldn't share the drinks with us, insisting we have it all to ourselves (we went easy on the vodka!). The other fellow was very quiet, even though he'd spoken a bit of English to us when we boarded. But the next morning he perked up and started telling us about his research into the medical (ill)affects of asbestos, turns out he was on his way to talk at a conference about it. He told us a few places to visit in Moscow, and all in all it was a lovely journey, with some shining examples of Russian hospitality.

Moscow to St Petersburg: Asleep in the snow
We were fortunate to be introduced via another friend to some Muscovites who not only took us to dinner on the night before our train journey, but saw us to the station afterwards and helped us collect our bags from the left luggage depot. As we had actually stuffed up and left our luggage at the depot in the next-door station, (there are three majour train stations in Moscow within spitting distance of each other) this was much appreciated! On the Moscow-St Petersburg (overnight) we were sharing with two women, one older Russian lady and a French girl who was also a tourist. But as the train left at midnight and arrived here at 8am everyone just went to sleep. This leg of the journey was on the Rossia train and was distinguished by a smelly, plastic-covered toilet seat and a male provoditsna. A mercifully uneventful journey and we arrived to find a beautiful snowy St Petersburg playground awaiting us.

And that concludes my account of our train travels in Russia. We caught the bus out of St Petersburg and will not be on the train again for a while... stay tuned.