The Trans-Siberian Railway: Moscow to Irkutsk

It was there before we knew it. We packed our bags in preperation and went to the kitchen in preperation for whatever intriguing concoction was rustled up for breakfast this morning. It was Russian pancakes, which was a nice surprise. They were pretty much the same as any pancake but quite small. After devouring 2 plates worth, we gathered all our belonging and marched off in the direction of Yaroslavsky station. Unfortunately, the weather had turned so it was a rather miserable day, the rain was just about holding off though. As ever we were far to keen for our own good, arriving at the station with a good 2 hours to kill before departure. So our time was spent being moved around by a security guard as we were always in the way and posing for a photograph each with our train ticket. The time eventually came and the train pulled painfully slowly into the station. After showing our ticket to the provodnitsa (carriage attendant) we were on to find our bunks. We had opted for 2nd class or "kupe", which is 4 beds in one compartment. The other options were 1st class which has 2 beds in one compartment or 3rd class which has 54 beds in an open carriage. Not long after we'd got in our roommates were in too. We'd got rather lucky, they were tourists too, going all the way to Irkutsk with us.

The train chugged out of the station bang on time, beginning its journey to Chita, a city in the Far East of Russia. For the first couple of hours we sat and got to know our roommates. They were Fleur (spelling probably not correct) and Annabel (spelling probably not correct, sorry, just incase you ever happen to stumble across this blog) and they were from the Netherlands. 

There's not a great deal of things I can write about the next 4 days, without being incredibly boring and saying we did a crossword, so I'll just try to pick out a few of our highlights.

It started out fairly warm outside, when we had the opportunity to hop off at stops, buy some fruit and provisions from the Babushkas selling all sorts of stuff and stretch our legs and take some photos of trains and signs.

We also met a few other people who deserve a credit that made the trip more bearable, although their names may have been forgotten along the way. Such as Anatoly the Russian, with whom we had a rather painful conversation with in the Dining Car one evening. He spoke very little English and our Russian is hardly fluent, so a Brazilian called Lucas had to do some translating for us. Chris and wife (sorry), who were also from the Netherlands, on their honeymoon and we played a couple of strange dice games with them and our room mates a few times. Leah and mother (sorry) who were from France, with Leah currently working in Southampton. And Johanna from Finland, who was forced to join us one evening in the dining car due the waitress needing a spare table.

By the time we'd reached the city of Barabinsk on the third evening, there was a noticeable chill in the air. I was regretting the decision to go for shorts for the half hour stop. By this time, the already grumpy provodnitsa was so fed up with being asked to lock our cabin that she just gave the key to us to lock it ourselves. The next big stop later that night was Novosibirsk, which is the biggest city in Siberia. It was very cold here and this was only in October, I wouldn't want to stick around to see what January is like. This time, a pair of comfy lounge trousers did the trick and kept the cold off, even if I did receive a few funny looks from the Russians on the station. We made an attempt to get a bottle of water and a small coke at this stop, through one of the tiny kiosk holes that you have to bend to speak through. They use a calculator to show you the price as they can't speak English. We were shocked when he presented us with his calculator and it read 2500 Roubles. Boy did we laugh, 25 quid? You must be joking. I said no way, took it from him and wrote down 250.0 (he obviously didn't understand the decimal point), to which he screamed "NO!!!!" and then preceded to tap in 250.00. We paid and left Derek Trotter and his dodgy calculator to his kiosk, even 250 Roubles was slightly expensive but on a freezing station platform in the middle of Siberia, beggars can't be choosers. We chose a different kiosk to stock up on some chocolately treats, which contained a lovely lady who actually spoke quite good English, it might just be that Mars Bar and Maltesers are the same in Russian as they are in English though.

It's a rather nice sensation to get rocked to sleep by the train as it rattles through the Siberian countryside. The beds were extremely comfortable but the room could get a bit toasty with 4 bodies, the heating on and grumpy provodnitsa lady having locked the window opposite us because we kept opening it.

Every morning the waitress would come along the carriage with a tray of freshly baked (probably microwaved) pastries for us to purchase. We declined politely on the first day but the next morning used it as an opportunity to try out our mastery of the Russian language, two, thank you, please and you're welcome was all we could handle (the latter 2 are exactly the same word) but we still manage to procure ourselves a sausage roll and a beefy ricey sort of pie thing, freshly bakerowaved, they were really tasty, nothing like a sausage roll while your still tucked up under your duvet.

One problem we encountered along the way the time differences. There are 9 time zones in Russia, so for example when it's 12 o'clock in Moscow, it's 5pm in Irkutsk, simple, as Irkutsk is 5 hours ahead. However, all the trains run on Moscow time only. Madness. If you're catching a train in Irkutsk and it says it leaves at 12 o'clock on your ticket, it is actually leaving at 5pm local time. Just bananas! Anyway, this led to all sorts of confusion over what the time was wherever we were. I tried to keep up with the time changes despite not knowing for sure when they changed, whereas Charlotte and the others decided stick with Moscow time, so they knew when the stops would be. I mainly did it just to be annoying and took great pleasure when asking or being asked "what's the time?" To replying or hearing "Moscow time or actual time", when you are 2000km away from Moscow. It's actually a really strange feeling heading that way round the world, the days seem to be over so quickly as you are always moving in the opposite direction to the sun. We did end up with a very mild form of jet lag.

Long the final full day we started to see the odd patch of snow here and there along the side of the tracks but it wasn't really anything to be excited about. The final large city before we reached our destination, was Krasnoyarsk. Here we had another long stop, equipped with our pyjama bottoms and anoraks once more, we headed for a browse around the station. We made it as far as the entrance to the station and didn't fancy venturing any further as it was pouring with rain. I'm sure on a lovely summers day Krasnoyarsk is a sight to behold but on a miserable rainy day in October, I was glad we hadn't decided to stay the night. As we were standing on the brink of the rain, a man came up behind us and started chatting to us. At first we had no idea what he was saying but eventually realised he was talking English, not something we were really expecting. We went through the usual tourist tattle of where have you been etc. and he was really surprised to find out we had been on the train all the way from Moscow. He had been doing short jumps from major city to major city. We stood atop the steps leading down to Krasnoyarsk and wished him well as he braved the rain, expecting to never see him again. After a few snaps of the station and the locomotive doing all the work at the front we settled back down into our cosy cabin to finish our 4 day train ride to Irkutsk.

As we got closer, the snow started to get more and more and we were rather excited to arrive and experience the infamous cold temperatures of Siberia. We hopped off at a final station to grab a quick photo of a statue, in such a rush, that we neglected to put our shoes on and Charlotte forgetting her coat. It was freezing and wet but we knew we'd appreciate the warmth of the train so much more when we got back on the train. A cursory glance at our Lonely Planet book when we got back on the train, informed us that the last time they had been to that particular station, a policeman had arrested their author for taking photographs of the platform. Maybe we should read things like that before we rush in to things.

As we were still sort of on Moscow time, we all got an early night, as our train was due in at 03:30. Although, this actually meant it arrived at 08:30 Irkutsk time, which is perfectly reasonable. Somehow we managed a good night sleep and woke to a fresh blanket of snow. It was like waking up to a white Christmas (I would imagine). We pulled in slightly late at 08:42 but to only lose 12 minutes over 4 days is pretty good going. British trains would have ground to a halt at the first sight of a snowflake. We disembarked, still bobbing up and down from the constant movement of the train and said our goodbyes to our cabin mates.

Off to explore our tiny speck of Siberia and the imperious Lake Baikal.