Wow, what an incredible trip of a lifetime!
We left Moscow in the early morning and settled in to our cabins that would be our homes for the next few days.
The sheer thought of being confined to a train compartment for six days might sound like a lifetime but it was over before I felt like it had begun. We all settled into a happy life of eating, talking, and watching the world pass by and change all around us.
The train was comfortable but basic: four to a room, with narrow firm beds; hot water boiler on each carriage; dining car; and two toilets that went straight down to the tracks. Smoking is allowed, but only in the space between carriages.
Each time the train stops, whether it be for two minutes of one hour we made an excuse to wander around the platform (but never far from the train). The stations were usually lined with stalls selling all sorts of food from hotdogs to smoked fish - and of course, lots of instant noodles, vodka and beer. The old babushkas would appear with homemade pickles, fresh fruits, pastries and other assortments of food - all home made or hand picked.
For almost the whole journey the scenery consisted of ‘tiega’ a word which essentially means endless forests of birch and makes up the majority of the Russian landscape.
We also pass a lot of farm land and eventually on day two of the train journey we leave Europe behind and venture into the Asian side of Russia (the white marker in the photo below).
Every now and again we see signs on thousands of huge drums that read 'бензин’, which I later manage to translate to Benzine when I get the hang of Cyrillic.
We end up playing a lot of card games such as Uno, Shithead or Poker. Almost every night we get very drunk on vodka, so much so that one night we stay up late, make too much noise and one of the Aussies pukes and the train attendants calls the police who get on at the next station demanding us off the train - we negotiate to put all the alcohol away and keep the noise down and have a catastrophe averted.
The train moves on through different time zones but the train, and us, are still running on Moscow time and so we start slipping into late mornings and late nights.
On day three we’re travelling along the Khazakhstan border and through Omsk. Dan reads us all Paddington the Bear, but using an assortment of voices including a guest appearance fromTony Montana as “Paddin’ton tha Bhear!” - apparently Cuban was the closest Dan could get, geographically, to Deepest Darkest Peru.
The afternoon of day four people started to get a little tired, I spent the afternoon reading and writing in the dining car, watching the salt and pepper pots shake and listening to Cotton Eye Joe playing on the dining car radio with two Russians sitting on the table next to me playing chess.
Only two more days till Irkutsk - the capital of Eastern Siberia!
Photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/14859193@N07/sets/72157635563466404/