The Tedium of the Taiga

By day 3, the monotony of the taiga brings on a form of cabin fever.  The day begins and ends with taiga.  Intervals between stops seem longer and I find myself anticipating the stops like a prisoner being let out into an exercise yard. OK, it's not as extreme as that, but getting off the train became a welcome tonic.

In a book I’m reading, "In Siberia" by Colin Thubron, the writer talks of “taiga madness”, a situation wherein travellers get lost in the taiga and walk in circles always returning to their own tracks; also becoming mesmerized by the taiga (whose) “snow-glazed desolation seemed only to deepen its vastness”.

There’s a Russian Railways wagon tagged on to the back of our Mongolian train.  It’s going only as far as the border, the Russian provodnitsa tells me.  The wagon is crowded, the occupants peering off their bunks though the misted windows.  They stream out at every stop, it's no doubt a relief from the steamy ambience inside. 

Ironically, the first stop of the day is a town called Tayga (pop 24,000, founded in 1898 when the railway reached there).  This is followed by Mariinsk (pop 40,000) (named after Maria, wife of Tsar Alexander II), Krasnoyarsk (more about that later), Ilanskaya (pop. 16,000) (famed for its worker uprising against the White Army in December 1918, subsequently put down in brutal fashion - the railway workers had also come out in 1905 and suffered a similar harsh fate) and Nizhneidinsk (pop. 37,000) (whose claim to fame is a POW camp hosted during WWI).

Unfortunately, in most instances, other trains standing in the stations obscure views of the buildings.  The platforms are clean and well swept.  Again, there are no vendors on the platform although there had been a few people selling smoked fish and home baked pies at Novosibirsk the night before.

The area was heavily wooded a hundred years ago and it would been a challenge to cut a path through for the railway.  Now it’s only clumps of skinny taiga that stand in between the wheat fields.  Freight trains are almost the only interruptions to the monotony of scenery.  Every now and then an industrial complex stands out, most look modern with housing blocks around them. 

Previously, the only way to Siberia was along the Trakt which as the name implies was a track. Travelers sat, or rather lay, in a large wooden sledge and got towed along by horses, which were changed every 10 miles or so, depending upon the terrain being traversed.  There were frequent stops consisting usually of a travellers house, a hut for the coachmen, a barn and a hayloft.  It's amazing to think how the railway line changed this so dramatically and bound Siberia to Russia. The Trans-Siberian of course "hurried up the competition for colonial conquest", and gave life to imperial dreams of land and (warm water) ports in Manchuria - until the Japanese ended that ambition with defeat of the Russian army in 1904 - which also marked the beginning of the end for Nicholas II.

We have now crossed 4 time zones. I cannot remember ever crossing a time zone travelling along the ground.  Krasnoyarsk is a highlight of the day.  Having passed through just over 4,000 kilometers of mostly flat land, it is a welcome surprise to see the hills and valleys around the city.  It seems that every piece of land up and down the hillsides, and for some distance approaching and leaving the city, is covered in dachas, which seem closer together than they usually are elsewhere. Being a weekend, there are lots of people out walking or waiting at sidings along the commuter line which runs alongside the main line.  The soil is still frozen so it’s too early to contemplate work at the dacha. The track curves on its way through the hills and this makes it possible to catch glimpses of the front of the train for the first time.

The wagon attendants have also voted on the cuisine in the Russian dining car; several of them have pooled resources and gather around a portable slow cooker to indulge in a home-made stew.  If the stew has been made in Mongolia it could be either beef, goat, lamb or horse. One can smell the flavor and the fat from the other end of the wagon.