Life on the Train

We have a 4 berth cabin between the 3 of us. On the first leg we shared with a Russian named Yuri but he was not very communicative. You never know whether another passenger will arrive in the middle of night or day, but we hope not as there is not exactly an abundance of room. However we feel as if it's 1st class after walking through 8 carriages to have a drink in the dining car this afternoon. We walked through 3rd class which are long carriages with 54 bunks, all in together, If you can picture all those people, most eating salami or cooking noodles, lolling on bunks, giving baleful stares as we pass you can imagine why it's earned the nickname the "gulag". The atmosphere was stale enough only 2 days out. I'd rather not be there at the end of the 8 day trip to Moscow. Remember the cabins are overheated to the high 20s and there are no washing facilities except a basin in the 2 toilets.

At the end of each carriage is a samovar with a constant supply of boiling water. People squeeze past in the narrow, swaying corridor with mugs of coffee and bowls of boiling instant noodles. Enough to make an O,H & S official in Australia tremble. An essential item is a metal water bottle which you can fill, let it cool, then use for drinking water. At first it is too hot to hold so this time I brought an old thick sock to put it in for handling. Brilliant idea! You can buy meals in the dining car, but apart from the trek to get
there, the quality of our supermarket picnics (bread, cheese, honey, salami, berries, yoghurt etc) is superior. And the space between carriages makes a great cool room - perfect for solving the problem of keeping Wally's beer cold. Unfortunately the babushkas who sell platform food in summer aren't here, but who can blame them. PS we have since discovered they are no longer allowed - "sanitation regulation". Apparently O H & S does exist here after all.

We have been talking to Ludmilla from the next cabin. She Is a teacher of law and economics from Chita. She heard us speaking English and introduced herself so she could practise hers. There is also a delightful 7 year old girl traveling with her grandmother. She has been trying to teach me to count in Russian - she must think Australians are dumb. We have have also made friends with Alexander, an engineer, who arrived in our cabin at 1am, and Serge, a lawyer from Chita who speaks a little English.

Today's image is John, Wally and Ludmilla doing what one does most of the time on the TSR - gazing out the window. Fortunately the windows on this side of the corridor were slightly cleaner.