RUSSIA BY TRAIN
They don't allow you to open the windows on this train. When I asked why I was told that it's bad for you. They didn't give me any specific reason so I was wondering that maybe the boubonic plague could be in the air and maybe that is the reason why they wouldn't let us open the windows. Also we were going through many wooded areas. They have a certain type of tic in the forests that is very dangerous and could kill you if one happen to get on you.
They had an air-condition system on the train. They would turn it on for about two minutes and then turn it off. I thought that was very stingy of them, but it is a very poor
Rural Scene
country and they had to conserve this luxury. That night before we went to bed we had to change the time on our watches since we would be in a different time zone by morning. I found it to be very claustrophobic at night with the windows shut. It was kind of hot and I had the feeling of being smothered. On the first night I woke up with a very claustrophobic feeling so I opened the door. That didn't do any good. There was no circulating air anywhere. I realized there was no changing the system so I fell back to sleep.
The next morning I got up and went to breakfast. The menu was three eggs sunny-side up in a metal dish that they were cooked in. There was dill and cilantro on top of the eggs. Bread and butter was also served along with coffee and tea.
The first stop of the day was a city called Krasnoyarsk which is the third largest city in Siberia and is situated on the Yenisea River.
Krasnoyarsk
There were quite a few old ladies at the station selling home-made food, garlic, onions and other things. They are called babushkas, which means 'grandmother' in Russian.
A Grandmother Selling at the Train Station
For lunch we had borscht and some kind of hamburger with patatoes and ketchup. Also a few peas were served with this meal.
We stopped at a city called Novosibirsk. It was raiing lightly outside. Paul and I went into the train station. There were a lot of people milling around. Upstairs there was a large area where moe people were waiting for their train. There must have been at least five hundred people there sitting in chairs. I don't know what I looked like to them. I don't think I looked American. I was sporting a fu manchu mustache back then with a short goatee. I was wearing dark clothes with no writing on it and no buttons.
Novosibirsk Station
That day we passed miles and miles of villages, people and forests. It rained on and off and the sun was out alot. It was all beautiful. This was Russia.
For dinner that night we had halibut with macaroni topped with dill and flat leafed parsley.
The next morning we had gone through two more time zones. The night before we set our watches back two hours.
As we got closer to Moscow I noticed a few changes in the scenery. For one thing there were more fields under cultivation. Instead of small family gardens next to their houses, now there were large fields with some kind of crop growing in them. It could be some kind of grain. I couldn't tell. In some of the fields there were round bales of hay made by farm machinery. Farther back in Siberia the people cut their grass by hand using a sickle or a scythe and they made hay stacks.
There were more stone and brick buildings. We passed many sunflowers in full bloom in people's private gardens. I also noticed in some areas the houses were bigger. Some even had a car parked beside them.
Breakfast was crepes with butter, jam, cheese, ham and coffee. That was very good.
Before I came on this trip I had heard all the horror stories about the bathrooms on these trains. That there was no toilet paper and that they stink, and that they are not very pleasant. On the train that I was on there was always toilet paper in the bathroom. The people of Russia do need to learn something about toilet deodorizers. Or maybe they feel that a bathroom is supposed to smell like human waste. Other then that the ladies taking care of our car had been great. They were pleasant and hard working. One of them was named Oxanna and she lived in Irkutsk. She had been doing this a few years. During each shift they would vacuum the rug outside the cabins, and then get down on their hands and knees and scrub the floor on both ends of the car where there was no rug. If your door was opened they will come in and vacuum your rug and straighten it out.
These train ladies didn't speak or understand too much English. They were young and attractive and were always smiling and seemed to be in a good mood.
We stopped in a town called Tyumen for about fifteen minutes. There weren't as many ladies selling food as the previous day. Tyumen is the oldest settlement in Siberia, founded in 1885. It is also the place where Czar Nicholas ordered some peasants to be shot by his soldiers to stop an uprising back in 1917.
Train Station at Tyumen
There were some soldiers on the train who were on their way to Afganastan. Once or twice a day they would walk through our car.
Two Korean journalists came in our cabin with a movie camera and started taking pictures and asking our impressions on the lake. There is another film crew from Poland that we met a few days earlier in the dining car. We drank some vodka with them for awhile. They had been filming a documentary of Lake Baikal for the last few weeks and were on their way home.
As we were traveling through Tyumen I saw a spectacular sight of classic simple cottages with tin roofs and fenced gardens with poatatoes growing in them. Then off in the distance there was the most magnificent Russian Orthodox Church. It was white with blue onion domes. It was awe inspiring.
Russian Church
MORE RUSSIAN COUNTRY-SIDE
This is how the farmers stack their hay. They first put a pallet made of logs down on the ground. Then they nail a pole to the middle of the pallet and then nail two boards to the pole for support on either side. Then they stack the hay around the pole. When they have finished the stacking they put birch twigs on top of it. I don't know why they do this but it is done everywhere in the country that I have seen. When they want to move the hay they hitch a horse to the pallet and pull it to where they want it.
For lunch it was a salad of tomatoes, onions and cucumbers with mayonnaise. Then fish soup with carrots, potatoes and rice. It wasn't too bad. There was no fish in mine; just fish skin which I didn't eat. Probably there for flavoring. Then came a turkey leg, mashed potatoes and tomato slices with cucumbers. Desert was wafer cookies and coffee.
The next stop was Yekaterinberg which was founded and named after Catherine the Great. In this town Czar Nicholas and his family were murdered by the communists. There is now a church built on the spot where they were killed. It is called The Church On Blood. Yekaterinberg is also the place where the American U2 airplane was shot down in the early 1960's and where Boris Yeltson was born.
Church in Yekaterinberg
At three-thirty in the afternoon July 18, 2000 we entered Europe. There is an obelisk at the 1777 marker on the left side of the tracks that marks the border between Asia and Europe. It is near the Ural Mountains.
Obelisk at Euro-Asia Boundry
It was a sunny day and many people were out with sickles and scythes cutting grass, raking it and making haystacks. There were other people sitting and standing by the railroad tracks in the villages that we passed. Some were sitting around in the woods around a little bon-fire where they were cooking something. We passed some hundred year old log cabins. Some sinking into the ground. One building had some graffiti written on it in plain view of the train. It said, 'fock off'. Everywhere out the windows of the train are the scenes of Russia. A grandma Moses type painter is needed there to get down on canvas all these old fashioned scenes before they disappear forever.
Russian Church
Motorcycles with a side car is a very common sight in Russia. There were more Russian Orthodox Churches now dotting the landscape. It was becoming a game now. When ever anyone saw one they would alert everyone else, and they would all get up to look at it.
Buildings
Most of the houses had corrugated tin roofs. I saw a few old houses that had wooden boards on the roof the way they built them decades ago. The boards were placed vertically from the peak of the roof to the bottom. They would put tarpaper on the boards and then use tar to seal it. I didn't see any complete roofs done the old way, just remnants of tarpaper on some of the older buildings.
Clickity-clack, clickety-clack, clickity-clack. That is the sound that the train makes as it goes down the tracks twenty four hours a day. In a way it is a soothing sound. There were qite a few of green houses at farms along the way. This is where the tomatoes and cucumbers were grown. This method of growing is used because there is a short growing season in Russia. The green houses are made of a simple structure of wood nailed together in the shape of a box and clear plastic tacked on all sides.
For dinner that night it began with a salad of finely chopped cucumber, corn, imitation crab meat and mayonnaise. The main entree was pork goulash with sour pickles. It was very good. For desert it was vanilla ice cream with jam.
Of course, Paul brought some vodka which he has every evening. I had three shot glasses, and a glass of wine from Gene which was very good. After that we went back to our cabins and set our watches back two more hours. Then it was time to start getting ready for bed. We stopped at a town called Perm for about eighteen minutes. Someone was selling packets of postcards for 1$US. This was the first time on this whole trip that someone want U.S. money. Thus far everything I bought was with Rubles.
Perm
I woke up the next morning at 4:30. It was light out. I got up and looked out the window as usual. Not many people were up at that hour. There were only a few cutting grass.
Breakfast was brown bread with cheese, fishcakes also with cheese served with sour cream on the side. Jelly was on the table along with some kind of orange drink. After this the coffee came. This breakfast was very filling.
They don't allow you to open the windows on this train. When I asked why I was told that it's bad for you. They didn't give me any specific reason so I was wondering that maybe the boubonic plague could be in the air and maybe that is the reason why they wouldn't let us open the windows. Also we were going through many wooded areas. They have a certain type of tic in the forests that is very dangerous and could kill you if one happen to get on you.
They had an air-condition system on the train. They would turn it on for about two minutes and then turn it off. I thought that was very stingy of them, but it is a very poor
Rural Scene
country and they had to conserve this luxury. That night before we went to bed we had to change the time on our watches since we would be in a different time zone by morning. I found it to be very claustrophobic at night with the windows shut. It was kind of hot and I had the feeling of being smothered. On the first night I woke up with a very claustrophobic feeling so I opened the door. That didn't do any good. There was no circulating air anywhere. I realized there was no changing the system so I fell back to sleep.
The next morning I got up and went to breakfast. The menu was three eggs sunny-side up in a metal dish that they were cooked in. There was dill and cilantro on top of the eggs. Bread and butter was also served along with coffee and tea.
The first stop of the day was a city called Krasnoyarsk which is the third largest city in Siberia and is situated on the Yenisea River.
Krasnoyarsk
There were quite a few old ladies at the station selling home-made food, garlic, onions and other things. They are called babushkas, which means 'grandmother' in Russian.
A Grandmother Selling at the Train Station
For lunch we had borscht and some kind of hamburger with patatoes and ketchup. Also a few peas were served with this meal.
We stopped at a city called Novosibirsk. It was raiing lightly outside. Paul and I went into the train station. There were a lot of people milling around. Upstairs there was a large area where moe people were waiting for their train. There must have been at least five hundred people there sitting in chairs. I don't know what I looked like to them. I don't think I looked American. I was sporting a fu manchu mustache back then with a short goatee. I was wearing dark clothes with no writing on it and no buttons.
Novosibirsk Station
That day we passed miles and miles of villages, people and forests. It rained on and off and the sun was out alot. It was all beautiful. This was Russia.
For dinner that night we had halibut with macaroni topped with dill and flat leafed parsley.
The next morning we had gone through two more time zones. The night before we set our watches back two hours.
As we got closer to Moscow I noticed a few changes in the scenery. For one thing there were more fields under cultivation. Instead of small family gardens next to their houses, now there were large fields with some kind of crop growing in them. It could be some kind of grain. I couldn't tell. In some of the fields there were round bales of hay made by farm machinery. Farther back in Siberia the people cut their grass by hand using a sickle or a scythe and they made hay stacks.
There were more stone and brick buildings. We passed many sunflowers in full bloom in people's private gardens. I also noticed in some areas the houses were bigger. Some even had a car parked beside them.
Breakfast was crepes with butter, jam, cheese, ham and coffee. That was very good.
Before I came on this trip I had heard all the horror stories about the bathrooms on these trains. That there was no toilet paper and that they stink, and that they are not very pleasant. On the train that I was on there was always toilet paper in the bathroom. The people of Russia do need to learn something about toilet deodorizers. Or maybe they feel that a bathroom is supposed to smell like human waste. Other then that the ladies taking care of our car had been great. They were pleasant and hard working. One of them was named Oxanna and she lived in Irkutsk. She had been doing this a few years. During each shift they would vacuum the rug outside the cabins, and then get down on their hands and knees and scrub the floor on both ends of the car where there was no rug. If your door was opened they will come in and vacuum your rug and straighten it out.
These train ladies didn't speak or understand too much English. They were young and attractive and were always smiling and seemed to be in a good mood.
We stopped in a town called Tyumen for about fifteen minutes. There weren't as many ladies selling food as the previous day. Tyumen is the oldest settlement in Siberia, founded in 1885. It is also the place where Czar Nicholas ordered some peasants to be shot by his soldiers to stop an uprising back in 1917.
Train Station at Tyumen
There were some soldiers on the train who were on their way to Afganastan. Once or twice a day they would walk through our car.
Two Korean journalists came in our cabin with a movie camera and started taking pictures and asking our impressions on the lake. There is another film crew from Poland that we met a few days earlier in the dining car. We drank some vodka with them for awhile. They had been filming a documentary of Lake Baikal for the last few weeks and were on their way home.
As we were traveling through Tyumen I saw a spectacular sight of classic simple cottages with tin roofs and fenced gardens with poatatoes growing in them. Then off in the distance there was the most magnificent Russian Orthodox Church. It was white with blue onion domes. It was awe inspiring.
Russian Church
MORE RUSSIAN COUNTRY-SIDE
This is how the farmers stack their hay. They first put a pallet made of logs down on the ground. Then they nail a pole to the middle of the pallet and then nail two boards to the pole for support on either side. Then they stack the hay around the pole. When they have finished the stacking they put birch twigs on top of it. I don't know why they do this but it is done everywhere in the country that I have seen. When they want to move the hay they hitch a horse to the pallet and pull it to where they want it.
For lunch it was a salad of tomatoes, onions and cucumbers with mayonnaise. Then fish soup with carrots, potatoes and rice. It wasn't too bad. There was no fish in mine; just fish skin which I didn't eat. Probably there for flavoring. Then came a turkey leg, mashed potatoes and tomato slices with cucumbers. Desert was wafer cookies and coffee.
The next stop was Yekaterinberg which was founded and named after Catherine the Great. In this town Czar Nicholas and his family were murdered by the communists. There is now a church built on the spot where they were killed. It is called The Church On Blood. Yekaterinberg is also the place where the American U2 airplane was shot down in the early 1960's and where Boris Yeltson was born.
Church in Yekaterinberg
At three-thirty in the afternoon July 18, 2000 we entered Europe. There is an obelisk at the 1777 marker on the left side of the tracks that marks the border between Asia and Europe. It is near the Ural Mountains.
Obelisk at Euro-Asia Boundry
It was a sunny day and many people were out with sickles and scythes cutting grass, raking it and making haystacks. There were other people sitting and standing by the railroad tracks in the villages that we passed. Some were sitting around in the woods around a little bon-fire where they were cooking something. We passed some hundred year old log cabins. Some sinking into the ground. One building had some graffiti written on it in plain view of the train. It said, 'fock off'. Everywhere out the windows of the train are the scenes of Russia. A grandma Moses type painter is needed there to get down on canvas all these old fashioned scenes before they disappear forever.
Russian Church
Motorcycles with a side car is a very common sight in Russia. There were more Russian Orthodox Churches now dotting the landscape. It was becoming a game now. When ever anyone saw one they would alert everyone else, and they would all get up to look at it.
Buildings
Most of the houses had corrugated tin roofs. I saw a few old houses that had wooden boards on the roof the way they built them decades ago. The boards were placed vertically from the peak of the roof to the bottom. They would put tarpaper on the boards and then use tar to seal it. I didn't see any complete roofs done the old way, just remnants of tarpaper on some of the older buildings.
Clickity-clack, clickety-clack, clickity-clack. That is the sound that the train makes as it goes down the tracks twenty four hours a day. In a way it is a soothing sound. There were qite a few of green houses at farms along the way. This is where the tomatoes and cucumbers were grown. This method of growing is used because there is a short growing season in Russia. The green houses are made of a simple structure of wood nailed together in the shape of a box and clear plastic tacked on all sides.
For dinner that night it began with a salad of finely chopped cucumber, corn, imitation crab meat and mayonnaise. The main entree was pork goulash with sour pickles. It was very good. For desert it was vanilla ice cream with jam.
Of course, Paul brought some vodka which he has every evening. I had three shot glasses, and a glass of wine from Gene which was very good. After that we went back to our cabins and set our watches back two more hours. Then it was time to start getting ready for bed. We stopped at a town called Perm for about eighteen minutes. Someone was selling packets of postcards for 1$US. This was the first time on this whole trip that someone want U.S. money. Thus far everything I bought was with Rubles.
Perm
I woke up the next morning at 4:30. It was light out. I got up and looked out the window as usual. Not many people were up at that hour. There were only a few cutting grass.
Breakfast was brown bread with cheese, fishcakes also with cheese served with sour cream on the side. Jelly was on the table along with some kind of orange drink. After this the coffee came. This breakfast was very filling.
posted by THE REAL MIKE BAILEY at 4:32 AM
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