Sunday, September 25, 2011

TRAIN LIFE

TRAIN LIFE

Ok, so this was it, the longest stretch of the real Trans-Siberian, 4 days straight of life in motion. I loaded up with snacks and supplies (basically noodles and vodka) but any hopes of a repeat of the touristy "woo I'm on a train" atmosphere of the previous legs were quickly dashed as I moved in to my cabin with Anotolli, Leba, and Illia. Hmm, this is a very Russian train...


Don't be fooled. There were no other tourists on my train, this is just the only shot I have of the 4-berth cabin that was my home for some 8 nights in total...

Unlike the Mongolian and Chinese legs of the journey, the locals actually use this train as a legitimate means of transport across their country, and in typical Russian style, my cab-inmates quickly dispersed with stiff formalities such as pants, and I was soon surrounded by half-naked Russkis sprawled over my lower bunk, nattering away like henchmen in a Bond film. Of course I didn't understand a word, and beyond a daily conversation at some point in the morning along the lines of

"Privyet. Kak di la?" (Hello. How are you?)
"Khorosho, spaciba". (Fine, thank you.)
"Kak di LA?" (How are YOU?")
"Khorosho. Spaciba." (Nod, smile then return to gazing out window)

we didn't interact much. I've rarely if ever been little more than 3 feet away from somebody for 4 days and yet known absolutely nothing about them by the end of it (apart from the fact Illia prefers Y-fronts to boxers, and Anotolli has a chronic lung condition and some serious gas...)

Siberia from the window...

As the sun faded on my first evening on the train, I soaked in my first glimpses of the real Siberia, the birch trees whizzing and whirring past in kaleidoscope of brown and green as I digested the first of many beef noodle meals. I drifted off to a soundtrack of clackety-clack and Russian chit-chat (no doubt they were plotting to take over a nuclear sub or whatever it is Russians talk about), not to wake for another 10 hours. I'm not exactly sure if we kept moving during that time however as when I peered out the window everything appeared to be exactly the same. Ah yes. Siberia is a big place...

More Siberia. More little wooden houses. More trees.

Everybody knows that Siberia get's bone-chillingly cold, but I can vouch for the fact that it also has some blazing summers, which I was experiencing the last remnants of. Russians are a hard lot, and of course there's no A/C on board so your skin sticks to that God-awful brown plastic leather, which gets baking hot in the sun (it is particularly noticeable when nobody ever wears shirts...). In winter you may well get frostbite of the torso sitting on the train but at least the human funk element of the journey would probably not be so prevalent. Geez, it's the morning of day 2, and already this place is getting noxious with no shower in site for another 72 hours... Anotolli's constant farting which could wake the dead but which he never acknowledges apart from a flippant wave of the hand over his buttocks, is not helping the situation.

Old mate pretty much sums up Russian men's fashion. In fact he's overdressed.

So. What to do. I've already stared out the window for several hours, and yep, Siberia is remarkably similar along it's length so far as I can tell. Trees. Birch trees to be specific. Lots of them. Thank God I brought a fat book with me; the Count of Monte Christo proved to be my only escape from what quickly become utter boredom, the tedium only broken by regular 5min stops at some, perhaps most, of the more than 800 stops along the length of the Trans-Siberian. This fact alone gives some indication as to why it takes so bloody long to get to Moscow. It is definitely not called the Trans-Siberian EXPRESS...

Another forgettable middle of nowhere train station that we stopped at.

These regular 5 minute stops present a problem in and of themselves as belying their lack of consideration for appropriate clothing and bodily functions, the Russians are most polite when it comes to their toilet etiquette. The provodnitsa, or wagon hostess, locks the toilets half an hour before and after any stop lest any sewerage is dumped within the vicinity of the town. An honorable notion indeed but considering we were pretty much stopping every hour, it meant very tight windows of toilet availability. Consider the fact that your diet basically consists of a constant intake of instant noodles and countless cups of instant coffee and tea (think diuretics) courtesy of the samovar (hot water dispenser). I hence spent much time pleading with my provodnitsa to open the toilets via the international sign language of crossed legs and a desperate, pained expression. It was probably the most meaningful communication I enjoyed...
The samovar (hot water dispenser) found in each carriage. Guess what it's powered by? Burning wood of course. Probably birch...

It seemed appropriate in any case to experience such suffering, as Siberia is almost synonymous with pain and human tragedy (ok, its a long bow to draw, but I needed a segue-way...). Our old friend Ghenghis Khan had swept across these lands in the 13th century displacing entire civilizations and pushing them westwards, the Magyars for example were pushed from central Asia all the way to Hungary which is why Hungarian is unlike any of the other European languages. Similarly the Turks were from modern Kazakstan before claiming Turkey for themselves. The Mongols controlled all of European Russia at their height, before their empire imploded and fractured into a disparate group of individual warlords scattered across Asia. (Some of these lasted several centuries however, for example the Moghuls who brought Islam, built the Taj Mahal and controlled most of India until the Brits arrived several hundred years later.)

More Siberia. More little wooden houses. More trees. Getting the picture?

After a fledgling Russia pushed the Mongols past the Urals, things got a little messy. A Khan descendent rose an army to claim back part of the Russian Siberian lands, and despite the Tsar ("Caesar" in Russian) doing nothing, the noble families of the conquered territories raised a private army, a ruthless band of mercenaries who proceeded to literally wipe entire civilizations off the map, committing genocide on a huge scale as they successfully forged eastward. The Tsar had joined in by this stage thinking it was a grand idea, and his successors continued Russian expansion over the ensuing centuries, usually via forced extradition for the most petty of crimes. Fyodor Dostoyevsky being one of the more famous extradites. These labour camps formed to open up Siberia for development were the first of the infamous Gulags which were to reach their zenith (or nadir you might argue) under Stalin in the 1930's. (Stalin himself had taken refuge in Siberia as a young man when suspected of his revolutionary tendencies...)


Trick photo. This is back in Mongolia. But it's such a nicer landscape...

Millions have died out here under brutal working conditions, a good chunk of them involved with building the railway I'm travelling on, and countless more from the harsh environment. Stalin famously shipped entire populations from Western Russia who he feared may be sympathetic to the Nazis following their brutal treatment at his hand, to Siberia in the height of winter and kicked them off the train to die in the -40 degree conditions. All in all, with a history like that, it's no wonder the Russians are so fricking hard. Just try drinking with them...

As alluded to earlier, I'd brought a large bottle of Baikal Vodka anticipating a continuation of the party "woo, we're on a train" atmosphere I'd shared with the other tourists on the preceding legs. Alas on my first foray to the dining car I encountered only shirtless, adidas-trackpanting, skin-headed Russian men.

Shirtless Russian #1: "Where from you?"
Me (flicking through guidebook): "Ya iz Australia."
SR#1: "Avstraliy! Good." (slams mug of vodka on table). "Drink."
Me: "Ah. Spaciba"
SR#2: "What your name?"
Me: " Um, ya Matthew."
SR#2: "Mitt-tew. Good." (slams another almost full mug in front of me). SR#3 (pointing menacingly at mug): "Drink."
Me (getting slightly scared at this point): "Ah, spaciba."
SR#1: "Mitt-tew, Russia you like?"
Me: "The birch trees are lovely..."
SR#2 (new mug already poured): "Good. Drink."
Me (trying to show a little resistance): "Hey that's a fair bit of vodka in that glass..."
SR#3 (ignoring me completely): "Good. Drink."
Me (taking my orders): "Phew. Spaciba again, but hey I think I've had enough for now..."
SR#2 (all over his refilling duties): "Good. Drink."
Me: "Wow, I might head back to my..."
SR#3: "No. Drink."
Me (resistance crushed, resigned to my fate): "Ok..."
SR (pleased): "Good Mitt-tew. Good. Drink."

And so it went. Contrary to what I had believed, Russians don't say "Nostrovia" when they toast, but "Zdarovye", which is basically "to health". Kind of counter-intuitive given the rate and volume of the hard liquour that they consume. When I did finally escape their clutches (i.e. we'd drunk all the vodka), I stumbled back along the 8 carriages that preceded my own, which is hard enough when completely sober and the train isn't moving on a circular track. Huge steel doors seperate the carriages which take a concerted effort to push open, and by God you better take a deep breath before you proceed into the smoking areas in between carriages; it's like a Jamaican limo in there, only more bitter and acrid. I swear you could smoke a fish in there and by the smell of it, I think they probably do. In fact the whole train has a distinct waft of musty, stale fish, not surprising as most Russians on the train, aside from smoking, all seem to bring of dried fish as a staple, or buy it from the platform markets that spring up at every stop. I stuck to my noodles...

Another trick photo. This is the Mongolian dining car, MUCH nicer than the Russian. I was too drunk to take any photos of the Russian dining car, and too scared to go back...

A total drunken slumber sees me wake the next morning with a pounding headache; check the view - yep, more birch trees, still in Siberia... My God, it's day 3 and we're only half way. I'm sweating vodka at 8 in the morning, and our room is getting unbearably funky. I don't know how much longer I can take this... More escapism with the Count of Monte Christo and another long day passes uneventfully, with several stops in non-descript Siberian towns full of quaint little wooden houses (of course they're made of wood) which look like they'd have the insulating properties of a mosquito net. This place must be brutal in winter...



More Siberia. But less trees.
There are a few signs of the wealth this place experienced under communism. Wages were often 2-3 times that of the major European cities during that time to encourage industry and promote migration to these remote outposts. This all collapsed of course with the end of the USSR, and now most Siberians enjoy pitiful wages compared to their big city cousins and are forced to pay a fortune for limited services. Oil on a huge scale was discovered here in the 90's making billionaires of countless Muscovites who were hard enough and ruthless enough to grab a slice of it under Boris Yeltzin's free-for-all in the early post-communism years. It seems however that most of the money gets spent on mega-yachts and English football clubs rather than invested back in the local economy.

Ok. One more of Mongolia for good measure. Ah... Mongolia.

We crossed the Urals sometime during the 3rd full day on the train and gradually the birch trees started to recede as we entered European Russia. I'd lost interest by this time, focused instead on merely surviving (it was all about the destination at this point, screw the journey...) and seeing the Count take his revenge. I smelt just as bad as anything else by this stage and your nose seems to give up protesting by this stage.

Day four - MOSCOW!! Wow, are we there already? I had my daily replica conversation with Anotolli and Leba (they were still khorosho, spaciba), and then I was off into the bowels of this mysterious world city; a wild, modern frontier territory that for me, still holds all of it enigmatic and secretive allure of years past. But first things first. I really need a shower...



Railroads. I've had my fill...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Nice Matt!! By the way, this is NOT the nerdiest thing you have ever done....