Dear All,

another city, another timezone. Novosibirsk was 36 hours, 2000 km or 2 timezones from Irkutsk. This is a big country. I've now also spent some 120 hours, or 5 full days, on the train so I guess it's time I spoke about these remarkable iron horses some more.

I've travelled second class so far, which involves 4 berths per cabin. Third class is completely open and a bit of a pigs style. First class isn't worth the extra money. Each carriage has a provodnitsa (carriage attendant, almost exclusively they are women) who lives at one end of the carriage. They always wear uniforms, although these seem to vary from train to train (privatised uniforms?!) and they never stay on for long. Don't get me wrong, it just comes with the job. This is because they spend most of their time cleaning the carriage. Especially if you want to sleep or go to the toilet, they'll either be noisy or in the way. They also check your passport and ticket when you get on the train (each ticket is made out to a passport number) and assign a seat if you haven't already got one. Their most important function is being the Keeper of the Holy Key - the one that opens the toilet. The chances of it being locked (because you're near or at a station, or just because) obviously increase exponentially with the urgency and the length of the queue. The secondmost important function is keeping the samovar running. This is situated at one end of the carriage and is a fire-powered kettle, supplying hot water. Which is good for pot noodles, tea, pot noodles, instant coffee, pot noodles, instant soup and more pot noodles. Oh and for burning your fingers when the train suddenly jerks as they often do. Bizarrely, according to the blueprints of the samovar it consists of some 80 different parts (it's a kettle, not a rocket, for crying out loud!). And it's linked, somehow to the toilet. I try desperately not to think about that when I take some water.

Each train is usually about 15 cars long, one of which will be the restaurant car. It's impossible to find out what time they are open since you are on Moscow time or local time. I think they change depending on what they feel like. Besides, the last time I looked in the kitchen I saw a sweaty bloke wearing shorts but no T-shirt. Not sure if I'd fancy the food. Some trains have also a video-car but I've yet to explore that one.

The carriage itself consists of a long corridor, linking the two end-doors that connect to the rest of the train (and they are a good place for emergency pees, if you're quick). The corridor is about wide enough for two people to pass face-to-face. Although I've felt some people adopt my shape as they squeezed past me (yuck!). It also contains the Holy Carpet. This is as long as the carriage, and usually of the brown flowery-pattern variety. Except it is covered by another white carpet that's just a bit narrower. The provodnitsa's spend a lot of time keeping this clean and making sure the white carpet is exactly in the middle of the other one. And it's rolled up before getting to the terminus station. All of which makes no sense at all. If it's that expensive, why is it in a train at all? And if it's for decoration, why cover it up? It's a bit like those people who keep the plastic wrapping on their furniture and lampshades and things.

Each compartment contains 4 berths, wide (but just not long) enough to sleep on. Depending on your bunkmates it can be great. I've yet to sleep with (as it were!) 3 buxom blonde lingerie models on their way to a lingerie model conference in the city I happen to be going to. On the other hand, I haven't had any drunken yobs yet either, so it's been okay. The better berths are usually the top ones, in the sense that people don't commonly sit on those, so you can always go and sleep or so. Which is an advantage as it does happen that there'll be more people than berths in a compartment, although not usually for more than a few stops. Bizarrely, or rather admirably, most Russians seem to take their dressing seriously on the train. Within minutes of arriving they'll be hanging up their clothes on hangers and donning T-shirts and track suit bottoms. Pretty much what I wear all the time on this trip, so I must look like a low-life to them. Women tend to go for the flowery pattern, front-zipped semi-long numbers, things that went out of fashion years ago for a very good reason!

Finally, the corridors are paced up and down not only by people going to the loo, but also by salespeople of various descriptions. Like on the platforms at most of the bigger stations, a lot of food is sold, and drink. But also rings, necklaces and bracelets, newspapers/magazines, sweets, fruit, woolly jumpers and even fur hats - even though outside the sun is beating down! Lively, if nothing else. And actually very convenient. In all, it works out at a very pleasant experience - and of much better quality, I dare say, than Britain or many places on the continent!

Back to Irkutsk and the departure there. Nicole and I went to the station together as our trains left relatively shortly after each other. I ran into some other people who were going to Moscow on the same train as Nicole. They were comparing trip lengths and one girl was "afraid to point out that yours (the other people's) trip was, after all, only 10 months minus three days but hers was 10 months and 4 days so obviously longer". She said gloating. Obviously with my mere 2 months I couldn't even enter the competition. Should I have wanted, of course. Nicole left and I decided to try my luck at an international phone call.

The principle is as follows. You go to the counter. State the country (or city) of destination and the length of the phone call. Pay in advance and get a receipt. Wait for your turn at a specific phone booth. Dial the number. Speak. Hang up (or get cut off if you run out of time). Then go back with the receipt for a refund should this apply. Now I didn't know any of this - with hindsight I think I've read about this system, but that book is no long out of print and the authors grandchildren dead. On top of that the woman behind the counter applied a reverse-John Cleese. If they don't understand you, speak louder. Use more words. Go faster. And most importantly of all: sound really angry and menacing. The cost for 10 minutes was R204 (roubles). Now I had either R500 or two lots R100, but no change. I gave the R500 and got shouted at again - nobody in this country has any change. Ever. Anywere. Not even a bank. The woman was obtuse and in the end I shouted the only other number I knew, 9. 9 minutes came to less than R200 and so I could pay with those. Phew. Get receipt. Wait a bit. In the booth. Dial number, and I get Charlotte, in the lab in Cambridge. But she can't hear me. I dial again, and again. Nothing. Eventually I shout down the phone, which dragonwoman hears and then she shouts at me (again!!!). I eventually understand that there is a white button on the phone, which you need to press to be heard. Of course! How could I not know! Am I stupid or what?! Anyway I think Charlotte got the brunt of my frustrations - sorry 'bout that! I was earlier than I'd expected (the queue was shorter than I though) and so I missed Maggie. Oh I did get my money back, by the way. I wanted to ring again 30 min later but then the place closed, or at least was only open to advanced Russian speakers who were more menacing than dragonwoman. As I got out of the booth and office, the loudspeakers in the waiting room starting belching out, really very loudly, this marching music. Everybody looked at each other and even laughed - no-one knew quite what to make of it. I think it's supposed to coincide with a train leaving, I guess. Either way, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry - definitely a frustrating low-point in this trip.
The trainride to Novosibirsk was long (36 hours). In my comparment were 2 Russian men who didn't speak to me at all, and a babushka. Yes, there are plenty of them, and they look like you'd think they would. This one tried to be very helpful and very nice, and I do appreciate here intent. But there's a fine line between being helpful and running someone's life for them, and she was treading it. I really do know what to do with sheets and a towel. Or that I should wash my hands before dinner. I was introduced, a few hours later, to someone who spoke some English and it was obvious the babushka didn't approve of him. So whenever we went to his compartment, she tried to grab me and stop me. Alex, the English speaker's name, smoked and drank you see, so surely a bad influence. He was on his way to Novosibirsk to hopefully start a degree at a military academy. His dad came along too. They were very nice, sharing food and drink, and introducing me to some Siberian nuts. They were good at eating them and spitting out the shell. I kept getting a low return on my investments and decided to call it quits. Alex and I spoke at great length, amongst others on Chechnya - his solution was to kill them all. Hm. We discussed briefly the book I'm reading, Darwin, and he decided he didn't believe in Evolution. If he couldn't see it happen, he didn't believe it. Of course, he has seen animals created in front of him? No we come from Space. How did we get there? No now you're just playing chicken-and-egg. I guess he was only young (19). Nice though they were, it became impossible to get rid of him. I didn't want to talk for the remaining 24 hours of the trip, especially since it was hard-going. Still, nice to talk to someone I guess.
Novosibirsk was great. People warned me not to go as it is boring, and architecturally I guess they are right. It is a relatively new place and Stalin had a great hand in enlarging it - hence it's full of concrete and apartment blocks. There is one really nice church I wandered into. Every surface of it is decorated with icons of saints. As it was Sunday there was also a mass going on, lots of people burning candles. And singing! Because of the acoustics I couldn't work out where the choir was, but they were very good! The other nice building is a small chapel, set in the middle of Krasny Prospekt, the main street (huge, 2 lots of 3 lanes). It is reputed to be the centre of the country, so now I can say I've been there too.

While I was in Novosibirsk there was an annual holiday and festival (Novosibirsk Day), and the central square (Lenin Square, of course) was made traffic-free as well as some of the surrounding streets. Lots of drink, some food, and many live bands and groups. Really great fun! I guess I lucked out, but nice anyway. The weather cooperated most of the time too. The music they played was very varied, although by far the most popular was a Russian band playing modern/traditional music on 2 balalaika's, a violin and a thing. Don't know the name in English? Trekharmonica in Dutch. Everybody was bopping away merilly. Also had someone by the name of Yuri Vasilev imitate various singers, amongst others Julio Iglesias, but I think I was the only one who saw the funny side of that.

From Novosibirsk I took the train to Akademgorok for a day excursion. This small town is another Stalin-invention. A centre of excellence for science, it is set in leafy surroundings near a lake formed by damming off the river Ob. It is very nice, if in need of serious money and a good lick of paint, too. I took the train there, but couldn't see which station I was at. I needed station 13 but obviously lost count... So I pointed to the station's name in my guidebook when the conductor came. She didn't know either and asked some people around me, so by now the whole carriage was watching me with great intent. Two girls were asked next and, from the handsignals, I was given the impression they were going there too and would tell me when we got there. No such luck, of course: the next station, when we pulled out, I could just see was mine. Which wasn't nice. But then... The people who knew I'd missed my station turned around and laughed at me! This is insane! And also one of the few times I've seen Russians laugh! Now I can deal with unhelpful, disinterested or unfriendly. But plain nasty?! I was incredibly frustrated but what can you do? I can't even swear in Russian! So I got off the next station, which was near anyway. And it turned out that the walk back was actually very nice, along the shores of the lake. The weather was warm so I enjoyed it in the end.

Managed to make a succesful phone call from the telephone centre in Novosibirsk although it involved another mystery button to be pressed to be heard, this time you had to press "3". Before I figured that one out, I had the technical personnel looking at what I thought was a malfunctioning hone. Needless to say "the phone isn't working" is in my phrasebook but is utterly unpronouncable. I must be leaving a trail of Russians who think all foreigners are thick. Hm.

From Novosibirsk on by train to Yekaterinburg (a mere 20 hours) where I am now. No real adventures on the train although I did stay up until 3am talking to some people. A nice city, actually. Spent yesterday and today afternoon at the riverside, enjoying the sunshine and a beer. Nice atmosphere, relaxed. Saw several museums, actually quite interesting even though it was all in Russian. One of the museums housed the remains of an American spy plane the Russians shot down in 1960. Oops. Saw the small memorial to the Romanov-family who was murdered here (the last tsar, Nicolas II, and his family, including Anastasia). A big church is being built next to it and there is more in either Moscow or St. Petersburg, I think. Intriguingly, the small memorial is set on the pavement of Sverdlovsk Street, Sverdlovsk being the man who enigineerd their killing and burial. Other than that there isn't much to see or do, but it's nice enough to just walk around.

Tomorrow I am hoping to go to Volgograd. I haven't been able to buy a ticket yet, something about the train being full, but I think there are same-day tickets going for sale tomorrow morning so I was told to get back early. Well told... this is what I could make out of the various commands I was given and what was written down on paper. We'll see. If all else fails I may alter the route slightly, but that you'll read in the next mail.

Oh before I sign off, there are two things I miss most (other than Maggie of course!). First is not being understood, or making myself understood, easily. Or. having. to. go. monosyllabic. And. use. simple. vocabulary. words? what. you. use. to. make. sentences. Oh. never. mind. Don't. worry. Stop! Yes, I know that's my fault as I don't speak Russian but still. It makes everything very hard, from ordering food to (as I just found out) using a public toilet. Somewhat humiliating, I really should learn numbers 1 and 2 in Russian. The other thing I miss is not being able to stick your head under a tap to drink the water. It sounds silly but it is a luxury, especially when it's 30 degrees out!
Off to further adventures now. Another 16 days and I'll be back in Blighty. Sheesh. How time flies.

Looking forward to my first pint of bitter (lager is only nice for so long)!

Mark

P.S. Alex and Nicole (numbers 3 and 5): these are the further adventures of Dr Zero. I can take you off the list, of course...

|\/|<

 Read further

Mark Krebs, England, 2002