|
On the Train Again.... Sacha, Sergey and Rainy YekaterinburgJul 27, 2006
|
|
All aboard at Irkutsk
Sausage, tomatoes, cheese and an early dinner heading out of Irkutsk
Russian wine, not one for the cellar - in fact not sure...
| Leaving Irkutsk we joined the famous Rossiya, the true Trans Siberian express that rolls back and forth from Moscow to Vladivostok; a journey one quarter of the way around the world, through 8 time zones and over 9600km in just on one week. The seemingly endless Siberian landscape extends from the railway to the edge of the world. It has a beautiful bleakness that is randomly interrupted by isolated villages or one of the hundreds of insignificant stops every ten kilometres, often with no name, simply a number, whose only link with the rest of the world is the steel line that runs past their doorstep. Our companions on this leg were Sacha, an aeronautical engineer student from Irkutsk and Sergev, an ex military officer. Sacha spoke a little English and we broke the ice on the first evening with photos, maps, charades and a few words. Sergev, who spoke no English, boarded the train overnight and our morning efforts at breaking the ice went unnoticed. Thankfully, we had the company of the lovely Nathan & Anna from Melbourne in the cabin next to keep us occupied. Events took a dramatic change after the first platform stop of the morning. We bought a few bits & pieces to nibble on for lunch and returned to our cabin to find an enormous spread of sausage, bread, cheese, tomato, eggs, beer and more beer. Sergev and Sacha sat beaming, urging us to join them and tuck in - little did we know, we had struck a live wire! Platform stops on the Trans Siberian Rail journey through Russia were an exciting event. Elderly ladies circulating amongst the crowds with jars of freshly picked berries, sausage, smoked fish, boiled eggs, bags of hot potatoes, fresh dumplings, bread, cheese and of course your could always pick up some beer, or even vodka.... Sharing a cabin with our newfound friends added another dimension to these stops, with Sacha & Sergev scouting about sourcing the best produce they could find, and us with no idea and no language merely trying to buy things to repay their generosity. Our second evening on the train had us up until 5am, struggling to keep up with Sergev's vigour at every vodka pour and can of beer, chatting to Tatiana, Sergev's poor wife who he called every half an hour, performing the odd dance, befriending the young provodnista who seemed to have an endless supply of cold beer and stopping at a platform at 3am where Sacha jumped out and returned with two giant, stinking, whole smoked fish (like we hadn't had enough), which was torn into strips with great gusto and shared about - all the while Nathan, Anna and a girl with eyes for Sacha would visit and leave when things got a bit scary. At the height of the evening, Sergev, concerned that Mark was without a watch, presented him with his own - a Russian military officer watch. The next morning had Mark green, both of us sleepy and Sacha & Sergev still on the beers in fits of laughter, forcing Mark to eat noodles and trying to get him on the beer again! Things had quietened down a bit by the time we rolled in Yekaterinburg, but the send off from our amazing new Russian friends was grand. Yekaterinburg, the city of Saint Katherine, once a former gold rush town and home to Boris Yeltsin, is now a booming town at the point where Asia ends and Europe begins. Unfortunately, it rained non-stop during our 2 night visit, so amongst getting drenched looking at a few soviet era sights, we hopped from cafe to bar dodging the weather and most of Yekaterinburg, not doing the city or its surrounds much justice. |
Advertisement 
|
