What's in a name?

Her name was Nadia. She was travelling to Omst to be with her boyfriend for two days. She offered me dark Russian chocolate, and asked me why I wore no shoes and whether this was an Australian custom.

A small dog ran the length of the train corridor and back. Two small children squealed and jumped on their seats as it passed. An old man stared from the train window, watching the 10 thousand kilometres of thick forests, the villages of wooden houses with smoke wisping from chimneys and the frozen lakes and rivers flash past, as if on a recurring film reel. A lady sauntered from carriage to carriage, selling smoked fish, cold tomato soup, and chocolate that had seen better days.

I saw new faces every day. Some came with names. Some passed namelessly through my life, like trains passing in the night on the Trans-Siberian network I had been travelling on for the better part of a month.

Her name was Lydia and it was Friday. She was travelling home to Irkutsk. She spoke no English, and she made me a cheese sandwich. The thick orange cheese, which curled up towards the carriage roof, had been maturing above the compartment’s lone heater since Tuesday. I hadn’t learnt how to politely say no in Russian.

Every day brought with it a new unknown: what would be for sale from the hawkers at the countless station stops; how long the train would be stopping at these stops; and whether the hours would be spent reading or playing cards; or would something unexpected happen to change my journey as I stared at the endless fields of white from my top bunk in compartment five.

The small bathroom at the end of the carriage was locked. There appeared to be no sign saying “Enter without footwear at your own risk!” But there should have been. And maybe there was. Like most of the important information on-board, I couldn’t read the Cyrillic script in which it was written. So I headed through the icy space between the carriages and took my unwashed and unkempt self towards the dining car, where the menu was a surprise on a daily basis.

His name was Max. He was travelling to Yekaterinburg for business and he hated trains. I was looking for breakfast, and he invited me to join him in some vodkas. I looked at the clock, and he motioned to the empty seat. I sat down. After all, I was in Russia.