Train from Moscow into Siberia
We left Moscow at about midnight with enough food for three days to feed a small Russian army. The train was very new and very clean so we got ourselves sorted and went to bed. As we had walked ourselves to a stand still in Moscow, I was looking forward to resting my foot.
We had a lazy start to the day, eating some of our packet oats for breakfast. It is an accomplishment all in itself buying food stuffs by pictures. I am sure that I have mentioned that the Cyrillic makes life quite difficult for us. Anyway, an hour later, we were flabbergasted to receive a meal, salmon and rice in a polystyrene container. We had met up with and english couple and an english student in the compartment next to us, doing the same route. They were just as confused about receiving this food from the "food lady" who couldn't speak english. We checked the rest of the carriage who seemed to have received the food and we tucked in. We thought this was a mistake so we very quickly got rid of the containers but 6 hours later, we received another meal, which then arrived twice daily (with bottles of water) throughout the 4 day journey. Interesting combinations of boiled chicken (russian version of roasted) and mash, sausage and pasta and each meal had dry bread and salami. Needless to say, the last day of our trip, we started panicking about how much this was going to cost us all but it must have been part of the train ticket. Much to the disgust of other travellers we have subsequently met in Siberia who were on the same train, same tour and lived on packet soup, chocolate and platform food for the trip.
Plenty of vodka was drunk. Monopoly games lasting on average three hours and plenty of games of rummy kept us occupied.
Our english neighbours had a russian engineer join them on the third night, Alexi. He was able to speak some german so Nick (the english student) was able to converse with him and translate. I am not sure if it was the combination of vodka and cognac that made trying to converse very funny but it was.
Alexi showed us how to drink vodka the russian way. Drink a shot of vodka, eat a slice of lemon, covered in sugar and coffee, rind and all and follow with russian chocolate. He then taught us a russian card game "Druk".
Two bottles of vodka later and some Cognac we arrived at a station which apparently was glamorous inside so in freezing temperatures and slops, we jumped off the train to go an take photos in the 20 minute stop. We got yelled at in russian by security so made a hasty exit back to the train.
It was now 3 days on the train and some people we starting to smell really bad, particularly the russians. Nick had made friends with another russian and he invited him into the compartment to come and have a drink. Can't remember his name but we called him smelly guy. He smelt really bad. He went to fetch another bottle of vodka but he showed us another tradition. You drink the vodka and then lean over and take a deep breath of the persons head sitting next to you, remember, we haven't showered for 4 days now. I had Lauren sitting next to me so it was bearable but poor Paul took the plunge and shared a vodka with smelly man. This is not one custom I am going to carry on with but it did cause mass hysteria and we were told to keep quiet on the train. Apparently an old army tradition but I think they were getting their own back at the tourista.
The last night was more quiet, we packed up as we were off the train the next morning really early. The only exciting event was a very drunk and horribly smelling russian man who took a fancy to Lauren while she was sitting on the top bunk in the compartment, we were trying to play monopoly, he kept kissing her arm, talking to her in russian and then started kissing her leg before he moved to sit down and vice grip Paul's head instead.
Anyway, we arrived in a very cold Siberia, hoping to shower. We had seen snow for most of the journey so it was cold. On the whole it was a very flat and gloomy landscape.
