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Home  Interests Taiga Tales: The Trans-Siberian Express
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Taiga Tales: The Trans-Siberian Express |
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Written by malcolm bell
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Tuesday, 22 September 2009 |
The world’s big train ride against which all others are peanuts: Eric Newby
It’s not unusual for youthful train-spotters to carry over into their
mature years, an abiding interest in travel by rail. Beats packaged
airline flights by a country mile. And this fact is a daily reminder to
residents of Lions Bay, where we hear the ‘toot-toot’, often at
inconvenient times, and witness the rumbling behemoths on a track
inches away from some homes, lugging Lord knows what, as they sidle
past heading north and south.
Oh! To ride the rails…
All of which takes me back to late 1987 when I embarked upon a 14-day,
13,500-kilometre odyssey from Hong Kong to London, across China,
Mongolia and Russia: ‘purposeless travel’ if you will, when going
airborne takes only a few hours to cover the same distance.
Riding the Trans-Siberian rails by definition, is different. It can be mindlessly packaged, like booking a flight; but if you opt for doing it solo, then homework is required for routing (Mongolia or Manchuria?), visas (especially the Mongolian one), Chinese or Russian service, connections to avoid being stranded. A jigsaw puzzle. That said, with the passage of 32 years, it’s a certainty that the logistics have been smoothed out. But back in ’87?
I’m waiting for my train to leave from Kowloon, across the harbour from Central Hong Kong; a pleasant mid-December Saturday afternoon. A friendly fellow passenger is discouraged from further conversation when she asks my destination and I respond “London.” Her wan smile says it all: “another crazy gweilo”, being an impolite appellation for a person not of Chinese descent. But I was only being honest.
Later that evening I switch trains in Guangzhou (Canton) and head for Beijing (Peking), 2,313 kilometres away. It’s a relaxing, ‘soft-class’ journey as I disdain the alternative wooden benches, thereby sparing my nether regions. We chug through Hunan and Hubei provinces and mid-afternoon Sunday we cross the Yangtze River at Wuhan before picking up the northern line to the mainland’s capital.
After frenetic, we-never-close Hong Kong, riding this rail is sheer joy – chats with fellow passengers I don’t discourage, leisurely meals with mounds of fresh veggies and noodles, cold Tsingtao beer, photographing stations that with varying success I try to identify from maps and books: Zhuzhuo, Xinyang, Wohe, Xinxiang. Noone cares when we arrive one hour late for our scheduled arrival in Beijing.
Our reverie is dampened as we need to secure a Mongolian visa; without it, the trip would collapse as that vast wasteland is the stepping stone between China and Russia. It has to be applied for directly here, unlike the Russian visa obtained in Hong Kong. The Embassy office resembles a large garden shed complete with rows of collapsible chairs. At 9:15am its staff moves into action: an ageing chap with an ill-fitting uniform in dire need of a tailor. He speaks English while his assistant, a pleasantly plump lady in a sweater does not.
Rumours abound when contemplating the Trans-Siberian; for example, don’t do it. A more valid edict is that Mongolian officials do not tolerate rude or irreverent behaviour, a virtue not uncommon with Brits. I project a façade of not knowing nuttin’ (actually true) and like a tame rabbit, accede to their requests: passport, three photographs of a person one would not buy a used car from, the Russian visa and $15 for “rush” service. Cash please in US currency, with delivery guaranteed (?) for that afternoon. No problem.
At the long-suffering China Travel International Service (invaluable to this day in rescuing hapless visitors who are in trouble as they roam around the country sans package), there’s a scramble for hard-seat tickets to Irkutsk in Siberia, where the China train meets the Russian Trans-Siberian. Despite impeccable planning on my part, I could have travelled to Moscow exclusively in Oriental style, far more comfortably. But as a Newby aficionado and purist, I want to sample and compare both trains. My expertise is also tarnished somewhat when I discover that trains to Moscow can be booked here cheaper than the tickets purchased in Hong Kong. This glitch is eased somewhat when astonishingly, I’m upgraded to deluxe for a modest outlay. It’s unfolding nicely for which the limbs are grateful.
On Wednesday night, late afternoon and on time, the Chinese-operated Beijing/Moscow International train leaves the capital for Mongolia and Siberia. Painstaking research confirmed the fact that this train is relatively luxurious with carpets, polished wood paneling and two-berth compartments each with a small table, reading lamps, storage space and an ensuite washroom with shower. A friendly fuwuren (attendant) maintains a constant supply of hot water in that ubiquitous, most utilitarian symbol of travel in China : the vacuum flask. As usual, the food is steaming hot, fresh, with ample Chinese wine and beer.
The sun sets, albeit obscured by pollution, the Beijing suburbs slip by. By nine o’clock the terrain is rough and hilly and we catch glimpses of the northwestern ramparts of the Great Wall. I try to visualize how it must have been in 1907 when Prince Borghese, Luigi Barzini and their chauffeur, Ettore, nursed their 35/40 horsepower Itala over this same terrain, and far worse, in the epic Beijing to Paris Car Race, continued to this day in slightly less-accident prone, modern vehicles.
In the restaurant car, the diners are mostly European and include Polish Embassy officials in grey suits who during the journey appear slightly, permanently tipsy, British backpackers, and an American student who had the gall to approach the Mongolian Embassy with neither the requisite photographs nor US dollars. The train clown was a bulky Australian whose distaste for shoes was demonstrated by bare-foot frolicking in the snow on platforms where we stopped, announcing to the world at large that he had never seen white stuff before.
Under a cloudless sky, we trundle through Hubei province into the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region; the sun sparkles off the ice in barren wheat fields. Cattle graze but we ask ourselves – on what? Beyond Datong, home of the magnificent Yungang caves ( 53 of them, housing over 50,000 statues), we pass dreary clusters of British-style bungalows, the only colour provided by laundry fluttering on lines and brightly-attired children on skates, struggling around frozen ponds. Domed, Islamic-style buildings appear but we’re still a long way from Mongolia. At Jiningan, the tenement rooftops are straight from “Coronation Street” complete with TV aerials. There’s endless miles of stone fences reminiscent of Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula. Just as I’m beginning to wonder where I am, Elgar’s Land of Hope and Glory is broadcast over the public address system.
Erlian is our next stop on the Chinese side of the Mongolian border. Despite rumours about “Gestapo-style interrogations”, a uniformed female officer treats us with courtesy and respect, even though some of us are British. Out on the sub-arctic platform, the evening’s entertainment, over a Tsingtao or two, is watching the train’s bogies, or undercarriage, being changed from Chinese to the narrower Russian gauge by cranes, jacks and sheer, physical labour. Hard work of which we are mercifully exempt.
Later that night in Dzamyn Ude, still in Mongolia, we are politely told to leave our compartments while officials conduct some kind of a search. I look suitably horrified when two uniformed, military storm troopers ask me if I’m carrying a gun. I remember not to be flippant. Finally, slowly, the train crawls its way into the Mongolian night.
Thursday. In a train ride that is not ‘peanuts’ it’s often hard to sort out time zones with the result that breakfast could just as easily be dinner and vice versa. No matter. Cruising across the vast snowy wastes of the Gobi desert there’s the odd wild-looking, Central casting chap who waves amidst a spectacular panorama dismissed by the Oz clown as a “whole lot of damn nothing.” Had he never seen the outback? Today’s treat is a new dining car with faux Wedgwood crystal adorning the tables and sublime, leisurely service. Borsch with indestructible beef, mountains of bread, omelettes, beer that tastes home made and Russian champers at US$5 a crack. Change is returned in totriks which I trade for postcards of the train.
At Ulan Bator, Mongolia’s capital, I regret not having arranged a stopover. Suhbaatar Square, one of the city’s main attractions we are told, is twice the size of Moscow’s Red Square. The Soviet presence is unavoidable : Cyrillic characters on signs, a depressingly militant mural in the station dining room entices us to consider why we weren’t carrying guns. Soldiers lolling everywhere, patiently waiting for the next train. They appear bored stiff.
The sun sets as we roll on: Zonhala, then Darhan, Mongolia’s industrial capital. We sip champers in the dining room, prior to reaching Suhe Bator, not far from what was then the USSR. The Mongolian officers politely bid us farewell and at aptly-named Naushki, we brace ourselves once more for the rumoured “SS-trained border officials.” But I’m Newby clever and as a gesture to the climate of glasnost at that time, I leave a copy of Time magazine in my compartment. It shows an exuberant Reagan and pensive Gorbachev at the Helsinki summit, together with a lead story on Mongolia. Disappointingly, the Soviet officers are the epitome of politeness, leavened with military efficiency. A neatly-coiffed Raisa Gorbachev lookalike briskly singles me out and announces, “you will be met (at Irkutsk) by an Intourist guide. You will need roubles if you wish to spend money there and on the train when you leave. Buy them at the end of the station.”
When three highly-efficient looking soldiers enter my compartment and pull down the blinds before closing the door, I’m beginning to think that all good things have come to an end and that I should have stayed on the Chinese train. But I congratulate myself on having listened to some of the rumours and had not taken my mentor’s Big Red Train Ride, guaranteed to incur the wrath of officials with his less than polite comments on Things Russian. Once more, I dutifully answer questions, and regret the presence of my military-looking, camouflage green telescope nestled in my back pack. No repercussions; I am blessed.
The time zones are taking effect. I rise obscenely early the next day and was greeted by nothing but taiga (northern forest): beech, pine, larch and fir stretching into infinity. It covers an estimated 40 per cent of the Soviet Union according to one of the Polish diplomats, nattily attired in a set of red long johns with matching braces (suspenders). Of more interest is that for at least two hours, we skirt the southern shoreline of Lake Baikal, one quarter the size of England and with one-fifth of the world’s supply of fresh water. The shallow water looks fit to drink. But that was in 1987…
Irkutsk arrives, on schedule. A sad farewell to the congenial Polish contingent as I welcome with unbridled enthusiasm, Luba, my stunning Intourist guide. I stumble along in French for a while as that was how she addresses me; nothing more than a perfunctory test on her part as she speaks seven languages. I am humbled. She’s a Buryat from one of Siberia’s Mongolic groups, with high cheekbones, waist-long black hair, a fur coat (de rigeur in that climate), jeans and a sweater. She’s also charming, knowledgeable and a delight to be with. I decide that if she’s a typical citizen of Irkutsk then it’s easy to appreciate why this city has a solid reputation as a major cultural, educational scientific centre.
No surprise in finding there’s a Yuri Gagarin Boulevard where the Intourist hotel is located. The hospital green walls are equally predictable, along with the lack of any decorative pictures on the walls, a useless lock on the loo door and a leaky shower that sprays the toilet seat each time it’s used. But I have dramatic sunsets over the tree-lined Angara River. Irkutsk, the regional centre of eastern Siberia, is 5,118 kilometres from Moscow and started out as a Cossack trading centre in the mid-17th century. When Sino-Russian trading was at its peak, its prime location on the east-west route brought prosperity and the not so unlikely title of the “Paris of Siberia.” Many of its buildings are stunning and despite the arctic conditions, wandering the streets is serene as I contemplate what it must have been like in its sophisticated past.
In the impressive Victory Square (what else in Russia?) I encounter two friendly Cossacks, neither of them on horseback nor bearing any resemblance to Yul Brunner.
“Hello, my frend. You spik inglish?”
Affirmative.
“My frend, can we do bisness?”
“It depends on the business.”
“My frend, I wish to buy your sweater.”
“Sorry, This is all I have and it’s bloody cold here.”
“My frend. How about jeans, coat, shirts..?
It was time to establish if Gorbachev’s policy to outlaw excessive drinking among the populace was having its practical impact. In a tea shop which served tea, and definitely not pivo (beer), four husky workers traipse in, clearly off-shift from some physically-intensive enterprise. The plastic bag they carry has an ominous, correction, a welcoming, familiar clink as it’s placed on the floor. Reaching into it, one of the stalwarts hauls out four beers. The caps are removed by the simple expedient of using his teeth. Clearly these were not men to mess with.
I retreat to my hotel where champers is available at meal-times. As usual, US$5. Cash.
Later that evening at the Intourist, a Russian wedding rages, straight from The Brothers Karamazov. The entourage gives the word ‘boisterous’ a whole new meaning. One half of the couple at the next table is a jolly, rotund wife, as wide as she is tall. As the bubbles flow, she insists on steering me to the dance floor. She no speak English, me no speak Russian. I decide to call her “Babs.” Her husband sports a fixed smile, acquiesces to everything she does and constantly orders further bottles of champers. I never find out if they are wedding guests or mere onlookers. I was not at my best the next morning.
We’re on our way relentlessly west. I’m sippping life-saving tea in a two-berth compartment that lacks the comfort of its Chinese counterpart: shell-shocked carpeting left over from the Crimean War, plastic paneling. As a graduate of Newby University, I have packed the recommended squash ball which doubles for a stopper in the stopper-less wash basin. There’s opposite bunks which eliminate climbing ladders, a writing table, superior overhead lighting and ample luggage space. Health Department-banned washing and toilet facilities are combined and communal. Suitably Spartan as befits a former train-spotter and knight of the rails.The train seethes with uniformed military and navy: hardly a female in sight except in the ‘married pad’ quarters at the rear of Rossiya.
My first foray to the dining room is breakfast the following morning. It could have been dinner. No matter, it was food. Red and black caviar, fried sturgeon with peas and mineral water; Gorby’s Ban the Booze edict seems to be working. An impassive waiter solemnly deletes most items I select on a voluminous menu of which 80 per cent of the items are “orff.” This is not an Oriental wagon train. The sturgeon soon runs out and ultimately the caviar; but it could be worse as Newby had further recommended that one brings along Relief of Mafeking biscuits, sardines and fruit, to which I had concurred.
Enough is enough, Mr Gorbachev: at the evening meal I place my litre flask of vodka on the table and gesture to the Armed Forces, three of them : “Stolichnaya!” No need to say “help yourself” which I couldn’t manage in Russian anyway. Instant, gratifying popularity can be easily garnered.
There’s no cozy Western touristo community on this train. But my next door neighbor is an affable worker from Georgia, Stalin’s birthplace. To paraphrase Prof. Newby, he looks as though he could pole-vault the Baltic Sea: an open neck shirt slashed to the waist, appropriate for the Siberian winter. He’s a self-proclaimed judo expert, with medals and a physique which deters me from having him stage a demonstration. We sip my vodka and establish that he yearns for the troika days of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill. With appropriate rummaging for comparable words in Hugo, I also learn that he considers the Reagan/Gorbachev summit is ‘bullshit.’ Like the workers in the café in Irkutsk, he too is not a man to mess with.
At Achinsk, despite the perpetual gloom and sub-zero temperatures, there’s ample photo-op material which belies the myth that “you can’t take photos in the Soviet Union.’ That said, there was a limit and one station attendant wagged an admonishing finger when I exhibited Western-style photographic recklessness. A statistic: we’re still in eastern Siberia, which is almost double the size of Western Siberia, a fact of little importance when viewed from the warmth and relative comfort of soft class.
Taiga and more taiga; past the town of that name at the 3,571-kilometre mark. Then Novosibirsk – Siberia’s Chicago. With considerable effort, I calculate that it’s the small hours Monday (Tuesday?) in Hong Kong, Sunday (Monday?) evening in Moscow. Pointless. I am alone as I explore the freezing gloom of the station. The Karamazov nuptials seem light years away and I’m thinking of Babs.
We glide along the Rybinskaya (the Great Steppe; think Canada’s prairies) to the Ishim Steppe. A master’s degree in geography might help discern any difference between them which from the train is difficult. This is the Omsk oblast (region) as we pull into Tyumen, one of Siberia’s oldest settlements, founded in 1586. The troops ponder this nugget amidst the afternoon’s entertainment: a blocked toilet is discovered by a hysterical lady in a housecoat. Where did she come from? The corridor is flooded and attendants leap to their battle stations. How would this have been handled in the 16th century.
Sipping a pre-dinner drink on heaven knows which day, we’ve passed Sverdlovsk, the Pittsburgh of the Urals. For the non-Russians - very sparse - suspense heightens as we try “Spotting the Obelisk”: a modest, four metre-high stone digit which marks where Asia ends and Europe begins. It’s at the 1,777-kilometre mark from Moscow, somewhere between Sverdlovsk and Pervoralsk, and four hours from Perm. Got that? It’s Stygian black outside which makes obelisk-spotting a tad difficult. A stop at Kirov (think ballet) where we have an appropriately final pirouette in the snow.
I think it’s Tuesday morning, the last day on the Rossiya One; still no shortage of snow and it’s positively balmy. We stop briefly at Danilov, a red-framed picture postcard station where the attendants dismantle the “P’yongyang/Moskva” signs from the train’s sides. After all, our chariot had its start in North Korea, swinging by Vladivostok and Nakhodka on the Pacific coast. It keeps the attendants and crew on a seemingly unending east-west, west-east, pendulum.
We cross the mighty Volga to Alexandrov, once a command post for the troops who made Ivan terrible. We’re almost in Moscow.The occasional church cupola gleams in the sun as we speed through dacha country, past the weekend retreats of wealthy, well-connected Muscovites. No one is surprised when Rossiya One strolls into Moscow’s Yaroslavl station at precisely 3:55pm. Not a minute more or a minute less.
Russian bear hugs from our two attendants as I’m swept away with the departing crowd. It’s oddly emotional as we’d been living cheek to jowl long enough to form an attachment of sorts, notwithstanding the language barrier. The Judo Expert had even found time to form what appeared more than a platonic relationship with our female helper, whom we also called “Babs.” She giggled much of the time and when not working, engrossed herself in discarded Western fashion magazines.
Sadness is aggravated by frustration: with Christmas imminent, there’s no space on the London-bound train, yet another planning glitch. This is the festive season and everyone is on the move; hanging around Moscow for a few days would miss my ‘season’ at home with parents. On the Aeroflot flight to London that evening, eating rubber chicken and sipping a single glass of what passed for wine, grudgingly and mournfully doled out by the attendant, there was time to reflect on the Trans-Siberian odyssey.
Even in 1987, the journey was to some extent, old hat, having been experienced years before on the Orient Express with considerably more elegance, comfort and superior food. But rail-riding aficionados ignore these trifles. It was worth every minute and every rouble. Graham Greene, when reviewing the The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux, said it all : “trains provide a trip which is in the old tradition of purposeless travel for fun and adventure.”
He was right.
(the original version of this article appeared in 1988 in Hong Kong’s The Pacific Traveller)
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 23 September 2009 )
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