Our journey across Russia started in St Petersburg with an extremely comfortable overnight train to Moscow. We had bought a platzkart or 3rd class ticket, expecting to be in the open carriages and amongst the vodka swilling locals. However, the train was too new and nice to even have a platzkart section, so we were upgraded to a 4-berth kupe or 2nd class cabin and spent the night asleep along with our quiet, middle-aged neighbours. Unfortunately we left in the dark and awoke in Moscow, so it was pretty uneventful, but a great way to make the journey. One of our first impressions was the number of security and police on the tracks.
From Vladimir to Ekaterinburg we had booked our ticket in advance, with the same company that organised our visas - Real Russia. We picked up the tickets in Moscow and did not have to worry about not getting seats, negotiating the ridiculous bureacracy, or wasting hours of our trip. It was a 36 hour journey, and we shared with just one Russian guy, who kept to himself except to offer food and cognac - in this case at breakfast.
The 4 berth kupe was comfortable, but not quite as nice as the St Petersburg to Moscow train, now that we were officially on the Trans-Siberian railway.
The next leg was the longest - 53 hours from Ekaterinburg to Irkutsk. We left Ekaterinburg at the ridiculous time of 5.30am.
Although we had only paid for a 4 berth, Real Russia organised us to have one of the private 2 berth cabins that every carriage has, for the same price. As a result, we had half the space, but all of it was ours, and given the crazy temperatures they heated the trains to, we were relieved to be able to sit around without much clothing. However, the carriage did follow the pattern of being slightly older and a bit worse than the previous one.
We passed the many hours by looking out the window at the pretty scenery, which I think was made much more interesting than usual by the Autumn colours.
The time also went quickly when we read, or played Sudoku, an excellent station-buy before the journey.
It was also a good chance to muck around with the camera, trying to think up new ways to photograph birch trees.
Apart from trees, we also passed dozens of extremely long freight trains, lugging goods from resource-rich Siberia and imports from the East.
Knowing the length of the journey and really settling into it, there wasn't much time to get bored. To have no pressure at all to do anything was quite liberating, and even when we did nothing we knew the train was still taking us another bit along our route. It also gave me a chance to catch up on writing emails and this blog.
Nevertheless, it was nice to arrive in Irkutsk knowing that the longest train journey was behind us, and that the others would be short in comparison. We also arrived to brilliant sunshine, completely shattering the conception that Siberia is an arctic wasteland.
Our final rail journey in Russia was from Irkutsk to Ulan Bataar, the capital of Mongolia. Many travel forums suggest taking the train to Ulan Ude in Russia and then getting a bus across the border, primarily because it reduces the time waiting at the border, but our love of trains and loathing of buses made the decision an easy one. After boarding the train at night in Irkutsk we awoke to a radically different landscape that was undoubtedly more Mongolian than we had yet experienced.
The good weather continued and we were finally able to open windows to regulate the temperature inside.
At the Russian border our foreigner carriage, which all non-Russians and Mongolians had been lumped into was left stranded at the station and the engine and other carriages disappeared.
I used the 5 hours of waiting time to explore the small town and climb a nearby hill with a fellow photographer, which we later learned many travelers do, probably because there is nothing else of interest there.
It was a relaxing time though, and gave us a chance to chat with other travelers, which inexorably led to an evening party. I had bought a bottle of Irkutsk vodka to use up all our remaining roubles, which was as disgusting as all other vodkas, but I felt it was a necessary part of the experience.
At around midnight the formidable Mongolian conductress came along and told us, "Stop drinking. Go to bed." So we did.
The second journey, from Moscow to Vladimir, was on a local train and only lasted 4 hours. It was quite difficult to procure the ticket and luckily we decided to buy it the day before, as once we had lined up at one booth, we would be told to go to another, all the while defending our position against Russians that did not respect the orderly queue.
From Vladimir to Ekaterinburg we had booked our ticket in advance, with the same company that organised our visas - Real Russia. We picked up the tickets in Moscow and did not have to worry about not getting seats, negotiating the ridiculous bureacracy, or wasting hours of our trip. It was a 36 hour journey, and we shared with just one Russian guy, who kept to himself except to offer food and cognac - in this case at breakfast.
The next leg was the longest - 53 hours from Ekaterinburg to Irkutsk. We left Ekaterinburg at the ridiculous time of 5.30am.
Although we had only paid for a 4 berth, Real Russia organised us to have one of the private 2 berth cabins that every carriage has, for the same price. As a result, we had half the space, but all of it was ours, and given the crazy temperatures they heated the trains to, we were relieved to be able to sit around without much clothing. However, the carriage did follow the pattern of being slightly older and a bit worse than the previous one.
We passed the many hours by looking out the window at the pretty scenery, which I think was made much more interesting than usual by the Autumn colours.
The time also went quickly when we read, or played Sudoku, an excellent station-buy before the journey.
It was also a good chance to muck around with the camera, trying to think up new ways to photograph birch trees.
Apart from trees, we also passed dozens of extremely long freight trains, lugging goods from resource-rich Siberia and imports from the East.
Knowing the length of the journey and really settling into it, there wasn't much time to get bored. To have no pressure at all to do anything was quite liberating, and even when we did nothing we knew the train was still taking us another bit along our route. It also gave me a chance to catch up on writing emails and this blog.
Apart from the big cities, there were very few settlements of any decent size. Every now and again we would see some farmhouses, and were expecting a gradual evolution in style and architecture from west to east, but they remained remarkably similar.
The good weather continued and we were finally able to open windows to regulate the temperature inside.
At the Russian border our foreigner carriage, which all non-Russians and Mongolians had been lumped into was left stranded at the station and the engine and other carriages disappeared.
I used the 5 hours of waiting time to explore the small town and climb a nearby hill with a fellow photographer, which we later learned many travelers do, probably because there is nothing else of interest there.
It was a relaxing time though, and gave us a chance to chat with other travelers, which inexorably led to an evening party. I had bought a bottle of Irkutsk vodka to use up all our remaining roubles, which was as disgusting as all other vodkas, but I felt it was a necessary part of the experience.
At around midnight the formidable Mongolian conductress came along and told us, "Stop drinking. Go to bed." So we did.
