Irkutsk to Moscow
Trip Start
May 09, 2005
1
22
63
Trip End
Ongoing
Moscow,
Russia
Sunday, July 3, 2005
We have finally dragged ourselves away from the sights of Russia to try once more to update our travel journal.
It was almost with regret that we left the sleepy little town of Irkutsk. Although we were looking foward to what was the main part of our trip, the" Trans Siberian" train journey, which we were actually a third of the way through already, we had really enjoyed Irkutsk and Lake Baikal.
Our trip down to the lake, which according to all literature contains 1/5 of all the worlds fesh water, was so much fun that we repeated it again the following day. We spent both days at Listvyanka, which really was a quaint little village with apart 3 large building projects going on
First class travel.
. We never did do our walk down the lake to catch a boat back, as apparently the boat only goes if it wants, if the driver is not sick, or if he has not had more than 3 bottles of Vodka. It worked out more simple to walk around the valleys, where we found the most amazing art gallery. The old chap running the galley asked in Russian where we were from, and once he understood we were from Novar Zelandee, he started yelling "Vincent O'Sullivan" at us repeatedly. (ps, can someone tell me who Vincent O'Sullivan, or Sullivan is?) Fortunately there were two other Russian women in the gallery, one of whom could speak English, and explained that he had been invloved in working with Vincent O'sullivan at some stage. We were well and truly accepted due to this, and out came the guitar, whereby were effectively serenaded with Russian love songs. Once again, this did require the translation service of the kindly woman. Certainly presented a different side of Russian culture than what we had been seeing till now.
So late in the afternoon, we struggled down to the train station from our pleasant apartment with all our bags, plus a huge swag of food in preparation for the 3 days ahead.
In the waiting lounge we recognised some faces, it was people whom had been on our previous two trains from Beijing
Stewart and Ewan infront of Moscow University.
. They were on an organised tour called "the Vodka Train", run by an outfit in Aussie called Sundowners. They had a guide and everything, so we tagged on the back, mainly to make sure we boarded the right train. Talking to a few of the lads on the tour, it sounded like it was going to be a hard few days ahead for them, with a bottle per night to take care of. Debbie and I had 1 bottle for the two of us, so we were real light weights. At about 80 rubles ($4 NZD) for 1 litre, I guess they were just being safe. You wouldnt want to run out on a Vodka Train!!Fortunately, in a lot of respects, we were in the adjacent carriage to to VT people, so it meant we could join in on their fun games, but had a place to retreat to when the going got too tough. We had a 2 berth cabin for this leg, and that was a real treat for this trip of 80 hours. Meant we could leave our cabin locked without security fears. Most of these fears were caused by publications such as lonely planet. The train actually felt very safe, with mainly tourists down our end, and the odd Russian tripping off to the dining cart. They would have had far more money than us to eat there, as a glance at the menu confirmed that it was perhaps the most expensive place to eat beetroot soup in the country.
We did not manage to get much sleep on the train, often after sandwiches for dinner we would head down to the rough and tumble of the vodka train, where we would join them for a few drinks until it got dark. Which was normally at 11pm. Then Deb would go to bed. I would stay for a few more, then it got light. At about 2am. By the time I lay down in bed it was so bright, that sleep would only last for a few hours and then we would be up, worrying we might miss something out the windows.
The scenery was fairly constant over the 5500km, with the odd little town of a few million people huddled around a nuclear reactor every 5 hours or so along the route. The big gaps between the cities were normally forests and grass, with swampy patches. The closer we got to Europe, the more swamp and less grass there was, but the trees seemed to grow everywhere, even in the swamp.
There would be occasional paddock full of thousands of tanks, with grass growing through the tracks, surrounded with barbed wire as though it was for national security. Ha! Then at one point I saw more combine harvesters than I would ever have dreamed could have been built. They were all lined up at a river port, all brand new and prepared for delivery. It was a young boys dream. (well mine actually..)
As we were in a 2 bunk cabin, and had a television in the room (no use to us as it was broadcast in Russian) one of the VT guides found out, and brought a portable DVD player down, where two movie evenings were held. I watched part of a bond film, mainly because it had a lot of St Petersburg in it, but with 8 others in the tiny little cell called a cabin, the heat and awkward viewing angle wore me out, so I gave the other movies a miss. They were certainly a popular treat though.
We made it through to Moscow early in the evening without any major drama, and farwelled our new found friends. They had two serious days of drinking around Moscow, then were off the drink St Petersburg dry. We wished them luck for their drinking (especially the Aussies, for they were bound to upset some policeman) and lugged out our somewhat lighter packs looking for a Kiwi contact on the platform.
It was not long before Ewan McLeod turned up, a family friend from NZ who was going to help us to get our feet in Moscow. We waved good bye to our trusty train, that had not missed a due arrival time by more than a second for the entire journey, and set off on another new part of our travels.
