Full steam to Moscow...
Trip Start
Feb 22, 2008
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4
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Trip End
Mar 04, 2008
Moscow, Central Russia, Russian Federation
Friday, September 5, 2008
4pm on Thursday 21st Febraury, and I board the overnight express between Warsaw and Moscow via Belarus, due to arrive in the Russian capital at 10am the next morning. I entered my cabin feeling somewhat more relaxed than I had in the previous two days, and was joined by Dimitri a Russian Pianist.
Dimitri had just been seeing his girlfriend in Warsaw, which came as a mild relief as you know what these Musical types can be like. He was an affable chap, who spoke good English and most importatnly offered to translate the myriad of immigration forms that needed to be completed before entering Belarus. Dimitri almost restored my faith in Russian humanity, a false dawn shattered upon my arrival in Moscow, but more on that later.
In truth it was a fairly uneventful trip, the most exciting part being the changes made to the wheels and gauges when we reached the Belarus border. Belarus and Russia use wider track gauges than the rest of the world, do you know why? They're awkward bastards. So at about midnight when the train arrived at the frontier, there was a tedius 2 hour wait, while the entire train was lifted a meter off the ground, and had its wheels changed. During this time we also had the joys of visa inspection from some suitably grim faced Visa officials, thankfully Dimitri was on hand so my involvement with them was minimal.
I slept remarkbly well thereafter and woke up at 9am just an hour away from Moscow. I looked out of my window for my first glimps of mother Russia, just as I expected cold, baron and miserable but then again it was February. After making our way through the dour Moscow suburbs we pulled in to Moscow's west station, I had 14 hours to kill in the Russian capital. Would I have a good time? Of course not.
