(The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published the following travel column by Jono David on its website on August 24.)
KRASNOYARSK STATION, Siberia ( 2,540 miles from Moscow) — I t doesn’t matter that a cool Siberian rain is falling. The station is swarming with locals who have come not to greet a friend or relative visiting from a farther corner of this notoriously frozen tundra, but the Mongolian tenants of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
The Mongolians are not aboard merely to get to Moscow, 3,908 miles and five time zones to the west of their capital city, Ulan Bator. They reside on the “Great Railway Bazaar,” a rolling stock of stock, to peddle goods across frontiers and make good on the wave of capitalism sweeping across these remote lands. They spend most of the year snaking between Asia and Europe.
In 1886, Tsar Alexander III set the Trans-Siberian project in motion. A railway was viewed as the most practical means of penetrating and harnessing the great riches of the lands beyond the Ural Mountains, a natural demarcation between Europe and Asia. The rails also served his troops, reaching the frontiers of a threatening China. The trains facilitated the exile system, too.
Adventurous travelers followed, enduring early discomforts and system breakdowns. Annette Meakin, the first English woman to ride the Trans-Siberian Railway as far as Krasnoyarsk, wrote in 1900 that the train is “a veritable Liberty Hall” and “time passes pleasantly on such a train.”
Even after a century of wars and political upheavals, Meakin’s words ring as true today as when she penned them.
But the Trans-Siberian is not for everyone. At 5,759 miles between Moscow (from which everything is measured) and Vladivostok, it is a long ride. But I was determined to fulfill a 12-year-old aspiration to make the longest continuous train trip in the world, though my journey started in Beijing, China, and cut across Mongolia.
Aug. 11
7:15 a.m.: In Krasnoyarsk, I am summoned to a new day by the sounds of bartering rising from the platform to my compartment. Leather handbags and light fixtures are selling outside my window, fogged by both the weather and the sweat of the trade. When the purveyors’ hands are empty, they rumble down the gangway to replenish their stocks. Other vendors stay on the train, selling goods through their compartment windows until the train makes its unannounced departure.
There are no calls of “All Aboard!” out here.
I got my first glimpse of the madness when I boarded in Irkutsk (3,214 miles), near Lake Baikal. I had heard about this phenomenon of a rolling market, but I wouldn’t quite appreciate it until I realized my neighbors for the next three days had an inventory stacked floor to ceiling.
There are no baggage limitations on this train, so traders haul all they can. I am convinced many of them sleep standing up, if at all, and only gradually find space to recline as the goods are auctioned off en route. While regular passengers slumber, night-time stops are ports of business.
The frenzied selling is a memorable sight. Pressured by stops as brief as a minute, the Mongolians and consumers trade hurriedly. No money-back guarantees out here. It is strictly take-it-or-leave-it trade with a get-what-you-pay-for risk.
Nine hours earlier, the locals of Nizhneudinsk (2,901 miles) swarmed the carriages like bees to honey, and I was stung by the magic of the moment.
I was also mesmerized by the reality of how dependent so many people are on this lifeline of steel. It’s an opportunity to purchase a little luxury: crocodile patterned handbag, blankets, radio-cassette players, shoes, slippers.
9:30 a.m.: That’s local time, four hours ahead of the capital still 2,480 miles to the west. Everyone is wide awake. The Mongolians continually sort and resort their wares in preparation for the next stop.
They know the line well but constantly chat with the provodnitsa, Russian for a female carriage attendant, for updates on delays, general location and times of arrival/departure.
Slipping from one time zone to another, judging the time is tricky, but it only seems to matter for arrivals and departures. Time is moving slower than usual, delayed by the tug of traveling east to west at an average 42 mph. Like many passengers, I have set my watch to Moscow time for the reason that it is constant. On the Trans-Siberian, only the capital’s time matters anyway, as all along the line, no matter what the local time, railroad clocks are set to Moscow time.
11:45 a.m.: Bogotol (2,386 miles). The iron snake hisses into this market town, pulling up to a people-flooded platform. The stop has interrupted my chess game (which I eventually lose) but rouses my disbelieving eyes: the station is positively mobbed. Meanwhile, the provodnitsa runs a tight ship, vacuuming and wiping around the compartments.
We have been traversing the taiga, the rich forest lands of Siberia, which covers an area larger than the contiguous United States. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the only sight from the train for days on end, for it yields periodically to towns and swaths of land of bountiful crops or heaping rubbish pits.
It was out here among the lands of collectivization that the wretched legacies of Soviet plunder and terror are most visible, in the form of rusting cranes, atrophied farm equipment and decaying Siberian villages enclosed by sagging fences. The people appear as cheerless as the unpainted buildings. The only colors are daubs of wild flowers. Certainly, there are extraordinarily beautiful places in Russia, but much of the lands here are raw and the people still endure the pains of past governmental policies, still festering like open sores.
12:30 p.m.: Location not certain. The aroma of instant noodles descends on the carriage. It’s the food of choice, supplemented with hunks of bread. Thank goodness for the batchok, a wood-burning stove samovar, which without its constant supply of hot water, life on the train would be difficult to manage. No coffee, tea or soup.
Some passengers dine in their compartments on bring-along lunches, but I retire to the dining car with Christian, a German who had been my companion since we departed Beijing on an earlier leg of the journey. Today’s menu is beef stroganoff, bread and a glass of orange drink. We are joined by Sherry and Annabel, two Americans who have wisely decided to give the food a miss after watching us toil through our over-priced Russian special.
I was hungry when I sat down. Now, I am not so certain. The bits of meat in my stainless steel soup bowl swish around in an unidentifiable swim. On another plate sit cold noodles which look as though the cook ripped them into pieces with malice and dirty hands. This, too, I ingest lickety-split, pay my share of the bill, and pledge not to eat here again.
2:15 p.m.: Mariinsk (2,303 miles). Before arrival, there was the usual flurry of activity. I press my face against the breeze to glimpse the jam-packed platform. The weather is cooler here than in Irkutsk. As the train pulls up for a 20-minute breather, the box cars grind to a halt. The assembly on the platform besieges us like rock stars, which makes disembarking a skirmish into a pit of bodies. A Russian woman elbows me out of her way.
At last, I am off the train for the first time since yesterday. I am looking for food from one of the platform kiosks. Turning back to the train, I am awed by the activity. As my mother always says: “You’d think they were giving it away.” I fight my way back on board as the train pulls away with a rare whistle 20 minutes later. Traders are counting their money.
2:54 p.m.: The provodnitsa hurls garbage out the window. The sounds of smashing bottles can be heard. I had read about this fate of the rubbish and warned not to be astonished when I see it. It is nevertheless shocking.
4:37 p.m.: The train rumbles into Taiga (2,210 miles). The skies have parted in time for the merchants. Here again, the train is raided and the events are looking the same now. I am photographing out of the windows at each station. The open corridor windows are jealously guarded by photographers.
As we depart, a woman runs beneath my window with a fistful of rubles for the rug man who has just boarded after hastily tying up his merchandise. In the doorway, she yells and thrusts a bunch of cash at him. The Mongolian looks at it, but with no time to count, it he hurls a carpet at her as she side-steps her way down the platform.
Life hasn’t always moved at such a pace out here. A hundred years earlier in the nearby city of Tomsk the locals made their wages in gold smelting. More recently, a 1992 nuclear accident in the satellite city of Tomsk-7 revealed some scary truths about the safety and whereabouts of Russian military bases.
5:17 p.m.: Christian is entertaining two Mongolian girls who accompany their merchant parents. They don’t seem bored in the least. They smile coyly at my camera. Christian is pulling out all his magic illusions including his “wrap-the-necklace-around-the-thumb-and-watch-him-unloop-it” trick.
5:41 p.m.: In addition to Christian, two women from Australia are sharing the compartment with me. One of them I refer to as the “old one.” She is about 60. The other I refer to as the “big one” for obvious reasons.
It has been my goal not to learn their names even after three days and nights in the confines of these quarters. They bicker constantly.
6:30 p.m.: Sokur (2,108 miles) There is confusion about the time here. The book says local time is Moscow time plus four hours, but the station clock reads plus three hours.
7:17 p.m.: Novosibirsk (2,067 miles). The busiest river port in the region, the capital of Western Siberia didn’t exist before the Trans-Siberian line was built, but today it has nearly 2 million residents. It seems they are all on the platform for the flea market that has just rolled into town.
Novosibirsk station is announced by very Soviet-style apartment blocks to the east of the town. The tracks divide and divide again as a train yard expands beneath us, home to all sorts of engines, locomotives and, of course, passenger trains. The metal reptile creaks to a halt and the crush of shoppers commences all over again. A woman twirls for her husband in her new winter coat while a passer-by stops to surreptitiously check the quality by giving it a feel from behind. A boy tries on denim jackets. A woman is selling milk. All the while, the Mongolians push their lamps.
As the train pulls away, the thermometer on the station clock tower displays 11 Celsius (52 degrees Fahrenheit). A summer chill is in the air, but it’s hardly the minusminus 40 F winter will bring. When the train moves, the Mongolians are hanging on like a circus act. With good speed now, a fall could result in serious injury. The last of four traders is grabbed by the shoulder of his coat and flung through the door.
9:14 p.m.: The sun is on the wane, setting a fire-ball red but the skies will remain bright till nearly half-past 10, when this landscape will turn a cold black. From then, it will be another night’s ride to the rhythm of the bogeys, or wheels — ka’ching-a-chang, ka’ching-a-chang, ka’ching-a-chang.
Aug. 12
4 a.m.: Omsk (1,681 miles). Founded in 1719 as a small fortress, Omsk soon developed into an important agricultural center. Today’s 1 million residents produce textiles and agricultural machinery.
The slamming of compartment doors and the stomping of feet intrudes upon my sleep long enough for me to realize my coordinates and the time. Fyodor Dostoevsky did four years hard labor in these parts in the mid-1800s. My only travail is trying to get an uninterrupted night’s rest.
5:48 a.m.: Nazevayevskaya (1,590 miles). The echoes of traders’ voices announce the morning like a Siberian cockerel. I drift off again.
6:33 a.m.: Ishim (1,507 miles). Now situated just to the south of Tobolsk, one of Siberia’s oldest settlements, we are now only two hours ahead of Moscow time. The train pulls up to the platform and jerks to a stop. My compartment mates stir. My body is ready to rise as the effects of time changes play more on my body clock. Crops surround the train in this flat and agriculturally friendly region.
7:15 a.m.: Outside Golishmanovo (1,481 miles). The electric eel abruptly halts for no apparent reason between berry patches. Four Mongolians jump out to pick some.
8:25 a.m.: The train is not slated to stop now for two hours. All are having their breakfast. The provodnitsa is performing her cleaning duties. Ahead of us still lie 1,426 miles of track and 30 hours.
By the time the train arrived in Moscow, 88 hours after departing from Irkutsk, I was ready to disembark. But not so much because I had had enough, but because I needed a shower. And I wasn’t the only one! A stainless steel sink in a rocking house toilet is no place to bathe. Actually, though, I still had a lot of track left to ride before reaching London (via St. Petersburg and the Baltic States) and the break was well-anticipated.
Spending several days in Moscow gave me time to ruminate the miles I had just traversed. The “Liberty Hall” that is the Trans-Siberian railway taught me some history and gave me glimpses of a far-flung world I had long dreamed of seeing. For me, the thrill of the journey lay in the trip itself, looking at the map, watching the distance posts pass, and appreciating that the line is a living, working monument to those who slaved over it when it was constructed a century ago.
My, oh my, how “the time passed pleasantly.”