…when you get a train on the trans-siberian railway. sometimes you don’t. sometimes you can get an electrichka instead. this is better than a train apparently, although it looks remarkably like a train, largely due to the fact that it is actually a train. there are other non-train trains you can get too which also look like trains, but you had better be dead or drunk before you get one of them because everyone else on board will be too. it is a very complicated system.
it is made more complicated by the fact that you have to be stephen hawkings to understand the space-time continuum in which you will be travelling. this is because all the trains in russia operate on moscow time. moscow is several time zones away. when you look at your ticket for the time of your train, you have to do maths to work it out. this is hard. there is a whole chapter on it in ‘a brief history of time’. first of all you have to determine whether you are adding or subtracting, then you have to decide how much you’re going to add or subtract, and then you actually have to do the addition or subtraction – all without the use of excel. you can’t even look at the station clock to help you because you aren’t sure if it’s siberian time or moscow time. they could be trying to trick you, after all.
luckily, i spot a group of quantum mathematicians and hang around listening to them until i have the correct answers (with working out). my iq certified, i join the rest of the population of siberia in the waiting room. everyone i don’t know is there. there is a man with one leg and a long beard, who looks like he sailed with ahab, hawking for change with a tin cup. there is a card school with old men smoking cigars. there is a makeshift nursery using suitcases as crawl-proof walls. a middle-aged woman with slack jowls sleeps with her head lolled back over the seat. a family share satsumas from a handkerchief spread on a babooshka’s lap. a couple stand in the corner embracing tightly, with their heads on each others’ shoulders, not talking. it is not as frenetic or as anonymous as a large british train station. there is life but there is no fuss.
there are also no seats left, so i’m happy when it’s time for me to find my train. it is due to leave from platform 2, it says on the board. unfortunately, when i get outside, i discover that not only is there no platform 2, there are no platforms at all. what there is, is a great snowy plain with trains as long as the horizon. it is fantastic – like a station from a world war 2 film or ‘dr zhivago’. the trains and carriages have no discernible livery beyond a kind of faded darkness. they look like they are haunted relics from the revolution, used for transporting troops to the front to fight the white bolsheviks. i can’t wait to get on board. i am expecting straw.
getting on board is not as simple as it sounds. without a platform and with no steps, it is a big leap from the ground to the train. but, as ever, people help each other, dragging the short and the infirm by their wrists onto the carriage. once inside, there is no straw. instead, there are nooks made from dark wood, as if the whole thing were an old pub on tracks. and like my idea of a perfect pub, there are dark leather benches which you can stretch out on. i can smell alcohol too, so all that’s missing is a dart board. i say hello to my companions in the nook – a couple and a young woman – and sit down. all is well.
and then the conductor shows up. there is one for each carriage and i show her my ticket and passport (and insurance docket – reassuringly bought for every journey). clearly a very curious woman, she starts asking me questions about my sleeping habits. it all seems a little personal when we hardly know each other but i show willing and reply as best as i am able. surprisingly, given that this is siberia, she doesn’t seem to understand russian – specifically my russian. we babble at each other for a bit while i try out different facial expressions – ‘somewhat confused’, ‘not really very sure’, ‘quite uncertain’, ‘flummoxed’, and finally, ‘oo it’s all so mysterious’. in the end i admit, in russian, that i can’t speak russian and that i am a stupid foreigner, in the hope that she will leave me alone.
but no, the young woman next to me has, it turns out, a basic grasp of english.
- you sleep? she asks, pointing to the plank of wood above our heads.
- eh? i reply, using one of the many words common to both languages.
and so it goes on until it’s revealed to me that my ticket is for the fold-down bench six feet in the air. the bench i was sitting on is for the young woman only. naturally, there are no steps and i have to vault up to my new abode using the table. once again, i am forced to ponder the miserable fate of short people in russia.
to begin with, i feel very isolated up there. way down below, as if on a beach seen from some cliffs, the couple have laid out a picnic on the table and are busy sharing it with the evil young woman who understands the devil’s tongue. i worry about my boots, left behind me on the floor. if this were england, they would surely be stolen. and then there’s the fact that i can’t sit up – i am forced to lie down. suddenly it hits me – how fantastic! i am forced to lie down. there is no need to negotiate for knee room with the person opposite, and no jostling for elbow room with the person beside you. i have a bed all to myself and i can do nothing but relax for the next five hours. i watch siberia sail by through the window – it is all wilderness and snow for hundreds of miles. it is hypnotic, and eventually i overcome my fear of falling out of my bunk and fall asleep.
i am reluctant to get up, or down, when my five hours is nearly up, but russian trains are as punctual as the swiss and when the time comes i have to move. i am unable to think of a dignified way to get down for some reason, and so i launch myself off the top as if i were doing parachute training and land on the man sitting opposite. i immediately apologise. the young woman then translates his reply. we all begin to talk in halting english and russian. almost instantly, there is a small crowd. they quiz the young woman. as i am secretly fluent now, i understand they are asking her if she understands me. she says she does a bit but boy, does he speak fast compared to my teacher – and that accent! you don’t hear that on the tapes. then they have a brief competition to see who can imitate me the best. unflatteringly, they all sound like ducks, but still i smile graciously while they wet themselves laughing. i am offered food and drink but it is time to disembark. as we shuffle off, i wonder if this is how it is if you are a foreigner travelling on british trains. if it is, i can’t imagine that the equivalent journey, london-aberdeen, would cost just £4. but then you get steps and a platform in britain and obviously they don’t come cheap.
