goes with the Metro's from my accommodation to the station "Komsomolskaya" at Place of the three stations. In addition to the Kazan and Leningrad station there and the Yaroslavl train station is located, from which leaves the bulk of long-distance trains to the east.
The last hours before departure, I cast me in a cafe at the Yaroslavl station in black and borscht. Shortly clock 21 is provided on the train platform, the conductors (2 per car) look at the tickets very carefully. The City-Star ticket they are interested in not only the sleeping car reservation is important and is equal cashed (in Russian ticket is the breakdown kept to know when a passenger be thrown off the train must). Russian tickets are actually divided into two, in the Amount for the track itself and in the sleeping car reservation.
First surprise: The cars are barely two years old, the Moscow Railway Administration has yet replaced the GDR-derived production cars of the company Ammendorf by new from the factory in Tver. Russia has varied from region to railway authorities (Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, etc.) that compete with each other over long distances and make the car material. Depending on the district then only the locomotive is changed. The showpiece of the Moscow Railway Administration, the train is 1 / 2 (Vladivostok - Moscow and Moscow - Vladivostok), other traits are known as the "Baikal" from St. Petersburg to Irkutsk and the "Vyatka" of Moscow to Kirov.
The beds are already made up, at 21:35 Moscow time, the train is in motion, in a compartment with two other men. One of Waldemar, 72 years old and from Finland. He goes to the jamboree also carried to Vladivostok, in order to visit friends. Besides, he speaks fluent Russian and some German and English. The other fellow is Aleksander, 52 years old pensioner and former officer of the Russian artillery. In fact, Ukrainians, he was still mixed in Soviet times to Svobodny, a town between Chita and Khabarovsk at the other end of Russia. There in the Cold War intercontinental ballistic missiles were stationed, and after a visit to relatives in Kiev, he now drives home again. In the Chernobyl accident 1986 had to clean up to him as liquidator, sent to the reactor, which is one reason for his early retirement.
Some other tourists are also on board. Most get off in Irkutsk, which runs in Ekaterinburg in our compartment who has come to Englishman Michael Ulan-Ude. And they all go through Mongolia to China, only the Australian Ken makes the hard way via Lake Baikal and Baikal-Amur Mainline to Sakhalin.
Twice a day's meal into the compartment: in the morning a package consisting of tea bags, instant coffee, wafers, 4 crackers, jam, butter, condensed milk, 10g sugar. Noon then rice or couscous with meat and two slices of smoked fish with lemon. Evening, then self-sufficiency is announced, either at one of the grannies on the platforms (the train makes stops several times a day longer) with dumplings and other traditional fare, or at one of the kiosks, through the sale of Instant Noodles. The taste will be filled with water in the samovar, not particularly, but are cheap and filling.
Shortly after Chita middle of the night is a drunken, stinking of beer into the bald head compartment. Here he was going about 500 km with and whether we wanted a vodka. Then he lies down but with the conductor that brings the train conductor and this sends him into the big room sleeping car ("Plazkart") on the end of the train. Lucky.
Am 18.8. is the "Rossiya" Finally, just before sunrise on time in Vladivostok on. 9288 km and 146 hours since the departure at the Yaroslavl station in Moscow passed, it is still dark and only the 24-hour supermarket next to the Lenin statue is open at the station forecourt.
Once the Internet connection is more reliable here's a supplement with photos.
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