Leaving Russia

Well, it’s harder to leave Russia than it is to get in! We have now been parked at a small out of the way railway station called Naushky (or something similar), in Buryatia, for over 5 hours while various uniformed people swarm over our carriage checking passports and customs forms and shining torches into dark corners. There was a bit of drama when we arrived as some people were pulled off the train by guards with guns and handcuffed and thrown into a van. Illegal immigrants …. a prison van? No idea but quite exciting at the time. Needless to say we kept our distance as images of the cold war flashed through our minds. Couldn't help feeling sorry for the people though.

This train trip is a two-nighter from Irkutsk to Ulan Bator in Mongolia. It’s good to get moving again though it’s hard to shake off the tiredness of the last two nights uncomfortable accommodation at Lake Baikal. The lake was stunning, the air clear and fresh, the local smoked fish ‘omul’ delicious….but the beds!!! If Ian and I had been house-hunting at Lake Baikal and walked into this one we would have thought it had great potential if you first stripped it bare, dumped the furniture and did a renovation job. Our host was however lovely and a very good cook – Valerii – a marine biologist who dives in the lake to study the algae (over 1000 species) and teaches at the university. Lake Baikal is a Unesco world heritage site, in that it is the largest body of fresh water in the world (you can dip your bottle in and drink straight from the banks), and 80% of its species can only be found in this lake. Valerii also arranged a banya for us and our train-friends – this is a Russian sauna in a cedarwood cabin – complete with twig massage! I could just imagine coming out into the deep snow and -30 degrees in winter. Luurvely.

Our previous homestay host in Irkutsk was also lovely – very beautiful and sparkly Helen, or Elena, in what we think was a fairly typical, and very small, apartment in a large block. She says “the English always surround themselves with parks and beautiful gardens, but the Russians, they don’t care about such things”. This about sums up the initial appearance of most Russian towns – but if you scratch the surface it’s not much different to Europe in what is available. There is definitely a feeling of hardship though – having now seen inside some homes I wonder who is actually able to shop in the well stocked malls at such high prices.

So, if I had to sum up one lingering impression of Russia – it would be the warmth! Both on the trains and in the houses, with all the heating and hot water provided by the government in copious quantities. So, we can now forget our Russian, spend our last roubles and prepare for Mongolia – help!

Day 3 on the Baikal train.

We are over the moon. We absolutely love this trip. Last night I slept like a log on my little shelf and woke up happy. We now have only 20 hours left before we get off in Irkutsk and feel sad it is almost over – still, we can look forward to a few more train days on the way to Beijing.

On waking this morning, the first thing we noticed was the change in landscape. It has gone from more or less flat with continual green silver birch trees, to rolling hills and a mixture of birch, fir and some other trees. But they are ORANGE. We have travelled overnight from late summer into Autumn. The mixture of golds, oranges and a few reds with the white bark of the trees is stunning. The sunshine has also given way to cloud for the first time, and a rumour has been passed down the train that there is deep snow in Irkutsk. This is very exciting news for us Brits though I may need to invest in some snow boots as my footwear is inadequate. How great to experience snow in Siberia.

The settlements have also changed. Not so much the edge of city ‘favelas’ as they would be called in South America – now we can see proper villages. Beautiful wooden houses, some painted, with large well-tended vegetable plots, smoke rising from chimneys, a few people here and there. There’s no doubt that life is very hard here though as the houses are small and probably un-insulated. Temperatures drop as low as -30 c in Jan and Feb. Some have satellite dishes though not many. We’ve seen very few surfaced roads, just muddy tracks. And very few cars. I suspect the railway is a very important link for these communities.

One of the best things about this trip is that it is completely un-touristy. Although we have met a few Europeans, the train is mostly filled with Russian people, some with young children or dogs, making domestic trips. I can’t imagine bringing Barney on such a long train journey! The train itself is very big compared to European trains, the fittings all good quality, the service fantastic in terms of cleanliness, though a bit of Russian language would help a lot. I had imagined the samovar to be a smoking brassy antique, however it looks like a 1970’s boiler and works very efficiently, providing water at 100 c. We also have drinking water on tap, and the loo rolls only run out at the end of the day. The providnitzas are clearly in charge! The beds are comfortable and the linen all spotlessly clean. Small towels (like tea towels) are provided, and there’s a spacious shower in first class that we can use for 93 roubles – about £2. The loos have been a pleasant surprise. The promised ‘hole in the floor’ has not materialized – we are lucky enough to have a proper toilet with seat, that opens directly onto the track. This could just be our train – the ‘Baikal’ no.10. Perhaps others are not so good.

A train day – day 2 on the train.

6.45am wake up from not sleeping. Doze for couple of hours.

8.45 Ian makes tea and porridge from the samovar and we eat in our cabin.

9.30 Wash up bowls and cups using shower gel, a toothbrush, and mixture of hot water from samovar and cold water from loo basin. Samovar water is 100 degrees c – can’t help thinking that pouring boiling water from the tap into a narrow cup on a wobbly train wouldn’t get past the HSE in England. Great to have hot water on tap.

9.45 Make effort to get dressed, washed etc. Ian has discovered a shower in first class so goes to use that – I’ll wait till later. Take turns with other passengers and plug camera charger into socket in passageway.

10.00 Go for walk – to front of train past first class (we prefer our 2^nd class), restaurant car, spot driver no.2 having a smoke in back of engine, then walk to far end of train through 3^rd class – ‘kupe’ – smoking and snoozing Russians everywhere! Again, grateful for 2^nd class compartment. Interrupted by a Provodnitza (carriage attendant) whilst doing exercises in gap between carriages. Embarrassed.

10.30 Coffee time! And chocolate cake from food bag, shared with Adam, Laura, Edita and Hendrick, neighbours in carriage 6. Russian neighbours say no to cake. More chat about where we’re going and where we’ve been, how we booked, what we do at home.

11.20 Action! 20 min stop at Omsk station – a chance to get off, get some fresh air, stretch our legs – but make sure we don’t miss the train leaving!

11.45 Resume chocolate cake eating and chat. Swap guide books.

12.30 Lie down to doze and start listening to War and Peace audio book

1.30 Discussion about what to have for lunch. Noodles, cupasoup or cheese sandwiches? We decide on the latter and find some tomatoes and cucumbers we bought in Moscow.

2.05 Spot loose hay piled on wooden cart being led by horse along track

2.15 Continue napping and listening to War and Peace – can’t make head or tail of it as keep dozing

3.20 Woken up by everyone getting off train for 20 mins at a station. We love the cool fresh air as the train is overheated and the windows don’t open, except in the loo. We purchase blinis – like crepes – from a platform vendor and chat to Andrei, an English speaking, clearly very educated but poor Russian vendor. He collects coins so we give him our English ones. He tells us the only employment in his village is either the railway, or the police.

3.40 Return to compartment, watch birch trees and flat dry landscape passing by – so few people, animals or crops. A few wooden houses here and there. Continual lovely sunshine. About 10 degrees outside, 25 deg in.

3.45 Download photos onto laptop, write brief blog ready for next time we have internet. Ian dozes on bunk.

4.15 Frank and Carolina stop by for chat on way back to carriage 5

4.30 Can’t decide whether to sketch something, sleep, or sew up my trousers. This is too much choice so I put if off and go to loo instead.

4.45 Carriage provodnitza comes in to vacuum our carpet. There are two attendants per carriage – that’s 26 on a single train plus the buffet car staff!

5.00 Sew trousers with needle and cotton managed to buy in Moscow market

6.30 Discuss further food options – eat beef stroganoff and chicken in restaurant car with Alexander (from Belgium). Followed by a card game of ‘Sloppy’ with Adam & Laura (our favourite travel companions).

9.30 Bed time – we try to adjust our body clock or we’ll end up with 5 hours jet lag in Irkutsk as all trains run on Moscow time.

Waiting for the Night Train to Siberia

16^th Sept – waiting for the night train – a burst of poetic creativity!

Sitting on Yaroslavsky Station platform watching Russia go by.

I suspect those we’ve met in Moscow, Red Square and around, were not truly representative. Here, the women are ‘normal’ – not the pencil-thin, stiletto-shod, Paris Hilton lookalikes toting pink-clad puppy dogs in handbags and baby slings. Not the hordes of tourists posing and clicking, nor the wealthy office-dwellers profiting from the beaurocracy of the rest of Russia.

These are soldiers with kit bags, bedrolls and bottles of vodka, chubby children yawning in pushchairs as they wait for the night train to Siberia. These are stumpy women and hard-featured men, fag in mouth and luggage of cardboard boxes and cheap plastic bags. Bleached blonde thirty-somethings with pompom-pigtailed girls in tow, and older women with patterned headscarfs, patterned skirts and patterned jumpers.

Everywhere smokers. Everywhere Russians.

The night train to Siberia.

Platform-waiting with crowds of eager be-luggaged Russians. Light spills out of the open train door with the promise of ‘home’ for the next four nights. Samovar smoke wafts over the heads of the waiters like London fog. Time warps gently with the leather seats, Bakelite door handles and the orange glow of a hundred lamps.

We’re moving! The gentle thunder and clacking of wheels on tracks to be the background music of our journey. Train 10, heavy, ponderous, hot, the fug of human bodies all pervasive – what will it be like in 3 days? Somebody open the windows!

Moscow 2

I take it back - Moscow is no longer incomprehensible - we are starting to read the language with the help of a cyrillic alphabet and some common sense, as a lot of the words sound like the english equivalent. We have seen Red Square, walked around the Kremlin, loved St Basils cathedral (multi-coloured disneyesque), and even managed to find the International Christian Fellowship on sunday morning.

Evangelical churches as we know them are apparently few and far between and the city seems to be swamped in materialism (there are a lot of millionaires here, and the city is allegedly controlled by mafia) though the Russian Orthodox Church is still very popular and seems very warm hearted and worshipful.

We were invited out for lunch with a lovely american family from the international fellowship - a couple who run the school for missionary kids, and their daughter and son-in-law who both work for the US government. The amazing thing was, we checked out of our hostel that morning, and intended to find the next hostel after church. We accepted their offer of lunch, picked up our bags and followed them down this street, round a corner, up another road etc until we got to the restaurant they had chosen - looked up, and there right next to it was our hostel! They had led us right to the door.

This made us aware of Gods presence, which was a good thing in view of the discovery that the hostel was an absolute pit, filthy kitchen etc and i immediately wanted to check out. God got involved again however as (after a fruitless search for somewhere better to stay) we met in the hostel a great couple from Darlington who turned out to be christians (from a Baptist church no less) - Rachel and Doug. We managed to swap our dive of a room for theirs when they checked out (huge comfy bed instead of sharp springs and something dodgy stuck to the floor) and our hostel is therefore transformed into 'bohemian' rather than some sort of squat……. particularly now our underwear is strung up on a washing line over the bed. It is also the best location to be as everything is on our doorstep.

Anyway, i'm running out of battery so must finish this rambling story and go to bed. Tomorrow we get on our long-distance russian train to Siberia so no more blogging for a few days.

Love the emails and facebook messages – thank you J I’ve put a few photos on facebook now as it’s not so easy on the blogsite.

Moscow!

We're here!!! Can't believe how easy it is to get to Russia! Everyone says that Moscow is like any other capital city..........I'm not sure that's what we felt last night getting off the train at Moscow Pavaletsky Station. My first feeling was of complete incomprehension and therefore helplessness. Don't let anyone tell you 'they all speak English in Moscow' - it's not true!!! We have been doing a lot of sign language, pointing, snorting like a pig (that was Ian trying to clarify he was eating a bacon crepe), and are very proud of our three Russian words we have now learnt:- Yes (da), no (nyet) and thankyou (spaseebah). These seem to be doing the trick with most people - i just need 'I'm sorry' and then i can apologise to everyone for being a complete idiot who didn't do her russian homework properly.

We have been recovering from the ordeal of navigating our way on foot through Moscow rush hour with too much luggage (it only weighed 11kg but even that feels like too much in a busy metro) and reading signs that were all in code and a very poor map....plus a bit of help from some lovely Russians....in Godzillas Hostel. We even have our own room which if you look past the dodgy electrics and doubtful decor is our little haven of English speaking tranquility.

Off to do battle with the city now and find our way to Red Square.

Berlin

Well the first night on a train was great - we even slept for some of it despite being wedged on a shelf with a stretchy thing to stop you falling out when the train goes round a bend! Particularly impressed by our friendly guard who brought us breakfast in the morning..... who says you need to go on a cruise to get a bit of luxury!

One thing that is very different from last time i 'travelled' anywhere - nearly everyone has a laptop, a netbook or a phone and accommodation has free wi-fi. Great for keeping in touch.

Now enjoying the sights of Berlin. Berlin is a place with a past.....you can't help but be conscious of all the new buildings replacing the old. Key Sites:- The Reichstag building, the iconic Brandenburg Gate, Ian with a cold pint of German beer. We loved our boat trip on the River Spree, and got very hot trailing through the multiple security points in the Reichstag building ("what's that long metal object in your rucksack?" ....just a buttery picnic knife actually but the xray machine didn't know that) up to the amazing glass dome on the roof (designed by Sir Norman Foster). Today we're planning to do the walking tour recommended by Helen ;-)

It's so exciting to be here, see new things, absorb a bit of history and culture. I so wish we had managed to book trains through Poland and the Baltics.......tomorrow we cheat and fly to Moscow. I've been reading an old book 'God's smuggler' about Brother Andrew, a Dutchman who's life was filled with miracles as he obeyed Gods call to support the church in Eastern Europe (during the cold war). Over and over again he took a car load of Bibles through the checkpoints while God blinded the eyes of the guards. What an amazing God.

Day 1!

This feels so normal! No pre-flight nerves, popping ears or sudden time zone changes. We said farewell to Bridgwater (and mum & dad) at 09.48, and have been enjoying the last familiarity of the English countryside, the debris of the Reading festival and the train-jams into London (sadly causedby a fatality on the line somewhere).

On a happier note we are now speeding our way on eurostar to Paris to meet the sleeper (or in my case, probable non-sleeper) to Berlin.

GOODBYE BRITAIN!

Sent from my iPhone

Okay, so here goes.....my first blog....public revelations of the soul.  I can't imagine anyone will want to read this but let's treat it as a sort of sanitised travel diary.  A sort of extra long facebook status update.

Well, this blog is really meant to be all about our big trip to China (rather than my soul) which will be starting at Bridgwater Railway Station next Tuesday morning at 09.49 when we depart for Paddington London.  I can't wait for that moment when we set off and leave everything behind - with some sadness at saying goodbye but also excitement at being 'footloose and fancy free' (where did that saying come from?).  Within 24 hours we will arrive, via Eurostar and Paris, in Berlin.  I think the sleeper train is called the Perseus.  For some reason, trains on the trans-Siberian route are given names as well as numbers - well not all of them - the un-named ones are apparently the ones to avoid!

The tasks for today include doing a bit more work on China ie. where to go, what to do...  After a week in Beijing and a week in Harbin for Ian to work on his Nuffield, we have 2 weeks in one of the most exciting countries in the world - and I don't just want to be another tourist seeing the sights.  The challenge of reading Safely Home by Randy Alcorn, and The Heavenly Man about Brother Yun, make me want to see another side of China, and perhaps contribute something, however small, to the life of Christians in this vast and confusing country.  The public face of China is very much success and optimism, but reports about Christianity and the house-church movement today indicate there is still very much a darker side.  Probably not the right subject for a blog but thoughts to mull over and more importantly talk to God about.  Whichever country we are in, we want to be listening to Him and others.