The world is your lobster

15th July 1992 Day 361

The Diary

St Basil's

Breakfast was the usual Russian farce. No one seemed to know where it was, it opened half-an-hour late, it was the usual bread and cheese & they tried to charge me. I caught the metro to Red Square, (smaller than I'd imagined), visited Lenin, bumped into Dave & Amy, had a look around the GUM department store (I don't think Boyes need worry!), wandered around the river side of the Kremlin up to the huge swimming pool, which was empty & then up to the Dom Knigi, Moscow's best bookstore. Russians can't be big readers. Pathetic. I suppose it was on a par with other Russian shops. Just about empty. Everyone seems to buy (& sell) at little impromptu stalls in the streets. Not a place to come Xmas shopping.

GUM

Len's Tomb

The Hokey Cokey

Red Square

Kremlin

Red Square

St Basil's

Kremlin

I visited McDonalds again & then headed to the Kremlin where I bumped into Dave & Amy again. The Kremlin was very nice but apparently I missed out by not going to the armory. That's what happens when you haven't got a guide book. I then went & had a look inside St Basils & then went back to the hotel for a kip.

The World's biggest bell

Len in the Kremlin

At 6.30 I met the others at Pizza Hut for a Trans-Mongolian reunion - 16 of us! The Russians couldn't afford to eat here. I spent $22 - about the average monthly wage. Dave, Amy, Ken, Debbie & I then went & sat outside the Intourist hotel with a can of Coke each watching the prostitutes trying to do business. It all seemed very complicated to us.

Sign-of-the-times. The 6-foot high Coke can in Red Square!

14th July 1992 Day 360

The Diary

My body must still be on Irkutsk time as I woke at 4.40 & watched the sunrise. We killed time like the previous 3 days and the train arrived at Moscow at 15.55, 18 mins late & 80 hours after we left. We said goodbye to the carriage staff & went our separate ways. The Leningrad Skaya Hotel was a Stalinesque skyscraper & could have featured in Ghostbusters.

Sunrise over Europe

There was a small problem with my onward train ticket but that was sorted. The main problem - no hot water in the hotel. So after 3 days on the train I had to have an icy cold shower. The bureau de change was closed but I had a few roubles left and bought some Metro tokens & headed for town. The Metro is probably the most difficult I've used - no English signs, no colour coding & cyrillic script.

Foreign Affairs Ministry Building Moscow

I went to the Intourist hotel, changed $10 telling the gum-chewing female adolescent that it wouldn't hurt to smile as she did her best to make out that doing her job was really putting her out. I declined a Moscow map for $8 & picked one up on a street for 50 roubles. I headed to McDonalds where I met Ken, Debbie & the Dutch family from the Chinese train. No filet-o-fish, burgers only, the heating turned up to get the customers out but it was cheap.

Ken, Debbie & I walked to Arbat Street, haggled & bargained but didn't buy anything, caught a boat cruise to Red Square & waited for dark to fall & the guards to change on Lenin's Tomb.

2012
It's worth noting what state Russia was in back in 1992. Today it may be full of billionaires and Chelsea owners but back then the Berlin Wall had only just fallen and things were far from normal. As far as I could see most shops seemed to be devoid of stock whether it was food or anything else. There was only one McDonalds and one Pizza Hut in Moscow and very few other signs of Western influence.

From Wikipedia :"1990: On January 31, the first Soviet McDonald's opens, in Moscow. At the time it is the largest McDonald's in the world . For political reasons, McDonald's Canada is responsible for this opening, with little input from the U.S. parent company; a wall display within the restaurant shows the Canadian and Soviet flags. To overcome Soviet supply problems, the company creates its own supply chain, including farms, within the USSR. Unlike other foreign investments, the restaurant accepts rubles, not dollars, and is extremely popular, with waiting lines of several hours common in its early days.'

13th July 1992 Day 359

The Diary

A bad start to the 7th anniversary of Live Aid as Mikhail woke me up with The Scorpions from next door. Valeriy & Igor got off at Sverdlovsk and I had the compartment to myself again. The scenery outside had been pretty much the same since Irkutsk, flat, a few trees, a few villages, a few farmed fields & the occasional river & town.

The day passed pretty much as the others, some pot noodles, bread, tea and an attempt to make a meal from the fare on offer in the buffet car & some dodgy Russian beer. We missed passing into Europe as we were eating & we missed the Urals as we were crammed into a cabin with 3 of our student holiday provodniks (Chicks?), Mikhail, Marina and Tanya and 2 young Russians Lydmila & Alex. They asked us questions (mainly about the USA) we answered & then asked them about Russia. Debbie gave them Womens Weekly which they seemed most interested in & then we all swapped addresses.

Provodnik and Provodchicks

The rest of the day was quite unremarkable apart from Ken's admission that he was in the same class in school as Bono & his best mate Keith stole Bono's girlfriend & is mentioned in Dunphy's book. Best claim to fame so far!

2012
Sverdlovsk was the old soviet name for Ekaterinburg. Still 1,778km from Moscow at thispoint. Irkutsk was 5153 km from Moscow.

Someone else's view of the same journey - 14 years late.

12th July 1992 Day 358

The Diary

Much confusion as we all wondered whether to live by Moscow time, which Soviet Railways run on, or by local time - whatever that was. More photo-taking, buying from old women on the platforms, talking, reading and trying to get food & roubles for dollars out of the restaurant staff.

I was joined in my compartment by Valeriy and I spent about 8 hours conversing with him, his brother-in-law, Igor and occasionally one of our provodniks, Mikhail, who was the only one that could speak both Russian & English. The LP phrasebook took a hammering, bits of German came in handy, Ken had a go for a while & we all had a good time. My Russian is coming on a bit - better than the others, anyway.

11th July 1992 Day 357

The Diary

All we had time for in the morning was a measly, mildly interesting $5 intourist tour around the sights of Irkutsk. All we got of Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake which contains 1/5 of the world's fresh water and is home to lots of rare flora & fauna, was a few hours view from the train the previous day. It looked pretty spectacular though.

Street traders

Russian Chopper

You still look American

Irkutsk Church

Irkutsk

Train No 9 is the Irkutsk - Moscow express known as the Baikal. Dave & Amy, two Americans returning home after living in Tokyo, were going with us. The 2 couples got to share a compartment while I was put in a small 2-berth compartment, on my own, in the next carriage. Dave & Amy had the LP USSR & the Trans-Siberian handbook and Ken & Debbie the LP Russian phrasebook. No shortage of research material. We
checked out the restaurant car and as expected (predicted by the guidebooks) the menu was enormous but only a handful of items were available. Coupled with the bread, cabbage patties, cheese pancakes, potato "things", drinks and whatever else we managed to lay our hands on from the wrinkled old ladies selling on the station platforms we can get enough to survive.

Time flew by as we walked around at every stop, blatantly took photos at the stations, read and talked. The samovar at the end of each carriage bubbled with hot water to keep us in tea, coffee & pot noodles so we all went to bed contentedly.

The samovar

2012
We still keep in touch with Dave, Amy and family - though increasingly intermittently. They've visited us in Sydney and we've visited them in New Hampshire.

10th July 1992 Day 356

The Diary

By now everyone had realised that we would be getting to Irkutsk very late despite all the confusion over the train running on Moscow time and having to put watches forward one hour for Mongolia. At stops the jacket buying continued, Russian shansh marnie men were everywhere and sneaky thieves wandered the platforms & tried to get on the trains. Again we weren't prevented from taking photos but Mr Liu had his camera whipped from him just as the train pulled out at Ulan Ude. He was very upset but I was relieved it wasn't me.

Ulan Ude

Andrei, Ulan Ude

My carriage emptied as all those going on to Moscow had to move so I read my book in peace for a while and then went to join Ken & Debbie's "party" carriage next door. I talked to Linda who'd last seen her boyfriend on 5 Jan & was due to meet him in Prague on 20 July. Sounds familiar.

We eventually arrived at Irkutsk and there was lots of address swapping, photos taken & tearful farewells as those of us getting off said we'd catch up with the Moscow travellers in McDonalds. We went to the Intourist hotel, admired its 60s decor, bought bread & cheese and Ken, Debbie & I went for a late night stroll. We got talking to some street sellers and I bought a Yeltsin doll from two who were in a rock band and hoping to make it in Holland. Their English was superb and they could quote the lyrics from some of my favourite songs. Shame about their dress sense.

Beijing - Ulan-Bator - Irkutsk actually took 60 1/2 hours. The timetable it didn't quite run to, due to the border stops is as follows:

GMT +8 A D
Beijing 7.40
Nankou 8.40 8.44
Qinglongqko 9.28 9.38
KhangZhuang 9.54 10.02
Zhangjiakou 11.37 11.47
Datong 14.12 14.25
Jiring 16.18 16.28
Erlian 20.45 23.25

ULAN-BATOR TIME GMT +9
Dzamynude 23.40 0.40
San-shanda 4.38 4.53
Choyr 8.40 8.55
Ulan-Bator 13.20 13.50
Zonhala 16.48 17.03
Darhan 18.56 19.00
Suhe-Bator 20.42 22.05

MOSCOW TIME GMT +4
Dozorne 17.28 17.43
Naushki 17.63 20.25
Grusintooz lake (?) 22.13 22.15
Ulan-Ude 1.15 1.30
Mysouaga 3.54 3.58
Slyudyanka 6.30 6.45
Irkutsh 8.59

Irkutsk is actually GMT+9. This train (train no 3) continues on to Moscow arriving 3 nights & 3 1/2 days later.

Ken and Debbie

Lake Baikal at midnight

2012
Before privatisation in 1992, Intourist was renowned as the official state travel agency of the Soviet Union. It was founded in 1929 by Joseph Stalin and was staffed by NKVD and later KGB officials. Intourist was responsible for managing the great majority of foreigners' access to, and travel within, the Soviet Union. It grew into one of the largest tourism organizations in the world—including a location in Canada—with a network embracing banks, hotels, and bureaux de change. And they followed us around everywhere and met us at every train stop. It made me feel like James Bond.

9th July 1992 Day 355

The Diary

By the time we woke up we were 4 1/2 hours late and going through the Gobi Desert. The Mongolian scenery was really beyond my powers of description but it consisted of endless desolate plains, some desert, some fertile, surrounded by hills that were covered with dark rain clouds. Rabbits, strange birds, camels, goats and wild horses wandered by the track and occasionally there would be a few inhabited white tents and then a few brick houses. The few towns we passed were like derelict 60s council estates complete with children's playgrounds and low rise tower blocks connected by muddy roads. Paul Theroux should be consulted for a full description.

At Choyr and Ulan-Bator we all jumped off & started taking photos even though we'd been warned it was not allowed. Locals crowded the platforms trying to buy leather jackets from the Chinese who were flogging them from the train windows, and selling badges, souvenirs and home baked bread in the hope they could get some Chinese money or some dollars. I discovered I had 10 Yuan left (1 pound), gave it to one of them and then was inundated with gratitude, handshakes, medallions, bread and big smiles. Ulan-Bator looked pretty inhospitable but it was the only decent sized town & the only place with real roads that we passed all day. The plains & hills continued until it was too dark to see any more. I crashed out early having realised that because we were 4 1/2 hours late we would be up all night at the Mongolian-Russian border.

And that's exactly how it was. The Russians searched the roof, the cabins and everywhere else for smuggled people & goods. I don't know whether they found anything but we were soon 6 1/2 hours late.