Trans Siberian part 10 - To Moscow!

"Day 11 - Friday the 16th of December 2012.  The Trans Siberian. 

 Approaching Nizhny Novgorod. 10:40 (GMT + 4 Moscow Time)

We've just slid into Moscow time, so our week of continual jet lag has come to a close.
This morning we were still GMT + 6 but now we are +4, so that's exciting.

Hanging out

 

Didn't write yesterday.  Busy/ not so busy day.  Petra, having not appeared the night before, visited fairly early in the morning.  We hung about doing nothing but falling asleep in our stuffy compartment while Wolf showed us something of his Motown collection from his USB."

Drinks in the dreadful dining car

  " At some point we roused ourselves and headed down to the dining car for an overpriced beer from the grump.  Petra and I then headed back to her cabin to fetch some rice wine.  We happened to be stopped somewhere, and as we searched for the bottle of somewhat dubious liquor, a drunk Russian tumbled in, smelling strongly of vomit, he immediately placed a bottle of something on the table with a resounding thunk, pored himself a glass, and downed it.  So Petra decided to pack her things and move in with us for the last night of the trip.  "

Roomies

"Slept fitfully, the tracks being far more higgildy piggildy here in the West of Russia.  More junctions then out East I assume.  Now here we are.  Our last day.  Petra slept in the bed below mine and we've spent the last the day watching the last dregs of Siberia drift away as we slide back towards 'civilisation'.  

A beautiful dawn."

Dawn on the last day

"  11:16
I've written a lot, but I feel its almost in spite of myself, same with reading.  I'm still only halfway through Cloud Atlas.  Time on board has been far busier and far more social then I could have imagined."

A rare chance to read.

"Around me the train prepares itself for the end of its long wintry trek.  Wolf is packing his bags, the attendants have been clearing out the cabins one by one over the last few days, and right now, our attendant is cleaning out the Samovar - which I am waiting to use. Its a coal powered hot water system with a little flaming grill beneath its myriad of stainless steel pipes and gauges.

Something comforting about coal power.  The heating in each carriage is provided by a furnace behind their respective samovars, so the temperature waxes and wanes throughout the day and night.

Outside, the trees are free of snow for the first time since China.  The ground is still covered, but it is still only autumn in Moscow.  Check the Samovar again.  More Noodle soup. "

Another world beyond the window

 So ends the last journal entry I wrote aboard the train.  Those last two days. In my recollection of the trip they've merged together.  We barely moved from our seats those two days, Wolf, Petra and I, even the Chinese chess fell by the wayside.  So we read and talked and looked at the passing world.  Oh so very   comfortable.

Indeed I was very comfortable with these people.  Wolf and Petra.  It felt as though I'd known the two of them for years, but of course it did, they were all I had in this little world we were living in.  Our long compartmentalised world.  How lucky I had been that they were going my way.

Bridge over Frozen waters

 Stations continued to pass, cities became visibly larger, each passing burg drawing passengers from the train so that by the time we came to the city of Vladimir we were almost alone.  We were only three hours from Moscow.  Three hours!  I would have counted such a trip as something in the fairly recent past, now it was almost like we had already arrived.

Vladimir itself was quite lovely to see from the train and along its empty platforms, despite the Nuclear Power station seemingly sat in the towns centre.  Some of the oldest churches in Russia crested the valley our track followed.  All Blue and Gold and white.

Churches of Vladamir

After a quick pop into the station to grab some water it was back on the train for the final few hours.  Petra returned to her cabin and its resident drunk (the trains only other passenger it seemed ) to begin packing up her stuff, and I started doing the same.  Gradually, as night fell and Moscow's outlying villages of wooden summer homes gave way to its outer suburbs, the cabin, that had been our home for the better part of a week began to look less and less like the comfortable flea pit we'd made it. 

And then we were there.  Moscow.

Moscow arrival

As we got off the train Wolf dashed away to get inside somewhere, still lacking a winter coat.  I waited for Petra to come along.  While waiting I observed our attendants greeting friends, laden with alcohol and bundles of bread and cake, welcoming them into our carriage.  Shut away in there.  A Party at the end of the line.  Literally in this case.  Fairly understandable.

Arriving in Moscow

Petra appeared.  Loaded down once more, and off we went to find Wolf. 

Here was confusion.  3 stations and an underground station thrust together with intersecting concourses and halls, ticket booths and waiting areas.  Beijing was easier to understand.  Compartmentalised foyers, each with a flimsy wobbling metal detector to beep at you as you squeezed through.   Other doors and foyers heading off someplace else, contradictory signs, general confusion from the staff.

Like Beijing the metal detectors were seemingly only for show, no second glaces, every single person I saw pass through, set the things off, not a one of them was stopped.

All was Cyrillic and mind boggling, for a while we worried we wouldn't be able to find Wolf, then there he was, and off we went; up a ramp, through a pair of grubby broken doors, past a building site of a concourse, turned back, down some stairs, through a taxi rank; searching for bank machines.

A quieter part of the station maelstrom

We split up, Petra and I to find the left luggage, Wolf to buy a ticket onward to Helsinki.

We found the modern underground bunker of a left luggage area, and then back to find Wolf who showed us where to buy tickets to St. Petersburg; through a concourse, up some stairs next to an internet cafe, across a balcony, round a corner, up some grey battered stairs; to a large room full of sitting people where a woman waited behind some glass.

The tickets were easy enough to buy. The woman was very helpful and they were quiet cheap. 

So then it was out to find food.  A place called 'Bahnhoff' out in the main square fronting the stations.  It was a sort of railway bar crafted into the side of a large ornate marble building.  Down some stairs and in to a low ceiling-ed place where grumpy women in aprons served microwaved food from platters.  Upstairs there appeared to be some sort of Disco with shisa pipes.

The decor was all very threatening.  It was dusty and dingy and vaguely dodgy.  We all attempted to order something recognisable, but we were all disappointed.  Mine turned out to be a lump of breaded chicken with cheese inside of it, lovingly microwaved and served on a paper plate.

The bathrooms here deserve particular mention.  Entry was gained via large metal saloon doors, the width of the room, so more of a nook then a separate space.  Across from the door were two cubicles; between them and door, to the left, a sink.  2 men stood about awkwardly, their hands wet, "were they queuing?" I asked myself "should I wait?"  Neither cubicle was occupied, so seemingly they were just lurking, lurking in these co-ed toilets.  Its cracked mirror seemingly issuing forth loud techno funk.

Suffice to say we didn't remain in this particular establishment too long.

Out.  Cross a major motorway overlooked by fairly impressive well lit Soviet buildings.  Hammer and sickle present and correct.  Naturally these rubbed Petra the wrong way.

The view from the station the next day

Wolf led us to a strange supermarket type place where we found an overly expensive fast food joint, so we went back out onto the road the way we came, here we came across a sort of low lying internet cafe bar, festooned in red, but quite okay.

Site of goodbyes. Again this was taken the following day

The reason we were looking for a bar instead of looking for somewhere to stay was simple.  Wolf was saying goodbye to us, he was off to Helsinki that very night; this was to be the end of our travels with him.  So we drank quite a bit, I rang an old friend, Dwayne, on my iphone (Skype) and we drunkenly joked around with the distant Irish man.

We chatted and drank like old friends.  A proper send off; although we'd all known each other for less then a week.  Then we said our goodbyes and it was me and Petra, looking for somewhere to sleep.

Together for the last time

This proved more difficult then either of us had expected.

The hostel we had chosen from our twined Lonely Planet guides proved quite impossible to locate.  We descended into the underground network, beautiful, ornate, but dusty like an old crypt; smoke hung thinly in the air, signs were few and far between, so one found oneself just walking and hoping; decide upon a direction, follow it boldly, and hope.  Trial and error.

Moscow's Underground

However, it was beautiful.  A monument to the glory of the Soviet Union.  A people's public transport with murals of Lenin, Stalin, and the winter revolution, almost as beautiful as it is impractical, lines going all over the place like spilled spaghetti.  Also, we didn't have a map.

The Moscow underground

We finally made our way to the vicinity of our chosen hostel, although by this time it was getting near midnight.  Noone knew where it was, though we were sure we were within half a block of the place.  One 'hotel' we wandered upon featured a small dark room, a door on either side, one, a barred fire door, the other with a window.  A man in the window shouted something when we asked for a room, then ran away in seeming panic.  Back out into the snow.

Around and around we wandered growing more and more worried.  Eventually, down a side alley, behind a dumpster, I found an old wooden door.  It was our hostel.  The doors were unbolted so we wandered in.  Up some stairs. Up some more stairs.  Into a pretty little common room.  Along a corridor lined with dorm rooms.  Evidentally we had missed reception, so back down we went.  There it was, behind large antique whitewashed doors.  They seemed shocked to see us.  They had no rooms available.  This information was given over with a sort of trance like nod as they ushered us back out the way we'd come.

We tried that little black room again.  I tried the fire doors.  Nothing at first, then they sprung open beneath my touch, I fell inwards to find myself in a plush carpeted hotel corridor, light and heat.  It felt like I had fallen through a portal into another world.  I spun, I was unable to let Petra in, the doors wouldn't open. 

I then became aware of a man leaning out over a ornate white reception desk to my right.  He bore the same expression as all the other hoteliers we had seen this cold night in Moscow, dreamy fearful confusion.  I staggered out some sentences, stuttering from the cold and slight delirium of the situation "Hello! do you have any rooms for the night?" "No" he replied in a sudden voice quickened with terror.  "Oh... well... um..do you know anywhere that, ah, might have some beds? Its just that its quite cold and..." "No" he cut me off, shaking his head with fear.  I apologised, for what I knew not and went back to struggling with the door.  He watched me in his terrorised way for a moment before coming round to help.  We both pulled and jerked at the thing and then suddenly Petra fell in.  At sight of her his aspect changed completely, all talk, all eager helpfulness.  The wonders of a pretty face. 

There was somewhere, but it was quite a walk away, towards the centre of Moscow.  So off we went once again, 4km in the cold to Hotel a La Russe which turned out to be a dingy overheated place staffed by shifty rude staff who were expensively aware that we had nowhere else to go.  We settled into a dorm room inhabited by several generations of a large Chinese family.  The air shimmered with the heat of the place and sleep did not come easy.

So I was in Moscow at last.