Jeremiah's Strange Times

"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, smellin...

Onwards to Lake Baikal It was only 14.30 (GMT + 9) when we finally got going from Zabaykalsk.  From here to Moscow there was little to do but settle in and enjoy the ride.  That day we would skirt the edge of the Mongolian plateau, all snowy grey grass stretching off and down to the horizon, to the eventual sandier emptiness of the Gobi under the sun and the Himalayas somewhere far off to the South west.  The Mongolian Plateau I don't think I've ever been so Geographically aware as I was on that particular day, something about the wideness of space.  So aware of drawing a line across the surface of the world.  Great distances.  There was an almost foolish desire to see them as empty, just types of land, known land.  Grass then mountains then India.  Like streets in a city.  Known quantities in this great unknown.  My mind raced to place it in context.  A low resolution context.  Simplified.  On our way agai...

Zabaykalsk station A Real Russian Welcome Dawn on a Monday, the 10th of December. The tiny ramshackle border town of Zabaykalsk.  Down at the station, heavy with snow, the trans Siberian has just chugged in.  Tired passengers slowly drift down from the cooling train.  For the next six hours the train will be shunted back and forth between the platform and a long warehouse sitting between the station and the Chinese border,  here the carriages will be lifted up by yellow machines, shaped like inverted 'n's.  The wheels will be rolled out, and new wheels will be rolled in, upon which the carriages will then be lowered.  This is necessary as the rail gauge in Russia is narrower then that in China, and indeed to that of the rest of Europe.  This proved of use to the USSR during the Hitlers failed invasion during second world war.  A strategic accident however, American contractors constructing what was the most ambitious railway project of a...