This is really long, so grab a cup of coffee if you really plan to finish it… (if not skip over the middle section)
Departure from Moscow at 20:30 10/1. I was happy to see this city behind us. It’s hard for me to even verbalize Russia and Russians. In hindsight they take almost no pride in themselves, their country, culture or their surroundings. I guess going from a world superpower to a stepchild with your hand out does have some effect on you. I’ve been in lots poorer countries recently (very recently in fact) where they really cared about the way they looked to outsiders (and more importantly themselves). Sweeping the dirt (some had no proper sidewalk or even street to sweep) in front of your house to remove the daily rubbish every morning says something about how you feel about yourself.
We made it to the train just as it is pulling in so we were the first to get on our carriage. I was thankful as our accumulations were starting to make our bags even more heavy and the gifts we had brought for the provanistas (the Russian ladies who run each carriage, cleaning and making sure you don’t get left etc.) were filling up extra plastic bags. We had read that gifts was a good way to get on their good sides early on, maybe secure some extra towels or whatnot. Michael was a little disappointed that the conductors checking our tickets turned out to be Chinese and most of the writings inside the car were in Chinese as well, meaning this was probably a Chinese train. One Chinese and one Russian train a week run from Moscow to Beijing. It turned out to be a stroke of luck that we had a Chinese carriage. Contrary to all we had read this train had Russian cars and Chinese cars. Throughout the entire journey to Ulaan Baatar Michael and I had a whole four-person berth to ourselves. We ended up being the compartment where everyone seemed to congregate (probably because we had so much candy, tea and miscellaneous crap to give away, all the stuff we brought for the provanistas). The Chinese conductors ended up being quite friendly even though they spoke little English. Several times they saved someone from getting left at a station as the train pulled off (of course I was one, but that story is not worth telling).
Later in the journey we walked through some of the Russian cars just looking around and were basically run off by the provanistas who were none too friendly and all looked fat old maids with cigarettes hanging from their lips with a worn and tattered work dress and worn house shoes (I’m not being judgmental here… I didn’t say they were fat old maids, I only said they looked that way. They could be happily married back home, wherever that is, but I seriously doubt it). The restaurant car also happened to be Russian and aside from an egg and ham omelet every morning was pretty useless (they had a relatively extensive menu but only prices on about 12 things and as the journey wore on, this was cut down to about two, beer and vodka by the last day, as they ran out of everything else). Having never been on a real train before, I thought this was normal. When we entered Mongolia, this was proved greatly wrong. The Mongolian restaurant car was like a five star restaurant compared to the worst roadside greasy spoon you would find in some place like Nevada. It had proper place settings and linen table clothes and actual food. The one meal I had right after crossing in to Mongolia was the best thing I ate on the train thus far.
Most of our food consisted of what was available at the stations. Every two or three hours the train would stop in a station for 10 – 15 minutes (there were many other stops but only lasting a couple of minutes) some (usually local) people would board the train with their bags to go a few stops (several hundred km). At each stop their were kiosks set up right on the platform selling drinks, sausages, milk etc. (kind of like a 7-11 in a four foot square box). Many of the stations there would also be local women walking around selling things out of baskets. Michael and Barnaby (18 year old, New Zealander, going overland by train from London to Bangkok where his dad is stationed by his company and he went to high school for the last three years) bought a chicken quarter and boiled potatoes, they swore was excellent, for 30 rubles ($1). I stuck mainly to homemade sausage and cheese and big loaves of bread. I whole meal of this could be bought for about 45 rubles ($1.50) with plenty to spare for another meal or a large snack.
At some of the stations near Lake Baikal they sold whole smoked fish, which they carried around the station on long coat hanger like contraptions, several dozen to a hanger. No one was adventurous enough to try these. I tried one pancake looking thing that ended up being some type of cornmeal pancake mixed with fish flakes. Needless to say I didn’t eat more than a bite and couldn’t give the rest away. Mostly we ate in small groups in our berths sharing whatever we had (usually Michael, Barnaby, Will (a just graduated aerospace engineer (small world?) from England) and I). It was fun trying a little of everything. With the samovar of boiling water in each carriage, package soup (everyone had the same idea and seemed to have stocked up at the market before boarding the train) was also a big tide-me-over snack, if I never see a Lipton’s soup envelope again, I will have lived a full life. The samovar’s actually burned coal to heat the water. Talk about doing it the old way, I guess the things were original to the trains and they work (mostly, ours was out of whack early two mornings when I was dying for some caffeine) so why mess with them. I probably had eight or ten cups of tea a day; to keep warm and for something to do, an excuse to walk to the samovar and stop to talk with everyone along the way.
A little aside about Lake Baikal… It is the deepest lake in the world at over 1600m (right at one mile), holds 20% of the worlds fresh water, could provide the entire population of the world with water for 40 years and is larger than all of our ‘Great’ Lakes together. They say that in the dry season (when there is little runoff to stir it up) you can see 40m (120 feet) deep.
The rest of our group consisted of five Swedish medical students on a 6-month break from school Sara, Linda, Eric, Andreas and Ina. There was another group of middle-aged Swedes, two couples (I never got their names straight) and an Aussie, Bannister who had traveled this train several times (something about a Russian girlfriend and teaching English in Shanghai, although I never really understood why you would take such a slow boat to visit your girlfriend, something you would do every few months).
If you’re reading this waiting for more stories of my troubles, this is one without me screwing up at all. There was quite a bit of hassle crossing the border from Russian into Mongolia, although Michael and I had all of our ducks in a row for once (ok, nearly).
Remember those customs declarations forms when we entered Russian and how important our travel agent said they were to get filled out and properly stamped by the customs officer upon entry? We found out firsthand just how important they were. At the border stop we were all given customs declaration forms just like when we entered. I filled mine out, guestimating that I had about $150 less than when we entered Russia. I presented it to the woman customs agent who was working our carriage (they came straight onto the train with gun toting guards in tow). She took my first form (properly stamped I was praying) and the new one, looked at them several times turned the first over (for some reason had to be stamped in two places), looked me up and down once really good and finally took out her stamp and proceeded to stamp my exit form. Hallelujah! Barring any major screw ups, I’m home free. I hadn’t been too worried, but as I said before, border crossings always make me quite nervous, you know the guys with guns and barbed wire and doors that go whump!
Michael is still filling out his form and she is waiting for him to finish just outside the door to our cabin. He starts trying to ask me how I filled mine out. How much money did you declare? Did you actually count it? My heart starts skipping several beats at a time just then. I don’t have the guts to look up and see if she has heard him. I hesitate, hoping he will go away. He doesn’t. He asks again. This time I’m sure she’s heard us plotting to defraud the Russian Government! I look at her but her face is just out of view behind the door. She speaks English obviously (she’s been talking to me just fine thus far), French might be a good try, but my meager French escapes me. The only thing I can think to whisper, not taking my eyes off the doorway is, “I’m not answering that question.” He looks up at me (he told me later, I never took my eyes off of the doorway to see if she was coming to get us), sees my wide eyes staring out in the hallway and he remembers the guys with guns somewhere in the corridor. He removes every bit of cash he has on him, counts it (luckily it comes to well below what he brought in), and fills out the form completely truthfully. Evidently, she heard nothing as his inspection goes smoothly. We felt like high-fiving, but figured it might arouse some unwanted suspicion.
Some of our friends (many in fact) were not so lucky. Bannister had miscalculated his visa by one day, so was overstaying his visa by about 22 hours. After much arguing with the passport control guys, he finds out that the fine is only $35 payable only in rubles (by law everything in Russia has to be paid in Russian currency, but they price everything in US dollars). He has only about $20 in rubles and everyone else has just rid themselves of their last Russian currency knowing that as soon as we crossed the border, they would be kindling to the Mongols (I bought three packs of cards just to dump my last bit). It’s Saturday night, about 11pm, no exchange open anywhere in the less than one horse town. Luckily, he finds a Russian couple on the train who are willing to part with their remaining rubles, being saved for their return, for some US dollars (to help a foreigner? maybe they’re not all bad). Bannister pays the fine, the Russians laugh and let him go. (Unfortunately, he’s not done with them though.)
Our next-door neighbor, Barnaby, received no declarations form when he entered Russia via train Belarus (which is still a Russian state). Can you imagine our customs forgetting to give someone a form upon entering the US? He declares something like $55 and Euro 45. Which technically is over the limit. He happens to come in right after the pressure has lifted from our cabin and I am breathing easier, to tell us they are telling him he has to get off the train here and change money to rubles. For some reason, you can take out as much in rubles as you want but not over $50 of undeclared money. He hands me his address and email and starts to tell me something to tell his parents, when the kindly customs guard tells him to return to his room and pack. Poor guy, he was devastated. Feeling a little stronger after having been cleared by customs and having my passport handed back to me; I push my way through the corridor to his room to let him finish giving me his information. I enquire from her what the maximum you can take out is, and she doesn’t answer me while staring me in the face. Barnaby continues to explain to me that he was never given a form or told one was need upon entry to Russia and that he is going to have to stay and change the money tomorrow, buy another ticket and catch the train tomorrow. I offer that he could just forfeit the $95 some odd dollars he had. I’m sure they would accept it and let him stay on the train.
I again ask her what the maximum is that you can export and ask if he really is going to have to stay behind for $95. She shakes her head and winks at me out of his view. They are just scaring him! A barely 18 year old kid and they are trying to scare him over $95 when they screwed up to begin with (from my point of view, their point of view is they don’t have to give you the form, it’s your responsibility, what a racket!). Anyway, she leaves him alone other than to tell him to sit down a few more times. He gets his passport back and is never pushed off the train. He is lucky I guess and he feels bad considering what happens to our other friends who are not so lucky…
The Swedish quintet somehow had mixed results from their customs entry forms. They all entered together via airport in Moscow. Coming through customs, the first two had their forms stamped properly, while the latter three had no stamp. Ina, said she waited for the officer to stamp her form and then he left. The remainder of the people in the line were just waived through. Sara, Eric and Linda all had no stamp on their entry declaration form, at the sole fault of the Russians customs officers that just waived them through. When they declared a couple of hundred Euros each at the exit customs checkpoint they all got flagged. They had to get off of the train, spend the night in the station, change all the money to rubles the next day when the bank opened again (at a very bad government exchange rate), re-declare they were taking out rubles and buy another train ticket to Ulaan Baatar! I just hope there was another train the next day, or they may have had to wait several days.
I know they finally made if, because we have left notes for each other around town, but we’re not sure when or of any other hassles they had to go through. They’re supposed to catch up to us in Beijing next week, so I’m sure we’ll get the rest of the story.
Bannister had more problems as his form had been stamped in the official box on the back, while the actual written declarations on the front of the form were not stamped. On the train, the Friendly Customs Lady throws the form back at him saying it’s trash because it’s invalid since it doesn’t have both stamps. Now why would a customs officer incorrectly stamp a form? It wouldn’t be because he doesn’t know how to do his job. I’m telling you they are perpetuating a scam on tourists!
Anyway, Bannister was declaring several currencies, some US$, Euros, Rubles, Hong Kong Dollars and Chinese Yuan. The most was the HKD, a 500 HKD note (about $65). Somehow during his negotiations, it comes out that if he will tear up one form, fill out another without the HKD and leave it with them, they will let the rest slide. What would that be? A straight out request for a bribe? From a government employee? Probably ten years ago, in communist times, they would have just been shot had they been caught. Now, it’s commonplace to grease the wheels of bureaucracy. Twice in Moscow, I saw one businessman hand a thick envelope over to another one in a coffee shop. Guess whose portrait was shining through the little address window. Benjamin Franklin! In many ways the ‘little things’ were much better back then. He agrees to this solution just to be done with them. Fills a new form out, and hands over the 500 HKD note. Friendly Customs Lady gets quite angry at the note. It is ripped about a third of the way down the middle. From personal experience, changing torn or old notes outside of their issuing country is always a problem. Nobody wants a torn or washed note from another country, it’s too hard to tell if it is real or counterfeit. She throws the bill back at him, tears up all of his forms and tells him to get out of her face. He makes it through customs and without paying a bribe!
The best comment to describe what I think all of us that were left was feeling was from Barnaby. You really would have had to have been there to understand, but once we were in Mongolia and had passed customs there as well, we were all feeling seriously bummed about losing some that we had spent so much time with and feeling bad and worried about those left behind. We were all sitting in our cabin mumbling around about the time we had all spent in Russia and our experiences even before the train trip, when Barnaby chipped in almost without thinking, “I feel like we’re back in civilization!” We had a laugh and then realized how true it was.
Up to this point we have traveled 6300km on the train and have another 1500km to make Beijing. We left Tuesday night at 10.30 and arrived in Ulaan Baatar at 8.30 Sunday morning. I imagine this is the only trip left that comes close to what traveling was like back at the turn of the century and up until the widespread use of the airplane. Crossing the Atlantic on a steamship taking weeks of travel, I’m sure you made many friends in the time you had to kill and many experiences to share with others back home.
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