Stories, photographs and thoughts from a travelling couple taking walks and mapping their routes, while backpacking around India, and parts of the world.
Red, orange and yellow, the endless Taiga
As if to mock the grey, colourless skies
Reflect on a placid stream, an Impressionist masterpiece
Did you know even the gentlest of leaves make a ripple?
As it gracefully descends to meet its end?
Did you see it? Oh, it's already gone!
A blur going past this window-shaped world
So fleeting a moment
Like this journey... A metaphor, perhaps?
But I have no time for poetry now
The bubbling samovar awaits
To make a no-nonsense cup of chaĭ in motion
Black with no sugar like the Babushkas in the Platskartny prefer
I think I'm learning to love this bitter brew
Glowing wine-like in the sunlit glass
Seeped through the sweet-sour candy in my mouth
As the rhythm of the train lulls me into a trance
Another 50 hours to go
While I'm in NO way condoning the practice of hunting animals, meeting Alexey the full-time doctor and part-time Misha hunter, among other fascinating characters from all across this unfamiliar country, was one of those quintessentially Russian experiences we would never have enjoyed, if not for the railways. In a country that is so vast that 15 Indias can fit into it, the Russian Railways (Российские железные дороги or RZD, in short) is like a vital, pulsating artery running across the width of the country. A journey on these trains is the easiest way to earn more than a glimpse into the everyday lives of a people that popular culture doesn't talk much about.
When we decided to undertake the iconic Trans-Siberian Railway journey, we had to unlearn so many things. Firstly, the Trans-Siberian is NOT a single train which lets you hop-on and off along the way, as it is often assumed to be. It refers broadly to a basic network of railways connecting Russia's West to its Far East. There are lines connecting Moscow to Mongolia, Moscow to Beijing and Moscow to Vladivostok, a Russian port city so Far East that it's practically hugging North Korea & China and is across the sea from Japan. This is known to be THE longest rail journey in the world, spanning 9288 kilometres. And we made it to the other side.
This month, the Trans-Siberian railway line celebrates 100 year of its existence. Built between 1891 and 1916 by appointed ministers under the supervision of Tsar Alexander III and by his son, Tsar Nicholas II, this engineering miracle that practically connected two continents, has reshaped Russian history and modern history along with it. A whole century later, it still remains the world's longest railway route.
We didn't however sit on a single train for the nine days and eight nights it takes to get to the port city of Vladivostok. We decided to use the wonderful railway network to explore multiple cities and towns along the way to get a feel of a Russia beyond Moscow and St Petersburg. Enroute, we were pampered by Babushkas, regarded with curiosity as the two brown people who dined and slept among a sea of Russians and collected stories along the way.
This Google doodle movie whimsically captures the essence of everything we felt and experienced along the way. Just like the little Russian people (and the one conspicuous backpacker) in the video, we chugged past changing landscapes and regions, over endless cups of tea and incredible conversations that were mostly lost in translation.
Russians love conversing with you even when you insist you don't speak the language. Sheepish exclamations of Rooskii ne ponimayu (I don't understand) on our part were met with longer bouts of elaborate conversations in Russian, to which we contributed in the form of big, dumb grins.
Tea must be had, at all times. Every coach has a samovar at one end, with boiling water available around the clock, for free. RZD provides you with glass cups with ornate cup holders. This means, everyone on the train only needs to bring tea bags, green or black and good conversations. Sugar optional. The table between four berths become a community cache of candies and sweets brought by everyone to accompany the cups of tea that is consumed continuously, if not every half an hour or so. Coffees are usually reserved for the mornings and evenings.
The Provodnitsa or the railway conductor is the boss of your coach, an epitome of the RZD efficiency. Every single coach has one. They are most often female, most often friendly and they always mean business. They allow you to enter the train only after checking your tickets, hand over your bed linen to you, keep your coach sparkling by scrubbing the corridors and the bathrooms clean, ensure you are up and awake on time for your arrival, keep the samovar boiling, don't let you stray too far from the train when you get down at stations and even make hot cups of tea or coffee for you, if you wish to purchase them. Follow their instructions for a smooth, pleasant train journey.
The Russian passengers plan their day around the long stops the train makes. A chart at the end of each coach shows you all the stops the train will make during the day and the duration of each stop. This schedule is the subject of many conversations, with many Russians carrying charts of their own. Smoke and stretching breaks, food and beer refuel sessions and countdown to their own destinations are planned based on this.
Russians want to share their lives with you even if you don't understand a word of what they are saying. They will share pictures of their children, their jobs and their travels. Carry a few photos of your life with you. Where language fails, the images speak about you.
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We try to answer using animated gestures, a sort of universal sign language. It's only our first long haul train and only a few days into our journey. We are yet to figure out how to go about this gap in communication. Usually an articulate and an eager talker, I'm reduced to mumbles and stutters as I try to express myself. Lovell sits across me, patiently listening to one of the enthusiastic Babushkas talk animatedly about her recent holiday in a Russian city. She shows him pictures of the said vacation on a tiny screen of a flip phone. Every single photo accompanied by a story. All 175 pictures of them! The screen read, 100/175… 160/175 as she continues conversing with us earnestly. A somewhat-English speaking Russian from the adjacent berth is called in as a standby as a translator every time the Babushka wants to make doubly sure we understand. Through the course of our 26 hours on the train, she makes us a flask full of aromatic jasmine tea using a fancy infuser, makes space on the table diligently when she senses it is time for us to eat, chastises us for buying bad quality and cheap corn chips — signifying her disapproval by making a large cross sign with her arms — and even offers to pay for the ice cream at a scheduled stop as we struggle to tell the vendor on the platform that we don't have exact change. Finally, when we arrive at our destination, she bids dasvidaniya to us by giving us a flattened coin from Ekaterinburg as a keepsake.
Around 40-odd days later, only after we completed the entire journey, did we learn that the Trans Siberian route is celebrating its centenary. Unknowingly, just like that Babushka became a little part of our journey, I realised that we too have become little characters in the Trans Siberian railway's history. A story in 100 years of stories.
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