Travels on the Trans Siberian - (23-9-2002)
DIMITY
Well Russia didn't get off to a very good start. We couldn't get into the country! We spent some time trying to book a train or bus ticket, only to be repeatedly met by the same response of "niet bilet" (no ticket). With our visa expiry hour rapidly approaching we had to pay a lot of money for a taxi to drive us over the border into a town called Rubsovtsk. We will always be eternally gratefully to the taxi driver who with the patience of a saint helped us through the infamous Russian beaurocracy on the border crossing. He patiently watched the customs officials taking a very leisurely lunch before they were able to issue us the correct form. Then he filled in the forms (in Russian cryllic) not once but twice after being informed that it wasn't sufficient to declare our travellors cheques in a lump sum each one had to be declared! The whole process took over 2 and a half hours.
Rubsovstks was a town of paticular interest for me as it features in a favourite childhood book of mine, The Endless Steppe. Written by Esther Hautzig, it gives a true account or how the author, along with her family were exiled to Rubsovtks in the Siberian Steppe during WW2. It was quite special to visit the train station where she would have arrived and left 5 years later or wonder which part of town she, her mother and grandmother had ecked out a living in the harsh winter months. But we had ambitions to make it to Novosibirsk that night and had to move on. We were once again met by the standard response of "niet bilet" to our stilted Russian enquiries about the availability of train tickets. Eventually we were forced to share another taxi to a city (Barnayal) half way between Novosibirsk and Rubsovtks. The drive gave us a chance to admire the beatiful steppe which truly did seem endless with flat green grassland and the occasional Russian cottage.
Once we arrived at Barnayal our taxi driver dropped us off at what appeared to be the only hotel in town. Exhausted we dragged our way to the reception desk. We asked the receptionist if there were rooms available. She replied "Yes there were, but where were are you from?". "Australia" we answered. "We have no rooms for foreigners" she answered!! Arrrgghhhhhh! With a note of desperation in his voice Paul asked if we performed a Russian Cossak dance would they let us stay...Please? A humorless "niet" was the answer. I considered sleeping in the street. Mercifully an english speaking Russian man. Pavel, came to our resue. With his help we were able to book a train ticket to Novosibirsk leaving that night. And so we spent our first night in Russia sleeping on a train.
Russia is surprisingly expensive to travel through. There exists a discriminating system of foreigners prices for admissions and accomodation where it is not uncommon for us to pay up to more than 10 times more than the local price. When we arrived in Novosibirsk, we paid the "foreigners price" for an expensive hotel that could register our visas, a process that is absolutely essential within 3 days of entering. But after this we mostly managed to sleep either on trains or in cheap "railway rest rooms" that don't have the double standards. We were also very fortunate to be invited to stay with a local Aussie guy we heard about and telephoned in Siberia (Thanks again Keith!). With regard to admissions we could avoid this cost if we could pass as a local. With my best impersonation of a Russian chick in tight flared jeans and Paul perfecting his gruff Russian version of "Dva billet pazhalsta" (2 tickets please) we gave it our best shot. But we never did fool them. Friends of ours, Nathan and Vik did manage to purchase a few tickets at the local price with the help of a Russian friend. They were however tripped up when Vik was asked a question in Russian. He uttered the only word he could think to say under these circumstances... "Da" (yes). We think that he might have been asked if he was a foreigner!
PAUL.
In Novosibirsk we visited a nearby city called Academagorodok. Really the name says it all: it is a city of scientists, and was created by the Soviets in the centre of Russia to house the nations great brains. Nowadays most of the population has emmigrated to the west, but a few remain. It was the only place in Russia where Engligh was no only spoken but where we may be asked "What language do you speak?" because they knew a few to read the science journals! We visited the local archaeology department to talk to the personell about possible geophyscial work. They were very interested and showed us some of the latest findings - two mummified people who had been frozen for 2500 years with all their clothes and many horses.
We moved on to the old frontier town of Tobolsk, that contains the only stone kremlin (fortress) in Siberia. We had a wonderfull time here, most due to a very friendly girl (Olga) who was the local English teacher. She was absolutely astounded to find two nglish speaking foreigners in her town. Tobolsk was right on the edge of the Taiga (Siberian forest) and we would both love to visit the place in Winter. ***We also had our digital camera stolen in the town so all photos in this email have been pinched off the internet***
We passed too quickly from Siberia across the beautiful Ural Mountains into Europe. I loved the vast forests, and they were particulaly beautiful in Autumn when the leaves were changing colours. I had wanted to do some hiking in the Urals, but we really ran out of time and only spend a day in the mountains visiting the local "ice" caves. From this experience, I reccommend that people visit ice caves in winter!
We stopped for a few days about 200km from Moscow in a town called Rostov. 600 hunderd years ago this was one of the largest and most powerful cities in Russia. Now it is just a rather small village with an great name and an incredible fortress. The townspeople have done up the quarters that was previously used to house visiting nobles, and by far it was the most spectacular setting that I have ever stayed in. Within the kremlin grounds, there is about 4 churches filled with 16th century frescos. There may have been about 50 domes and spires in the grounds and it was located at the edge of a beautiful lake! From here we did a day trip to the larger city of Yaroslavl to visit the 16th century churches and old town. The highlight was a huge cathedral filled with 16th century frescos that was used in soviet times as a museum of atheism (not uncommon). St Petersburg also boasted a beautiful cathedral converted (in soviet times ) to a swimming pool.
From Rostov we caught the train to Moscow where we wandered around for a few days visiting Tolstoys house, the state museum, old monasories, churches, cemetries, and of course the red square. We also spent a day wandering inside the Kremlin grounds. Inside the Kremlin's armory we saw a special exhibition of the costumes, thrones and personal articals of the tsars. I have never seen so many large diamonds and gold. Even the headdresses for the horses were studded with large diamonds: a forehead patch for one of them contained over 1000 diamonds that were all bigger than any Dimity has even been given!
Our last stop in Russia was St Pertersburg. It is the Amsterdam of Russia, being built on a swamp and containing many canals. It was a beautiful city and most of the old buildings have still remained. We spent 6 days here and could have easily spent more. In many places it is still possible to get a feel for how the lives the old tsars would have lived as had a most of the palaces still remain and have been renovated. . The famous Hermitage proved a little too overwhelming for me. It was located in the old winter palace of the tsars and was the most opulent building I've seen (eg one massive rooms were entirely gilded and contained only gold furniture!). There were enormous staircases of yellow marble set off by red marbles and incredible, carved archetraves. The masses of art treasures (much having been taken from Germany after WWII) were mostly lost on me. There were 10000's of painting and galleries of Rembrants, Van Dykes, and other famous artists.
DIMITY
A Russian girl (Anna) we met on the train to St Petersburg became a good friend, she showed us a side of the city that is hard to see as a tourist. With Anna and her friend Nick we discovered a little cafe and art gallery filled with the work of local artists, spent a night in a jazz cafe and drank endless cups of tea at their flat being entertained by Nick dressed in his favourite WW2 flying goggles and mask miming to his favourtie soviet era orchestral records! They were great fun and we will never forget their hospitality.
When shopping it is very hard to get used to the Russian perception of "service". It is an artform perfected under years of communist rule. Not only is it nigh on impossible to distract the shopkeeper from whatever they are doing ie talking on the phone, filing their nails, reading a magazine or simply staring blankly into space, it requires a complicated 5 step process very difficult to carry out with limited Russian. Firstly it is necessary to select your puchase, line up at the shop counter to find how much it costs (if it needs to be weighed you need to get this done as well), then ask the shopkeeper for a voucher, line up at the till, pay your money and finally line up back at the counter to exchange your receipt for the groceries. Shopping in Coles is heaven!
From St Petersburg it was just a short bus trip to Helsinki. Is an expensive city, so we decided to save a few dollars by camping. But we hadn't anticipated how cold it would get. The first night was spent squashed into the same sleeping bag trying to share our body heat - very cozy but very uncomfortable. The second night, needing my sleep, I braved the cold in my own sleeping bag. By 1am (with a 4.30 rising time to catch a plane) after doning every single piece of warm clothing I had I was still awake and absolutely freezing. Desperate measures were required and I considered sleeping in the heated shower block. My only hesitation was how embarressed I would be if someone walked in to take a shower and found me curled up in my sleeping bag on the floor! But this paled into insignificance when I started to loose the feeling in my toes. I left our tent with Paul peacefully snoring away and settled down for a very cozy night, ignoring the security camera in the corner! The next morning after scraping ice from our tent we heard that the temperature had got down to -5 degrees celcius!
Other than the cold we both enjoyed our time in this small but friendly, picturesque city. It was an absolute joy to be able to ask for directions in english and read signs in english. We broke our month long diet of bread, cheese, tomotoes, cucumbers and mayonaisse and had a mini celebration at an all your can eat buffet.
