The first time we passed through their car, they nodded a curt greeting. Second time, they grinned. On the third pass they offered a sheepish hello. By the fifth or sixth time we wandered past, they were ready to talk, and blurted out whatever English sentences they knew.
They were the Russians crossing Siberia by the Trans-Siberian Railroad, we the Americans. By the time we left the train we were gabbing like old pals, mixing two languages and improvised gestures.
Russians and Western tourists ride in separate cars along the world’s longest railway, but on our way to and from each meal in the dining car, we walked through nine Russian cars.
The cars for Westerners are newer, cleaner and rooomier, but most significantly in the Chicago-style humid Siberian summer, they’re air-conditioned. Most cars for Russians are not, and with four Russians sharing a compartment that in a car for Westerners carries just two people, the quarters get cramped and sweaty.
For Russians who speak no English, the mealtime parade of Westerners is just another part of the on-board entertainment, which otherwise includes taking in vistas across vast Siberian plains; downing bottles of vodka bought from the train attendants or brought along; and snacking on pickles, meat patties and other treats bought from farm women at ornate wooden stalls at station stops.
Weeklong ride
The Trans-Siberian Railroad stretches some 6,000 miles-a seven-day ride-from Moscow, through Siberia and into the Russian Far East, ending at the Pacific port of Nakhodka. For many Russians it’s the only affordable way to traverse part of the enormous, in some parts barren, land mass that stretches from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific.
Russians who speak English-even a little-wisely see the three round trips to the dining car each day by Westerners as a handy time to fine-tune their English with native speakers.
One 23-year-old sailor who invited me into his compartment spent nearly five minutes boasting about the disco built on a “square” in the river in Irkutsk, his hometown and my destination. When he drew me a map, I understood that the disco was on an island, not a square, and taught him the word.
Alaska Airlines, which organizes most American group tours on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, may contract to have a dining car placed next to the Western cars for the summer 1993 travel season. Ron Peck, an Alaska Airlines executive, says most people who buy the firm’s Siberian packages are middle-age and older. Many of them aren’t comfortable wending their way through a long string of rocking rail cars on the way to and from each meal. If that happens, the change will have the unfortunate secondary effect of stealing American riders’ best chance to mingle with Russians.
Conversation stations
The second-best chance, though, won’t change. Friendly Russians and Americans will still be able to strike up the same friendships while stretching their legs at station stops in scattered Siberian towns. The stops are brief-from a few minutes to half an hour-but they are the part of a Trans-Siberian Railroad trip that really sets it apart from a ride of similar duration in an Amtrak sleeper car. Nearly every station sports a row of wooden booths where local women sell food and drink.
Think of the trip as a three-day progressive dinner party where the hostesses speak little or no English but are well versed in the universal language of good hot food.
We knew nothing about the food stalls when we boarded the train in Khabarovsk, a hilly city of 600,000 north of Vladivostok that is Alaska Airlines’ main point of entry into eastern Russia. But at our train’s second stop-120 miles from Khabarovsk in tiny Bira-a member of the group noticed a knot of Russian travelers standing in line at a stall 15 yards from the train. Joining the line, he eventually discovered the attraction: a trio of sooty Siberian women dispensing enormous pickles from a deep cookpot for 2 rubles apiece.
At the exchange rate in effect when we traveled in late June 1992, 2 rubles equaled less than 1 American cent. The pickles, of a size that goes for a least $1 in any Chicago deli, would have been a bargain even if they had not turned out to be the tastiest, juiciest, most nearly perfect pickles ever pickled.
Thus began our group’s warm relationship with the food vendors along the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Because most of their customers are Russian travelers who save money by eating at the stations rather than in the dining cars, the food they offer is hearty, authentic and as tasty as homecooked food anywhere.
From that point through the 2 1/2 days we spent covering the 1,800 miles between Khabarovsk and Irkutsk, at every station stop members of our group would join any line our Russian fellow travelers started, counting on them to know what was best to buy at each town.
It was virtually impossible to go wrong. At various stops we picked up loaves of hard-crusted white bread, paper cones brimming with boiled potatoes or a messy, spicy slaw, steaming meat pastries akin to pirogies, and roasted but unidentified nuts. One offering we skipped every time, though: Bottles of milk, stopped with nothing but wads of paper, stood in the open sunshine at nearly every stop.
For travelers already stuffed from the last stop or a meal in the dining car, the stops offer other forms of amusement, particularly for travelers interested in meeting Russians. A woman in our group who had brought along an instant camera became the United States’ unofficial goodwill ambassador to Siberian townspeople by generously photographing any child who came her way and then handing the picture to the child or, when possible, to the child’s parents. Her effort sparked dozens of friendly exchanges along the way, at stations as well as on the train.
As the train approaches a stop, the best tips on what to do while on the ground come from the car attendant (who, aside from selling vodka, caviar and water from a booth at the end of each car, changes sheets, cleans the shared bathroom, and barks Russian rebukes at the kids who encircle Westerners at most stations asking for gum or candy).
As we approached Petrovsky Zayod, our attendant, Valery, suggested we be sure to dash over to the Decembrists monument, a memorial to leaders of a failed 1825 coup. “On top, you will see Lenin. I don’t know why, but there is Lenin with the Decembrists,” Valery said. Sure enough, the carved busts of eight Decembrists were overshadowed by a towering gold statue of a man who was not born until 45 years after the Decembrists were banished to Siberia.
At another stop, Ulan Ude, Valery told us to hurry up the steps from the station for a pretty view. Right again.
We watched locals at one stop hand an open tray of butchered chickens up to the dining-car staff. A few hours later, our cook, Tanya, served us chicken and rice for dinner.
Many villagers along the line count on the train to re-stock supplies of food and tea from outside the region. Some of them turn around instantly and resell whatever they bought from the train’s staff to others in town. At one stop, a woman in our group joined a line of Russians buying tea on the platform. When her turn came, the seller resorted to sign language to explain that he had bought the tea from someone on her own train just moments before.
Russians enjoy the custom of exchanging small tokens with new friends. Kids especially ask for gum or candy, but literature distributed by Alaska Airlines points out that few Russians can afford the dental care those gifts eventuate. Traveling with a group of Northwestern University alumni, we found that tiny stick-on portraits of the school mascot, Willie the Wildcat, went over as well as sweets.
Our destination, Irkutsk, is a gorgeous old fur-trading capital near the edge of Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake and a Russian national treasure. Russians speak of the Trans-Siberian Railroad with the affection Americans used to have for Route 66; for Baikal they adopt the reverential tone of American travelers back from Mt. McKinley or Yosemite.
For the last three hours of our trip, the rails skirted Baikal’s shore. When Baikal first came into sight, Valery opened a bottle of too-sweet wine and poured glasses for everyone.
During this stretch, the Russians grew quiet as they gazed out over an inland sea that holds more water than all the Great Lakes combined, and among our group the mood turned thoughtful as well. We had spent more than two days riding through the Russian Far East and Siberia, meeting Russians on and off the train. Food at the stalls was wonderfully inexpensive, but we had also heard the other side, the stories of economic hardship. One woman told us that shoes for her growing teenage son had cost 20 rubles 18 months before and now cost 2,000, while wages had barely risen. But every Russian we met-every single one-had been friendly, cheerful and warm.
A member of our group said to Natasha, our guide from the Intourist agency, that even during one of the most uncertain periods in the country’s tumultuous history, Russians seemed to find reasons for optimism.
“No,” Natasha replied. “There are no reasons to be optimistic now. But we are Russians. We will be optimistic.” –
