Dear Mom and Dad,
Well, it's begun. Aleksey saw me off to the train station yesterday evening. As we embraced one last time he said I'm not crying, you're crying, and I said neither of us are crying...but we made general plans to meet again soon in Europe, which means that in a couple years I'll see him in Europe. It'd be hard to imagine a nicer person and I hope I do get to return the favor in some form for the hospitality he (and everyone in Vladivostok) showed me over my 8-9 day stay.
So I climbed into my compartment at 17:20 and we were off. A nice lady from the small city of Komsomolsk was my bunkmate and she had just been to Vladivostok for the first time in 16 years. The city changed drastically, she noted, especially since 2012 with the construction of two gigantic bridges, a brand new opera house and a huge new university that consolidated several different universities and relocated them onto Russian Island. We had found a happy medium of amiable conversation and respectful silence when a stop or two later our other two bunkmates arrived: an at first glance endearing old couple who came puffing and huffing and gospodi-ing into the compartment. The old man was terrified at the prospect of creasing his newly purchased picture canvas and the old woman answered his every breath with an exasperated "what for, what for have you done so, Seryoga?" before driving him onto the top bunk and force feeding him mystery confectioneries one after another in little plastic bags. Everything is individually plastic bagged in Russia. Even things already in plastic bags will be plastic bagged (especially by the elderly legions of supermarketers) before being bagged in the final plastic bag.
I then hopped up to assume my post, lifting my body up in a dip-style maneuver that terrified everyone in the cart to the extent that I was flustered at their exclamations of "whatever are you doing!?" and in the confusion hit my head on the ceiling of the cart in the process. I had committed the mortal sin of not using the ladder to climb up. From that moment on whenever I flinched, the old man reached for the ladder to preempt my acrobatics.
There was then the fifteen minute discussion, as there always is, of whether or not it was going to "blow" from the window I had managed to open in the ventilationless compartment. As is always concluded, the old woman decided it would in fact blow and slammed the window shut. I neglected to assist, allowing her to struggle, as I had already been sweating in my tee shirt. And then it was bedtime. At 19:00. I dozed in and out of consciousness as we creaked along until someone shook me awake at 6:45 to tell me we'd arrived. The woman from Komsomolsk made sure I had all my things, asked if someone would meet me and wished me a good trip. I said I'm not crying, it's just the Khabarovsk sunrise in my eyes.
And I walked out into the city and set off towards my Airbnb room described as a "warm little nook," which of course meant a warm little nook in a cockroach infested Soviet communal apartment. It seemed like there were about five or six individual units sharing the kitchen, shower and toilet. I glanced in the shower and suddenly felt immaculately clean. After roaming the city all day though, I purchased some rubber tapochki for $6 in hopes of coming out cleaner than I go in.
Khabarovsk is 800 km north of Vladivostok and is the capital of the administrative unit Khabarovsky kraj as Vladivostok is the capital of the Primorsky kraj. As I set out to explore the city I was immediately struck by the city itself, which felt nothing like Vladivostok's chaos of hills and twists and turns connecting the two linear streets that run perpendicular to one another. Khabarovsk feels much more like a conventional city in its layout, which I found myself much more attracted to.
I made a straight shot down Karl Marx street towards the Amur River. The Amur, the name of which seems to be a conflagration of languages resulting in “black river,” forms much of the China-Russian border before flowing north into the Okhotsk Sea near the Kamchatka peninsula. The tenth largest river in the world, it's sprawl is certainly an impressive one that only recalls the Mississippi in my limited experience. I strolled along it's banks before stopping into a cafe for one of my many daily caffeine injections, bought a thermos at the local market because I was in the mood for being harassed and repeatedly affirmed in my identity by hearing muzhchina from every which direction, purchased some baked goods at a roadside stand, which I ate on the move, before sprinting home as a storm was suddenly looming and wet clothes on a forty hour train ride is something I'd like to avoid.
I got home to meet my neighbor. By the way she was standing in the half-light of the open door I could tell that things were about to get interesting. She proceeded to tell me that I couldn't use the shower or the toilet (devestation), because she couldn't be sure I was healthy. I neglected to point out that there were approximately 30 cockroaches of all ages and unknown health status currently living undocumented in the shower and told my landlady I'd go for a nearby hostel instead. Said landlady arrived to straighten things out and soon my neighbor was asking me to stay (I really wish she hadn't) and my other neighbor kindly explained the usage of the shower cabin by indicating the door and saying “tug it hard.”
My train for Chita leaves tomorrow at 15:00. And gets in at 9:11. On Friday. Which is over 43 hours of on train fun. I'm not sure anyone has ever been so excited to get to Chita. Or ride a train for 43 hours. The good news is I finally move closer timewise to Petersburg, so by Friday I'll be but a mere six hours East.
Onward, I dare say,
Alex
P.S. I've neglected to include pictures of my Airbnb - Hovel Edition as this travel log is just as much for your erudition as it is for my memories.
Comments