Dear Mom and Dad,
43 hours on a train, it turns out, is a long time.
I climbed aboard the second leg of my run across Russia at 15:00 in Khabarovsk on Wednesday feeling happy to be anywhere but the roach-den Airbnb. As I approached my compartment, I heard a soft babble that could only be produced by one thing: four little old ladies talking about various “times,” and catching up on the last 20 years of life. So I was not the least bit surprised to find exactly four of them in my four person compartment. As it turned out, mother and daughter, who would be my lower bunk neighbors until the next day, were visiting with some old friends. Mother was in her mid-80s and daughter mid-60s. One of the old friends was 94. “Molodets” the not-so-old mid 80s woman exclaimed after her friends had left. This complimentary title she proceeded to give to everyone still alive that she could recall over the course of all the conversations I did my best to listen in on over the next 20 hours or so.
If anyone is familiar with the YouTube sensation of Baba Fira, you will be happy to know that such little old ladies do in fact exist. I sent Sasha excerpts of their conversations I recorded from the top bunk as the semblance really was uncanny. While I was less than ecstatic about the fact that they would not turn on the air conditioners, I spent the better part of that evening and the next morning listening to the little old lady hihikat’ about this and that. When a train attendant came around to take our dinner orders in the evening, the two old ladies, a young solider on a work trip and I had all drifted off to sleep in the heat, so that we chose from the two meal options but half-awake. When the attendant left, the old woman turned to her daughter and said, “I dozed off there for a bit, and I woke up and thought – how did this woman get into our apartment?”
We ate our dinner and prepared for sleep, which, per the usual on trains, began just after sundown. As they all fell asleep, I went and begged the attendant to turn on the air conditioner, which she kindly consented to do. I went back to the compartment, heaved myself up onto the top bunk, and to the sound of ocean waves in my headphones with the faint psychotic drumming of Slipknot from the soldier’s headphones in the background, I fell asleep.
The next morning the soldier and I helped them with their bags onto the platform. I was a little sad to see them go, as I would have to turn to my (audio)books for entertainment, as you only catch an internet signal at the occasional stops in various villages. On the other hand, I greeted the prospect of being able to sit at the table on the lower bunks and dreamfully stare out the window, hoping no one would come to fill their places for some time, knowing that our car was far from filled. Just as I took my seat, however, on comes a young guy on a four-day trip to Tyumen. So I spent the better part of the next day playing a Russian crossword puzzle game on my phone with the soldier. After the first night he began to wreak like onions (I couldn’t help but wonder if I did the same), but I appreciated the companionship more than the integrity of my nasal cavities.
The other eight compartments were filled with Russians, who, I’m sorry to say, got stereotypically intoxicated toward the end of the second day, but were all the while very merry and friendly, Chinese, who stood at the windows, shouted at each other from 2 inches away at all hours of the day and endlessly took pictures out the window (including one older man who would step out into the hall and start beating himself on his lower back and buttocks – could this be the secret to Chinese longevity?) and a group of Brits that turned out to be a group of Finns, who were riding from one end of the country to the next, back and forth, recording the sounds of the trip. For some of them this was their third straight trip. My tongue slipped up on the “meet” part of “nice to meet you” and I fear something more the likes of “masochism” came out. They were in good spirits though. At one of the longer (7ish minutes) stops, we all climbed out onto the platform to gaze around confusedly and, many, to smoke. As one of the Finns got out his giant mic to take in the “sounds,” one of the well off Russians took the chance to yell “Heil Hitler,” which was, of course, hilarious.
Day two of the train really began to drag around mid-day when the temperature outside approached 80 degrees and the air conditioner had broken overnight. The attendant kindly unlocked our hallway window and I pressed my face against the wall to absorb the fresh air spilling through the narrow crevice with Erofeev’s Notes of a Psychopath in one hand and a cup of instant coffee in the other. As people constantly passed by I would press my body flat against the wall as would the passerby and Kronk’s self produced spy movie soundtrack from The Emperor’s New Groove played in my (and I’m assuming the passerby’s) head.
The real fun began when, in my eagerness to breathe, I sought to open the window a bit farther, at which point the window just fell into my hands, frame and all. I suppressed the desire to let it fall out of the car entirely while slowly walking away and began to wedge it back into place. Several guys jumped at the chance to help and we all exhibited our strength by beating it back into place. So I was back to sweating the day away in our compartment that was taking on an evermore radical fragrance. Towards sundown, however, the promised AC mechanic did in fact appear, to my admitted astonishment, and, all the more amazing still, actually fixed the air conditioning. After a few moist wipes showers, it was ocean waves and the surprisingly lulling jerk of the train car.
I don’t have much to show for the train ride in the way of pictures as 1) the Chinese guys took so many pictures I felt like the soul of the landscape had already been sucked out enough 2) apart from slight changes in topography with the occasional hill or river, the view outside the window was an unchanging yellow-orange of an Eastern Siberia Autumn.
At around 9 am this morning I arrived in Chita, gathered my things and dashed 20 minutes across town to my hostel for the evening.
Now it’s time to take in the city.
I’ll write a new letter about the city itself after some exploration.
Alex
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