Listvyanka and Lake Baikal: Trans-Siberian Railway Part 4

A Couple of Days Beside the World's Oldest and Deepest Lake

Arriving in Irkutsk

Russia

At first impression, Irkutsk station (for Irkutsk see next post) has a strange, almost nineteenth century feel. There was something about the movement, about the way people were dressed, about the men pushing trolleys that was not quite of the modern age. Then we were met by Lydia, a summer-time tourist guide and term-time lecturer in English at Irkutsk University, who was very much of the twenty first century. She led us to our transport, a twentieth century minibus. Like many local vehicles, it was right hand drive, imported second hand from Japan.

Listvyanka is a little north of Irkutsk on the south west shore of Lake Baikal 

Lake Baikal

We drove through the city and across the Angara River, which flows from the southern end of Lake Baikal and eventually feeds into the Yenesei. Then we travelled through birch forest - as though we had not seen enough already – before finally arriving at the lake shore.

Looking across Lake Baikal

Formed 50 million years ago in a rift between two tectonic plates, Baikal is the world’s oldest lake. 636 km long and up to 80 km wide, it is the fifth largest in area but at over 1600m by far the deepest. It also has the greatest volume of water of any lake - more than the North American Great Lakes combined – containing a staggering 20% of the world’s non-frozen fresh water. It is certainly the hugest slab of flat, clear, cold water that I am ever likely to see.

Listvyanka

Listvyanka is a village of wooden houses lying beside the main road. We bumped through the rutted streets and turned into the yard of a typical foursquare single story house. Galina, who was to be our landlady for the next three days introduced herself and led us to the dining room where a substantial breakfast had been laid out. We had eaten some bread and cheese on the train, but Galina’s pikelets were particularly moreish and we did full justice to her efforts.

Galina's House, Listvyanka

Galina was a widow living alone except for her paying guests and a grandson who was delivered in the morning and taken away in the evening - and spent the intervening time watching cartoons on the television. As is typical in Siberia, the core of the house consisted of four large comfortable rooms built round a central boiler. In summer, the boiler was not in use, but we could imagine how necessary it must be in the long Siberian winter. The house had mains electricity and UPVC double-glazing hiding behind the carved wooden exterior but despite being two hundred metres from the world’s biggest fresh water supply - a supply so pure it is bottled for drinking - it had no running water; a couple of aluminium barrels being delivered daily along with her grandson. A pit toilet stood outside the back door, and each washbasin was equipped with a small tank that she filled every morning. Feeling a little sticky after two and a half nights on a train we were please to learn that Galina also had the Siberian version of a sauna. The remainder of the grounds was given over to a lush kitchen garden featuring a huge patch of dill - no Siberian meal is complete without a liberal sprinkling of dill fronds.

Lystvyanka Church

After breakfast, we visited the little wooden church built on a hill at the back on the village. Dating from the 18th century it is the oldest building in the area – wooden villages are prone to fires so old buildings are a rarity. It was moved lock, stick and icon from its original site to make way for the tarmac road. A christening was in full swing, several families having brought their infants who were being baptised in quick succession. Lydia seemed oblivious as she walked around pointing out various items of interest. Feeling uncomfortable, we dragged her outside and left the priest to water his flock in peace.

Listvyanka Church

Lake Baikal Museum and Freshwater Seals

We walked back to the tarmac road and up to the small Lake Baikal museum. It had a comprehensive explanation of the particular geological conditions that formed the lake and a self-congratulatory rundown on its size compared with every other major world lake. Eighty-five species of plants and animals live here and nowhere else, including the omul, a trout-sized member of the salmon family which finds its way, smoked or fresh, into most local markets. They featured in the aquarium along with several other fish and a small family of Baikal seals, the world’s only exclusively fresh water seal. Small, black-furred balls of lard, they hurtled around their tank like giant jet-propelled tadpoles. If that was the tadpole, I would not want to meet the frog.

Lydia returned to Irkutsk and we strolled back to Galina’s for a lunch of huge fish cakes – a lake fish, apparently but not omul. In the afternoon we needed to sleep off lunch before taking a stroll through the village streets. We admired the carved and painted woodwork which surrounds most doors and windows - a style of decoration known as ‘Siberian Lace’. The houses were well kept, the carving freshly painted, but there were surprisingly few people around. The sun shone, but the nip in the breeze was sufficient to remind us where we were.

House, Listvyanka village

Siberian Sauna

At six o’clock Galina announced that she had fired up the sauna. Unlike the regular version, the Siberian sauna comes with a tank of hot water, a churn of cold and a washing-up bowl to mix them in. There are also gaps in the wooden floor to let the excess water drain away. It was a joy to have a proper wash and to become completely and very satisfyingly clean.

Galina's sauna, Listvyanka

Feeling deeply relaxed we faced up to dinner which was, fortunately, less heavy; potato dumplings, cabbage and sour cream, along with the inevitable cucumbers and tomato, covered with a layer of dill the thickness of a light carpet. In the evening we strolled by the lake.

A Paddle in Lake Baikal

Being such a huge body of water, the temperature varies little throughout the year. It is the last open water to freeze in the winter, and warms up hardly at all in the summer. Most of the year the water is around 4º C. I took off my shoes, rolled up my trousers and bravely waded in – as far as my ankles. Dipping your hand in the lake is supposed to add a year to your life, submerging your feet adds 5, while immersing your whole body adds 25. I settled for five, and at the cost of some pain. Several men were actually swimming. Overweight, middle-aged men (the salt of the earth, in my not entirely unbiased opinion) egged each other on and slurped vodka to build up their courage. They did not look entirely comfortable, but I admired their bravery – and, of course, they will live for ever, if they don’t die in the attempt.

Adding years to my life, Lake Baikal

Although the church and residential buildings are all wooden, more permanent structures line the main road. Listvyanka clearly sees itself as a lakeside resort in the making, but by nine thirty everything was closing down and there was little more to do than wander back to Galina’s for a read and a nightcap. Being in Russia I was attempting to read ‘Crime and Punishment’ but several hundred pages in with several hundred more to go I was finding it hard work.

A 'Softies Trek' by Lake Baikal

Next day, Sacha came to guide us on a day’s walk. This was billed as a ‘softies trek’ but he set off along the lakeside road like it was a route march. At the end of the road we started to climb. Slowly but steadily, we rose through the birch and pine forest and across clearings carpeted with wild flowers to a ridge 800m above sea level and 150m above the lake. Listvyanka is the end of road, but we passed several groups of young men and some families who had carried tents and equipment a mile or more before setting up their weekend campsites.

Following Sacha up the ridge

Sacha told us he too was once a Maths teacher. ‘The Soviet times were the best’ he said. ‘When they ended I worked for three months and never got paid.’ He gave up teaching and became a mountain guide. He does not earn much, he said, but he likes being out in the fresh air. When we came to a clearing full of purple clover Sacha pulled a bag from his rucksack and began collecting the flowers. We helped him, though not entirely sure why he was doing it. ‘It’s for my mother,’ he explained, ‘she soaks the flowers in vodka. A daily glass of clover-flavoured vodka is better medicine than you can get from any doctor.’

Lunch by Lake Baikal

After an hour or so walking along the ridge we descended to the lakeside at a small stony beach. Sacha extracted a saw and an axe from his capacious rucksack and gathered up the wood for a fire. Then he produced a substantial billycan, strode unflinchingly into the lake and collected some water. As the water boiled he delved into his pack again to produce a red checked table cloth, dishes, spoons, cups, some bread, cheese, salami, frankfurters, peppers, cucumbers, biscuits and chocolate. He made tea from some of the boiled lake water and poured instant mashed potato into the rest. We sat in the sunshine by the lake and ate sausage and instant mashed potato made from the water of Lake Baikal – as fine a combination of the exotic and the banal as can be enjoyed anywhere.

Sacha makes a fire on the beach, Lake Baikal

Walking back on a lower level path we crossed the top of several lakeside cliffs. Lynne survived an attempt to throw herself over a precipice, and although Sacha seemed momentarily alarmed by the prospect of one of his clients plummeting to their death, I don’t think she was in quite as much danger as she would like to make out ('Yes I was'Lynne).

Across several lakeside cliffs, Lake Bailkal

It was a long trudge back to the village, but that did nothing to spoil what had been a beautiful day out. Sacha caught his bus back to Irkutsk and we reached Galina’s just after six to find we were no longer her only lodgers. Naomi and James were gap year students planning to take up university places in September. They had been in Australia and were now travelling home overland. They spoke of their adventures with infectious enthusiasm and as they were taking the same journey as us, but in the opposite direction, we exchanged information about what was to come. Given Listvyanka’s preternatural quietness, it was good to have somebody else to talk to, though they made me feel so old – less than a year before I could have been their teacher. It was not their fault, the problem was entirely in my head, but knowing that made it no better.

After a relaxing sauna and a good night’s sleep the right hand drive minibus came to take all four of us back to Irkutsk.

The Trans-Siberian Railway

Part 1: Moscow
Part 2: Yekaterinburg
Part 3: Across Siberia to Irkutsk
Part 4: Listvyanka and Lake Baikal
Part 5: Irkutsk
Part 6: Ulan Ude (1)
Part 7: Ulan Ude (2)
Part 8: To Naushki and into Mongolia
Part 9: Across the Mongolian Steppe from Ulan Bator to Burd Sum
Part 10: With the Mongolian Nomads
Part 11: Ulan Bator

Across Siberia to Irkutsk: Trans-Siberian Railway Part 3

52 Hours on a Russian Train: Provadnitzas, Travelling Companions and Scenery

The Baikal

Russia

‘The Baikal’, as the Moscow to Irkutsk train is known, covers the 3,400 Km from Yekaterinburg to Irkutsk in 52 hours. It travels - allowing for four hours of scheduled stops - at an average speed of 70 km/hr. The Trans-Siberian Railway it might be, the Trans-Siberian Express it is not.

Siberia

Siberia starts two hundred kilometres east of Yekaterinburg. The point on the Great Post Road, a little south of the rail route, was once marked by a 3 metre high pillar of plastered brick. It was here, just as at ‘Last Gate Under Heaven’ in Jiayuguan, that families took leave of those condemned to exile in the barbarous lands to the east – or west in the Chinese version.

We entered Siberia asleep and woke to the familiar birch forests, though they soon gave way to the standard Siberian view, a green plain stretching to the horizon dotted with clumps of trees. The villages had the same dilapidated wooden look as in European Russia. We stopped at numerous towns and several cities, their names, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk rolling pleasingly off the tongue. Many of the stations were decorated like wedding cakes, but the cities themselves were more mundane. Although we were far into Asia, they were clearly European cities – and ugly, industrial European cities to boot. Around Krasnoyarsk the land became hilly and the village houses chalet-like, as though we were passing through some long neglected canton of Switzerland.

Omsk Station

Parts of Siberia were surprisingly beautiful. Rolling hills, sleepy villages and ripening crops basked under a clear blue sky. Occasionally fields worked largely by hand lapped up beside the railway and we moved through a gentle bucolic landscape unchanged since the 1920’s. Despite its remoteness, exile in Siberia did not look a great hardship, but we were, of course, travelling in summer; the long, bitter winter makes this place considerably less benign. Life in the gulags, far from the railway and the villages, was particularly grim, and often short - although contrary to myth there never were any salt mines in Siberia.

Around Krasnoyarsk - like a long neglected canton of Switzerland

Old-School Provadnitza

Our provadnitza on ‘The Baikal’ was of the old school. Clearly understanding that she had been entrusted to look after the carriage, she regarded the passengers as unwelcome obstacles to the smooth performance of her duties. An early show of temper at those too slow to move when she hoovered the corridor carpet demonstrated her priorities. She relished locking the toilet doors precisely fifteen minutes before each stop, regardless of who was waiting. She unlocked them precisely fifteen minutes after departure – or later if she could.

Inside the toilets was a standard pedestal with a foot-operated lever allowing a trickle of water to flush the contents onto the tracks. The route from Moscow to Vladivostok is marked by a 9,000 km line of turds. A small hand-basin with cold water was the only washing facility. The train reputedly had a shower but, like the unicorn, everybody I spoke to had heard of it, but nobody had ever seen it.

At the opposite end of the carriage – as in Chinese trains - was a samovar with a constant supply of hot water. We, like the Russians, used this for making tea. Most Chinese prefer to bring their tea ready made and drink it cold, using the samovar mainly to irrigate a never-ending supply of pot noodles.

The Dining Car and other Suppliers

Off to buy beer, Omsk Station

The first evening we ate in the dining car. The uninspiring beef stroganoff was small, expensive and served by a staff who clearly resented our presence in their domain. For other meals we picnicked on our spare slab of meat from the possibly Ukrainian restaurant and some bread, cheese and smoked ham we had bought in Yekaterinburg. The heavy Russian bread is excellent in such situations as it never goes stale - not that it ever seems entirely fresh either. We bought some doughnuts from a tray carried by an unsmiling denizen of the dining car. We intended them to accompany our morning coffee but our enthusiasm was dampened when we discovered the sugary doughnuts were stuffed with beef. We acquired beer, bananas and other goodies from platform vendors during the many, sometimes lengthy, stops.

Siberian Rivers

Crossing the River Irtysh

As a child I loved Geography map quizzes and could place the great rivers of Siberia, the Ob, Yenesei and Lena on an outline map with unnecessary precision. I revelled in the names and let my imagination wander as I traced their courses northwards across the huge blank space of Siberia. I never thought I would ever actually see them, but now, with that prospect in view, I became more than rationally excited.

The Yenesei at Krasnoyarsk

Outside Omsk, we crossed the impressive River Irtysh, a main tributary of the Ob, but that was a tease - we rattled across the Ob itself in the middle of the night, fast asleep. The Lena, rising north west of Lake Baikal and flowing east before heading for the arctic, never meets the railway, but the Yenesei at Karsnoyarsk fully made up for these disappointments. There, in the middle of the world’s largest continent, was a huge river lined with wharfs and derricks like a small seaport.

The Misty Yenesei looking south at Krasnoyarsk

Travelling Companions

Our travelling companions showed no sign of resenting our 4 a.m. arrival. They were two middle-aged women, possibly heading home from an annual shopping expedition to Moscow, or maybe traders returning from a buying trip. We had to shift their extensive collection of huge stripy bags to fit our suitcases into the luggage space, but we were too polite to look inside. In the morning the younger woman tried to engage us in conversation. Despite willingness on both sides little progress was made and she seemed bemused by the existence of people who did not understand Russian. Later she lent us her magazine, packed with Russian celebrity gossip. We flicked through the pages looking at the glossy pictures of people we did not recognise and had not heard of. It was much the same last time I picked up a copy of ‘Hello!’ in the dentist’s waiting room.

Soundproofing between compartments is excellent, but is less effective between the compartments and the corridor, and it was in the corridor that a party of Dutch students was apparently holding a party. We had put our watches forward two hours between Moscow and Yekaterinburg, and another two hours since as we changed time zones. Russian railways, however, work on Moscow time. We retired to bed at eleven by our watches while the train clocks said it was seven in the evening. To be fair to the Dutch students, who had been on the train since Moscow, they were merely having a communal evening meal. In truth, we were disturbed very little, but when we rose at seven the next morning, we did think of giving them a 3 a.m. wake-up call.

We had assumed our companions were travelling together but early in the second evening the younger one started gathering up her mountain of belongings. She left us at Kansk-Yeniskeysky - or it could have been Ilanskaya - and headed off into the Siberian evening, leaving a free bunk and a bit more space for the rest of us.

Krasnoyarsk Station

The older woman who had hitherto been quiet, now became more communicative, though we still lacked a common language. As the sky darkened I fished out my vodka bottle and offered her a nightcap. At first, she seemed delighted, then disappointed and then she started rooting through her bags, searching diligently for something she feared might not be there. At last she found what she was looking for, three of the small, sweet cucumbers that grace almost every Russian meal. She gave us one each; now we all had food we could drink vodka.

Every Russian knows that only alcoholics drink vodka without food, but few seemed as concerned as our new friend. Russia’s vodka problem is well documented, but we have never visited a country where so many people walk round swinging a bottle of beer by the neck. In other countries it is not unknown for people to call into a bar or a pub on the way home from work, but in Russia they pop into a shop, buy a bottle and walk down the street drinking it. It is not always a pretty sight.

We, however, did things the civilized way. After a moderate nightcap and a crunchy cucumber we had a good night’s sleep and arrived in Irkutsk refreshed and ready for a new day.

We had left Yekaterinburg three quarters of an hour late, but reached Irkutsk on time – plenty of slack is built into the timetable and some of the stops had been slightly shortened. We had now completed the Trans-Siberian section of our journey, from here until we crossed into Mongolia we would no longer be in Siberia, but in the Russian Far East.

The Trans-Siberian Railway

Part 1: Moscow

Part 2: Yekaterinburg

Part 3: Across Siberia to Irkutsk

Part 4: Listvyanka and Lake Baikal
Part 5: Irkutsk

Part 6: Ulan Ude (1)

Part 7: Ulan Ude (2)

Part 8 : To Naushki and into Mongolia

Part 9: Across the Mongolian Steppe from Ulan Bator to Burd Sum 

Part 10:With the Mongolian Nomads

Part 11 Ulan Bator 

Yekaterinburg: Trans-Siberian Railway Part 2

Moscow to Yekaterinburg

Russia

Our comfortable four-berth sleeping compartment was nominally second-class, though it was much the same as a ‘soft sleeper’ on a Chinese train and offered the same opportunity for a close encounter with complete strangers. On our journeys in China we have sometimes had interesting travelling companions, sometimes companions with whom no communication was possible beyond a smile but we have never encountered a problem. There were to be no problems for us on the Trans-Siberian, either. We shared our compartment to Yekaterinburg with Erling, a retired Danish police officer travelling to Vladivostok for the fun of it. He spoke excellent English and was a most genial companion.



Comfortable sleeping compartment
- and Erling's knees

On Russian trains much depends on the provadnitza, the woman (and they are all women) in charge of the carriage. The modern style provadnitza understands that she works in a service industry and looks after her passengers. Not all are of the modern style, but our first provadnitza could not have been more helpful; smiling cheerfully, she fetched an English menu from the dining car and then brought dinner to our compartment. When we departed she seemed more than reasonably delighted with a very modest tip and hugs were exchanged.

Villages of wooden houses

Leaving Moscow in the late afternoon, we stopped at a couple of towns and passed through several villages of wooden houses, but spent most of the evening travelling through birch forest.

Russia with Yekaterinburg enclosed in a red rectangle

We slept. Sometime in the night we crossed the River Volga and in the morning we were still in the birch forest. We emerged from the trees, eventually, arriving at Sverdlovsk Station in the early evening.

Yekaterinburg: Introduction

Yekaterinburg

During soviet times, many cities changed their names to those of revolutionary heroes. Although most have reverted to their pre-soviet titles almost all retain their statue of Lenin and have their main streets named after Lenin and Marx. Yekaterinburg was founded in 1723, became Sverdlovsk in 1924 and reverted to its original name in 1991 - a change Russian railways have yet to acknowledge.

Yekaterinburg is an industrial city of just over a million people standing on the boundary between Europe and Asia. It is a fine example of the ambivalence with which Russians are coping with their past.

The Church of the Blood, Yekaterinburg

After the revolution Tsar Nicholas II and his family were imprisoned here in the house of military engineer Nikolai Ipatiev. In July 1918 they were murdered on orders from the local commander, General Sverdlov. In 1977 the Ipatiev House was destroyed amid fears that it might provide a rallying point for royalist dissidents. Its destruction was ordered by local party chief, Boris Yeltsin, who would play a major part in dismantling the Soviet Union become Russian president. Today Nicholas II has been declared a saint and ‘The Church of the Blood’, dedicated to the Romanov family, has been built on the site.

The Church of the Blood, Yekaterinburg

Women are expected to dress conservatively in Russian Orthodox churches, while outside the trend is to make the most of Yekaterinburg’s brief summer by wearing as little as possible. In the entrance to the ‘Church of the Blood’ our guide Maryana, a slim dyed-blonde with very long legs and very short shorts disappeared into a stall to borrow some appropriate clothing. She returned looking like a little old lady in a long dark skirt with a black shawl draped over her head and wrapped round her shoulders.

Exhibition of photographs of the Romanovs
Church of the Blood, Yekaterinburg

The church is on two levels: the lower, surrounding the space where the murders took place, is dark and sombre, the upper is light and airy, symbolising hope for the future. It was full of pilgrims, praying and lighting candles. At the front of the building is an exhibition of photographs of the Romanovs. At the back, somewhat incongruously, is a monument to the ‘Urals Young  Communists’.



The Church of the Blood
and the Urals Young Communists monument, Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg's Soviet Past

Stranger yet, on a nearby bridge the city proudly displays the Lenin medal it received for being a model Soviet city and.....

Yekaterinburg, a model Soviet city

.....less than a kilometre away on the central reservation of Lenin Street, is a statue of General Sverdlov, the man who ordered the killing.

General Sverdlov
Yekaterinburg was renamed Sverdlosk between 1924-1991

Afghan War Memorial, Yekaterinburg

The city is twisting itself in knots as it tries to express regret for the gruesome murders while holding true to its revolutionary past. And the recent past holds its demons, too; walking to the ‘Church of the Blood’ we had passed the war memorial for the ill-fated Russian adventure in Afghanistan 1979-89.  It is a striking monument, and, perhaps, a warning about our own ongoing involvement.

Afghan war memorial, Yekaterinburg

The Graves of the Romanovs, near Yekaterinburg

Next day our driver Dennis (‘I’ve got two cars in case one breaks down’) took us out of town and into the forest. Seven newly built wooden churches, one for each member of the family, cluster round the mineshaft where their bodies were dumped - there is no church for their family doctor or the three servants who died with them. It was raining and water dripped from the trees. Inside the buildings smelled of new wood, whilst outside there were the dark, musky odours of wet forest. There were few people about and the churches were largely empty, though the small crowd in the one church where a service was being held emerged for a procession amid much showering of holy water.

Stations of the Cross Procession
Romanov graves, Yekaterinburg

 It should have been impressive, but the churches seemed too cute to be taken seriously. It was difficult to shake off the belief that the design for the largest was based on a Walt Disney cartoon train.

Is it a church?
Is it a train?
Romanov burial site, Yekateriburg

The Boundary between Europe and Asia

After lunch we visited the line marking the boundary between Europe and Asia. The boundary follows the watershed of the Ural Mountains, but as the mountains peter out well north of Yekaterinburg the positioning of the line in the flat local landscape is somewhat arbitrary. It seems they want to develop this site as a tourist attraction, but they have hardly started yet.



Sometimes I feel we are on different continents

Memorial to Stalin's Victims, near Yekaterinburg

Close by, the construction of a new road led to the discovery of unmarked graves. The road builders had stumbled upon the last resting place of some thirty thousand victims of Stalin’s purges. Here, at least, the Russians have faced up to their past appropriately and the resulting memorial park is dignified and moving.

The victims of Josef Stalin

Dealings with Real Russians, Yekaterinburg

Our hotel was an example of the new entrepreneurial Russia. One floor of what seemed to be an office block had been converted into a comfortable boutique hotel – not that anyone would know, there was no sign outside. We breakfasted in the block’s communal cafeteria - an unreconstructed soviet canteen. The buffet had no knives and only one cup when we arrived. We pointed this out to the woman in charge. Her look said ‘What do you expect me to do about it?’ We persevered with our pointing. It took some time, but eventually she scowled, shrugged her shoulders and fetched what was required. Just because a Russian is paid to perform a service, you should not expect them to do it willingly, and certainly not with a smile. 

But the Russians are a warm hearted people and small acts of random kindness are not uncommon. As our cutlery arrived the security man from the front door came in bearing a pot of homemade jam. We had nodded and smiled at him as he pressed his button to let us in and out and he recognised us, came over to our table and insisted we shared his jam. Damson and blueberry, it was, and very good too.

Lenin, Yekaterinburg
Even in post Soviet times most cities still have a statue of Lenin

Eating in Yekaterinburg

Jam apart, eating in Yekaterinburg was hearty, rather than elegant. The first lunchtime we sat outside a café in the city centre, studied the menu and eventually deciphered the word ‘shashlik.’ We enjoyed a kebab in a spicy tomato sauce. That evening we found a more up-market restaurant. The sight of foreigners struggling with a menu in a language they do not speak in an alphabet they can barely read, often prompts restaurant managers to send over their youngest waitress – because she is studying English at school. Sometimes the only English they have mastered is the embarrassed giggle, but in this case a charming young lady helped us choose very reasonably priced starters of chicken and salmon salad, and a satisfying main course of beef with rice.

After our sojourn in the forest, Maryana was charged with finding ‘typical local food’. We were mildly surprised when she took us to a supermarket cafeteria, but have to acknowledge that ‘herrings in a blanket,’ is a traditional Russian favourite. Fish with beetroot and sour cream does not sound appetizing to the English ear, and the colours were a little alarming, but once you have slurped your way through a portion straight from its plastic supermarket packaging, its virtues become obvious. Comfort food is comfort food, in any language.

Central Yekaterinburg

For that evening we had earmarked a cheap and cheerful restaurant on the far side of Lenin Street, but a sudden downpour turned the road into an impassable torrent. Instead, we descended into a basement on our side of the flood which may, or may not, have been a Ukrainian restaurant. After negotiations with a giggling girl we ordered a rabbit starter and a pork main course. We had apparently stumbled into a ‘destination restaurant;’ all the other diners were dressed up and we were the scruffy peasants in the corner. We ordered draught beer while around us the local oligarchs purchased elaborately packaged bottles of vodka. After extensive research in Poland and Armenia, I have concluded that all vodka tastes the same, and that paying more than the minimum required to avoid blindness and death is a waste of money. I could see nobody who shared my view.

Our ‘rabbit’ turned out to be liver, served with a schooner of raspberry coulis. Liver and raspberry sounds even worse than herring and beetroot, but there was enough acidity in the coulis to make the dish surprisingly successful, though too filling for a starter. For our main course we were each served a slab of pig the size of a house brick. We wrapped one in a napkin, dropping it into Lynne’s handbag for tomorrow’s picnic, and shared the other. Even that was more than we could eat.

At 3.15 the following morning Dennis came to drive us back to Sverdlovsk station, where the 03.51 train eventually turned up at half past four. We crept into our compartment, stowed our luggage and tried to sort out our bedding in the dark, anxious not to disturb our roommates – after all we were going to have to live with them for the next 54 hours.

The Trans-Siberian Railway

Part 1: Moscow

Part 2: Yekaterinburg

Part 3: Across Siberia to Irkutsk

Part 4: Listvyanka and Lake Baikal
Part 5: Irkutsk

Part 6: Ulan Ude (1)

Part 7: Ulan Ude (2)

Part 8 : To Naushki and into Mongolia

Part 9: Across the Mongolian Steppe from Ulan Bator to Burd Sum 

Part 10:With the Mongolian Nomads

Part 11 Ulan Bator