The taxi driver was over 5 minutes late much to the consternation of the hotel reception staff, however he was a most obliging man. The route to the Yaroslavky station took us right round the centre of the city so we saw the sights by night which was a bonus. Eduard, our taxi driver, was very chatty once he had found out about our trip. He said he thought we were " tough travellers", locked up his taxi and escorted us to the train and to the coach which was at the front of the train which we think had about 30 coaches ( didn't have time to count them all!). Our tickets were checked against our passports by two very official looking stewards. (provodnistas) and we were allowed to board. The coach is very modern, we had booked a four berth compartment for the two of us and arrived to find the two top bunks prepared for sleeping. I expected this, as it leaves the seats free and it was here that we initially dumped our bags. Coach 2, Cabin 3, berths 9,10,11&12 were to be our home for the next 3 days/4 nights. We quickly unpacked the essentials, investigated the facilities, stowed our main bags under the seats and climbed into bed. The bunks are accessed by a very neat pull out vertical ladder, easy for him, a touch tricky for me on the first night!!
The cabin is comfortable, carpet runner in the floor, which is vacuumed once a day, individual lights and sound system by the seats, hangers and hooks, full length mirror when the door is closed, table with cloth, a bottle opener under the table......and a video screen!! The latter is not much good to us but seems to entertain our neighbours and their children. The coach seems to be occupied by Russian families, on their way home from holidays we think, but I might try to communicate more with them today ;). The toilet facilities are good and are kept very clean, hot and cold water, shaver point, mirrors etc. They are at one end of the coach whilst the stewards cabins and the samovar are at the other. It would appear that long distance train travel is a way of life here, the Russians come prepared with food etc......as we have. Having free access to hot water for drinks is great. At each end of the coach is an electronic screen giving information about the temperature inside and outside. The aircon seems to be set at around 20C, getting a bit cooler at night.
The view the train: long stretches of forest of birch & pine, industrial towns, freight yards, villages, wheat fields, marshes, dachas with gardens, river crossings, glimpses of people going about their daily lives while we travel on in our time warp!!
Time: the train runs in Moscow time but we will travel through 5 time zones, so we are adjusting our watches accordingly.
Our first day time stop was at Kirov, where the traders were mainly selling soft toys; next came Balyezino where the locomotive (which are massive)was changed. The traders here were selling all sorts of food, beer etc. We saw two ladies come underneath the train with their wares to get to our platform! I bought what I think were potato cakes topped with cheese, we had them for supper with some smoked sprats. In the evening we stopped at Perm, I tried to walk the full length of the train but did not have time to do that and take photos ( a friend has asked for photos of the stations...) . We have been getting off to walk at each stop, in fact I had to run at Perm as the stewards were beckoning us back onto the train, and I still had about 4 coaches to go! At each stop I ask how many minutes we have.
The restaurant: is an experience and is just as I have seen in photos. It must be be the oldest coach on the rain and therefore is not very smooth! We arrived at 1.0pm Moscow time, just as they were expecting a group of Germans to dine, so we were told we would have to wait. We bought a couple of drinks and tried to study the menu. After one and half hours the waitress came for our order. The wait was not really problem, after all what else had we to do, and by then, we were really hungry!. We had one fish soup, and two sizzling plates of egg, ham, tomatoes and onion and some bread. All very tasty, but the soup came just after the main dish. The meal with two beers and a Pepsi and 10% service was 1500 rubles, about £32. The waitress was very pleasant with us, I think she appreciated that we had waited without making a fuss.......we have had some practice at this......visiting Mongolia over the last 10 years!
Our food supplies: I packed a wheely cabin size bag with cereal that does not require milk ( granola for me, oats for him), tea bags, coffee, sugar, salt, pepper, milk sachets, oat cakes, Spam, sardines ( from UK), sprats as mentioned earlier, some sliced cheese ( from Moscow), biscuits, Christmas cake ( saved especially), plastic dishes, plates, cutlery, insulated mugs, wipes, tea towel, kitchen roll, J cloths, jam, bread rolls ( bought en route) and some flapjack etc which we had left over at home. So......we are just buying one main meal in the restaurant and providing breakfast and supper for ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment