Day 2: The Trans-Siberian Railroad

Distance Traveled: 1432km
Major cities passed: Khabarovsk

We’ve been traveling on the train in 2nd class seating (“Kupe”) which puts us in a berth with four beds (the lower two fold down during the day for seats) and a small table.  In comparison, 1st class only puts two people per berth, and 3rd class houses everyone in an open bay.

2nd class seating…	compared to 3rd class seating.

Each train car has an attendant, a providnitsa (female attendant) who checks tickets at the door, periodically vacuums the carpets, cleans the toilets, etc.  As was the case with most Russians we met on the trip, she was very business-like and didn’t smile very much.  Lance thinks that the attendant was upset at him in particular for waking her up at 2AM to turn on the air conditioning.

When at a stop for only a minute or two, the providnitsa keeps the stairs up (depicted here) while the vendors offer their products to anyone nearby.

The train makes various stops along the route, sometimes for only a few minutes while at the major stations sometimes as long as 30 minutes.  While at the station, most of the travelers disembark both to stretch their legs and to buy some local produce from the numerous vendors that line the tracks.  For the first day, we mostly stayed away from the vendors and ate some of the bread, pirozhkis (similar to dumplings with various fillings such as sausage, cabbage, potatoes, etc.), and other snacks we’d bought in Vladivostok.

We also ate in the train’s dining car, which is fairly elaborate and rustic in design, though of course the meals there were rather expensive ($6 for ham and eggs, up to $15 for some of the more filling dishes).  Throughout the train ride, the vendors would also come through selling snacks and drinks.

The dining car on our train.	Despite Lance’s neutral expression and the relatively plain-looking food, it actually tasted rather good.

Overall impressions about Siberia for this portion of the trip: it’s huge.  Since we’re traveling through in the summer, the grass is in full bloom and the trees are green in stark contrast to the stereotype of Siberia as a frozen wasteland.  It’s like Alaska in that respect – during the short summer, Siberia is actually a rather pleasant place to be.  There was little to no livestock or animals that we could make out, and the terrain varied between flat forest to hilly forests, to clearings and at times plains. 

A rural village in Siberia.	Siberia.  It goes on, and on, and on..

Every once in a while we’d pass a village or town.  In most cases, the towns are almost entirely built out of wood, with corrugated metal roofs.  Each house has its own garden for growing vegetables and other foods (a tradition dating back to the Soviet era as a concession to individualism when collective farms were unable to fully meet the needs of the people) and in general the streets are unpaved.  There are numerous abandoned factories from the Soviet era that fell out of use due to their inability to function without government support, and in general the infrastructure doesn’t seem to be very well maintained.

Belogorsk train station with the obligatory Lenin statue in front.	Soviet-style apartments near Birobidzhan.

In general, it’s nice traveling on the train: we all have actually been able to get eight hours or more of sleep a night, the scenery is very nice to watch and the forested hills remind me a lot of home in Washington state.  It’s intriguing to wonder what life is like for someone who grows up in one of these villages in the far reaches of Siberia.

Chugging through Siberia at an average of 60kph.	A partially, if not fully, abandoned factory along the route.  This one was in relatively good condition.