inspector
Just Starting
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 4
Location: Estonia
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 Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 3:43 am Post subject: A myth and truth about Russian Railways |
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The myth and truth will be in that post. Yes, it's a post, not a blog, but a travel story, what was told to me by my geography teacher. The story is from 1979 in USSR, but some part of it can be done in Russia nowadays.
The trip to Siberia started from Tallinn freight station, Estonia (nowadays a republic, then a Soviet republic). All of 8 travellers started from Tallinn with 60 rubls ( nowadays it is about 200EUR, the currency in this story is about 1 rubl=2,25EUR).
First, the travellers were settling to Russia not to travel in normal traveller conditions but in freight carriages. So they started from Tallinn to Moscow in empty Livestock carriages, which headed to Moscow. These cars were like heaven in their trip. Haystacks in wagon, no wind inside etc.
From Moscow to Ufa, they chose to travel in full livestock carriages, because there was enough food to supply them on the trip (milk in the carriages and shops in setting stations). But livestock wagons were nasty because all the fecals of the animals were in the wagon. Near Ufa the spent some nights in tent near railway to drink vodka and beer and making acquaintances with people.
From Ufa, they ride "some" kilometers with oil cars after what they spent some time in Novosibirsk. They travelled some time around the city, a beatiful, I mention. After that, they went in the real Siberia, where a whole freight train can fit on a bridge. They were really frightened about gunmen on each side of bridge, who guarded the railway. They did ride in an empty coal car trough the night, at the morning they looked like tourists from Nigeria, not from Estonia. And at the next station they left train, locals invited the friendly Soviets from 4000 km away to a sauna, which was a villagers big event for 3 days.(Really, the Russian people is friendly, if it is intellectual (3 days of sauna and home made vodka')).
At the end of their trip to other edge of Lake Baikal, one of the station workers gives all of the 8 travellers a work uniform of the USSR railways.
The trip back was exactly entertaining as the trip to Siberia. /The lesson ended for us./
If some interest to this post is given, I'll talk more to my geography teacher and learn more about cheap travelling in Russia and I'll give it to you.
PS: In the end, they had 10rubl's each. |
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