Our train was leaving Moscow at 00.35, so after a frantic rush to leave the hostel and say our goodbyes to the people we got to know we decided to jump into a taxi and not wrestle with the metro one last time.
We had, that morning, much to the arm waving (really she was) shouting and annoyance of the ticket lady, upgraded our tickets to Kupe for this first leg of our journey. Kupe is second class, so instead of sharing with 50 people, you are in separated cabins of 4 berths, and because the Kupe ticket is more than twice the price of the Platz (third class) ticket you should, in theory, have a more comfortable ride…. We had decided to upgrade because a) we had some money to spare after being so under budget on our 1st leg, and b) just wanted to be able to enjoy the journey a little more, relax and take in the scenery, which is all a little more difficult in the more hectic Platz class… oh if only we knew what we had in store for us and what a nightmare it was going to be.
After arriving at the station we picked up some supplies at a shop (beer, instant mashed potatoes, instant noodles… a combination which has unfortunately become a bit of a staple diet..), found our train (A very smart train heading all the way to Ulan Ude), showed out ticket to get past the growling Provodnick before finally squeezing down the corridor to our cabin. After stowing our bags we sat down to introduce ourselves to the third person in our cabin; Roman from Kazakstan (Yashamash!) who we think was a travelling salesman. He took goods to St Petersburg then travelled back to start the process again, the journey from Kazakstan to St.P’burg is about 5-6 days, how the man had any money left when he got home we have no idea. We had been drinking a few beers before the train, as had Roman so conversation via the phrasebook flowed freely aided by another beer or two. We learnt that Roman had been making this commute for 7 years, his wife didn’t like it too much, he had two sons one which had played Canada at ice hockey at some point (he had a treasured Canada maple leaf biro… something that would play a part in later events).
Eventualy when we were all bored of grunting sounds at each other we made our beds and settled down. Although the carriage still only had soviet style heating, one temeperature - damn hot, it was much more comfortable and quiet than the Platz carriage. People were not walking past every two minutes banging doors and we could control the lights. There were some violent stops that sent bottles flying and some snoring which, Sarah said was coming from both Roman and I but I’m not sure if she’s telling the truth.
Day two of the journey. The combination of the extreme heat and beers last night meant that Sarah and I were feeling a little groggy when we woke up, Roman on the other hand was sat up drinking his first beer of the day trying to make conversation with us. It quickly got a little frustrating though as his enthusiasm didn’t seem to diminish even thought we could only say about five words to each other, we couldn’t look out of the window or attempt to read our books without playing a game of charades, a game we had no idea if we were winning or loosing. With nothing else to do Sarah and I both ended up falling asleep again.
We woke an hour or two later with beautiful snowy scenes outside our carriage. The train was passing huge forests and allowing occasional glimpses at sleepy wooden villages and noisy industrial complexes, perfect for sitting and gazing at thoughtfully. Unfortunately in the past two hours it seems that Roman had been sneaking in a couple more cheeky Piva’s (beer) and was even more desperate to have unintellagable conversations with us not giving us more than twenty seconds of silence.
Whilst I’m sure some of you will be reading this thinking ‘oh but come on guys, isn’t travel all about meeting interesting locals and interacting with them?’ this man was becoming more and more errr… well disgusting by the minute. (Bear in mind we are writing this knowing what was about to happen later in the day) We had said everything we were able to say to each other, and whilst we would have been happy to carry on having brief conversations with him we were getting a little annoyed. Luckily he smoked so every 30 mins we were given a 5 minute break.
It was clear quite early in the day that Roman had no interest in the newspaper he bought; by about lunchtime I would have been surprised if he could have focused on the pictures let alone read the print. No, this man from Kazakstan was truly on a mission. Beer after beer was consumed as was a packet of chesterfield cigarettes. Unfortunately in such tightly packed hot living quarters a by product of the larger man drinking is he starts to sweat profucley, this, combined with the Kazakstan diet of packets of stinking wet fish meant that Roman started to pong a little and was panting like a hot dog. At this early stage in the day Sarah and I were only just trying to have our pot noodles and look out the scenery.
Fortunately at about 4 O’clock Roman got bored and staggered off to find some new buddies to have a drink and talk to, giving Sarah and I a chance to open the door and attempt to cleanse the air a little (which was futile). At last we could finally relax and talk to each other without the impossible task of having to explain everything. Unfortunately, unknown to us at this time Roman had met four people considerably younger than him who must have been having a bit of a Vodka binge in the last compartment. He was all over this like a nun sandwich. They were also getting off the train some time before us and Roman.
He was very nice and would keep coming back to make sure it was ok he was off drinking with these other people and not us, and to tell us we are all friends etc etc. We didn’t mind. As the afternoon was turning to evening these check ups would take longer and longer until the inevitable ‘I love you guys’ was pointed out into the phrasebook. Great, not only was he drunk but he had reached the ‘telling strangers I love you stage’
Sarah and I had to leave the train at 04.46 when the train was to stop for only 2 minutes in Kungur so we were quite keen to get a little rest before the morning. Romans Vodka buddies left the train so he was back with us with a full on sweat, desperate to talk about is favourite films. Imagine Borat say I Larve buuuce williiis (Yashamash!) ok, so we all spend some time trying to decipher what film he is talking about, the only problem is films in Russian are often given different titles than English. For example, lock stock and two smoking barrels is called Money, Poker and two guns in Russian. Roman in his pissed state couldn’t grasp this and kept on talking about a guy richie film and acting it out falling all over the place, it was getting later and later and more and more annoying (he was still drinking). All this time he is talking in Russian, so except names and a few basic words we have no real idea what he is saying and same the other way. Dealing with someone at the ‘I love you stage’ when they speak your language is bad enough, but this was getting worse and worse. We got forceful and told him we had to go to bed, so he disappeared again and we fell asleep. Sarah on the bottom bunk and I was on the top.
An hour or two later we were both woken by the sound, and I’m being deadly serious, that could only really compare to the sound of a demented camel giving birth. Roman was back, he had been drinking more and there was something seriously wrong with him. He was in bed writhing around and shouting out random words at the top of his voice and making these un-human camel birthing sounds. Clearly this freaked us out a bit, but more so Sarah as she was next to him on the bottom bunk. We were both unsure if he was awake, or if each other was, and so didn’t say anything so we didn’t have to converse with him. Roman became more and more agitated, yelling out and taking all his covers off, possibly uncomfortable at his extreme drunkeness. At this point I became more and more worried about Sarah and was watching ready to pounce down from above if he moved her way. I looked down and whispered Sarahs name to check if she was awake… no reply, so I leaned down and tapped her arm which caused her to leap and scream! Woops sorry Sarah! She was awake and crapping herself (you must realise at this point there’s still a writhing shouting Kazak in the bed next to her saying incompreshensible nothingness loudly). Sarah jumped up to the bed opposite me and we watch as Roman then took all his clothes off (bar the bright red hot pants he was wearing) and over the next hour whilst groaning and shouting managed to fall out of bed no less that 10 times, 9 feet first but once head first pulling down the table cloth and sending everything flying from the table! He was then lying under the table, which clearly confused him because he couldn’t get out again. Lucky Sarah moved because after falling out of bed he then would try to stand up and twice crashed down where Sarah had previously been sleeping.
When we were both safely up on the top all we could do was laugh as we couldn’t sleep, this continued all the way until we had to get off the train at Kungur. We managed to get a couple of pictures of him sprawling his fat belly all over our carriage but unfortunately it was to dark for video. Please also note and remember, the smell – we jumped off at Perm station for a breath of fresh icy air. When we got back on we cautiously peered into our cabin only to be met with a wall of stink! 12+ hrs of beer drinking, the final four hours of knocking back the vodka, cigarettes, fishy sweat, general sweat, we suspect some vomit and the fact he was nearly naked with sweat matted hairy back – it was disgusting. Please don’t forget this as this adds a new dimension to our suffering; and we had upgraded our ticket for this!
Stepping off the train in Kungur at 04.46 (+2 hours local time) was like arriving at some Antarctic research station. The train pulled away and we were left on an empty barren windswept platform, knee deep in snow in the dark.
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