12.06

As I have been in Moscow many times before it was not that new for me. It happened a lot during those days there. It was the Day of Russia and for this important event Russian authorities organized a concert on the Red Square. A friend of mine Sergei got somehow tickets for us. Actually it was possible only for Russians to see this concert. Tickets were available only for selected members of some organisations. As we also got those tickets we had to stay quiet during entering to the Red Square, because security control was similar as at the airports.

Unfortunately we didn’t manage to keep writing this trip diary. I was happy to meet my old friends there. Many things have changed since we met last time almost four years ago. They are working now or running successfully their own business. Some of them are getting married soon! In Moscow we met also many our friends from St. Petersburg because many of us were travelling around during last weeks in Russia.

To sum up I should say, that I had really great time in Russia and I will miss all those people I met there and also the Shevchenko dorm atmosphere.

11.06

After Kazan we were also in Nizhniy Novgorod and in Moscow. Those cities are also nice. Nizhniy Novgorod had this cosy city centre but everything which was outside the main street was absolutely not suited for tourist’s needs. It was difficult even to find a restaurant. Unhappily all the museums were on that day closed. We just hanged out and enjoyed very beautiful and sunny weather. We were really tired. Veronika thought why not to go to the hairdresser. Well, we searched long before we found one who had some free time. After Veronika’s new look we decided to go back to the train station, because our train was leaving soon. In McDonalds we got some Internet. The good thing about McDonalds in Russia – they almost always have free wlan there. Our train to from Nizhniy Novgorod to Moscow as well as from Moscow to St. Petersburg was very modern. Just like trains in Europe, with working air conditioner and with normal WC which can be used also during the stops.

10.06

We slept really well in comparison to the last night in train. Katharina got some new friends during the night: mosquitoes. I think she saved me!

After check out from the hotel we left our backpacks at reception and started with sightseeing. We went to the “bazaar” market. It was quite funny, because you can buy there almost everything. The local businessmen understood quickly that we are foreigners. They tried in every step to catch our attention and to sell something useful to us and with the best price ever. Finally we bought two small but really delicious honey jars. We could try every different honey sort they were selling and after some minutes I could not distinguish between different types of honey anymore.

In the bazaar you can buy underwear, shoes, vegetables, meat as well as second hand stuff and, old soviet goods. You have always keep in mind, that price in the bazaar is (often in not say always) negotiable. The toilets at bazaar are new but old Russian style with only a hole in the ground.

After bazaar we went to the centre and had some lunch. Veronika ate as usual her favourite Russian cold soup. We walked through the city and searched for the district where were supposed to live almost only Muslims. There were many mosques there, but usually they were just ordinary buildings with some Islamic signs. Nothing compared to the mosque in the city centre, in Kremlin. Anyway we enjoyed staying in Kazan a lot and as it later came out, that in Kazan we got our best impressions.

09.06

Being happy to be out of the train and breathing “fresh” air again, we got out of the lovely station and stood on the square trying to get some orientation with the map we had from our guide. Of course, like almost everywhere so far we were asked by many guys (more Asian types) if we would need a taxi, with a smile we said “no” and walked away towards our hotel. It took us about 20-30 minutes to find the hotel, but on our way there we already got a good impression of Kazan. It is a very clean city and we had beautiful weather, which makes a city even nicer. At the hotel we took a shower and got ready to do some sightseeing. We first visited the Kremlin with its huge mosque and the Orthodox Church as well as the residence of the president of Tatarstan and the other government buildings. Kazan is the capital of the autonomous Republic of Tatarstan. Inside the Kremlin walls everything was absolutely clean and very representative. But what was the most striking and amazed us was the huge mosque, which is the biggest mosque outside the “area” of the Islam. It was built 2005 and from the inside it amazed us, we were only allowed to go in with headscarf and long skirt, which were provided there. We also saw the Orthodox Church, which was OK, but not as amazing and imposing as the St Peter and Paul Cathedral which we saw early. This church was built in a special Russian style and is counted as the 1^st wonders in Russia among the buildings. From the entrance of the church, which is up two stairs, there is a wonderful view across Kazan. Then we walked along ул. Карла Маркса to see the Museum of Modern Art, but it closed unfortunately five minutes before we arrived. So instead we visited a small photo gallery with an exhibition of Baltic photographers. Then we went to a restaurant and had the traditional Russian and Tatarstan food. From there we wanted to walk along the Kasanka river and we came across a huge red building (later found out it was the cultural centre of Kazan) with lots of younger people sitting, talking, listening to music and hanging around it. From there we could see above the older side of Kazan. In the evening sun we walked to the hotel. At the hotel both of us fell asleep immediately on our beds. We woke up at 23h got into our jams and continued sleeping.

08.06

We slept just great and woke up without an alarm clock. We had some breakfast before taking a shower. Anatoly made scrum bled eggs with sausages, bread, tea/coffee and fresh orange juices. Then when we were all ready took a trolleybus to the centre. About half way, then we walked into an Универмаг where you can definitely buy everything. We noticed that the more we walked on a main street towards the centre; there was more and more police, like in every 10-20 meters. We were quite limited in talking and taking pictures, because when policemen get bored they start making trouble. We asked someone why there were so many of them and we figured out that Yekaterinburg is preparing for international economic forum which was supposed to take place in two weeks. Well, training eventually makes the best. We visited the two most important churches, wanted to see the museum for stones and jewellery, but unfortunately it was closed. We walked around the city, had late lunch in a “military bar/restaurant” where the background music in the toilet was the sound of gun shouting. Then we left the bar to visit my (Katha) grandmother’s friends Andrei and Nina. We first missed the trolleybus and had to wait 10 minutes and then got off too early, because an old gentleman told us to get off there. Well, we had to walk about five more blocks, bought some flowers for Nina and arrived about a half an hour later, but luckily we warned them before that we would be late. They were really happy to see us, I (Katha) have seen them about 10-12 years ago, and could not remember, but they could. We had to introduce ourselves again, hear their family story, looking at books and then we ate the best Russian pancakes ever (Блины), we have eaten since we are in Russia. But to start off we had to drink a shot of Vodka. We had white and red wine, tea, caviar, salmon, herring, fruits, cake and lots of ice cream, resulting in being really full, but satisfied and making them really happy. We spoke German and Russian and Katha noticed that when she does not speak Russian for a while, her Russian sucks, but thank God there is Veronika who can translate and help out. Sergei, a younger man in his 40s came over as well, he helps Andrei and Nina sometimes and with him we spoke Russian and English. At 18 o’clock we left their house, Sergei showed us the Маршрутка we had to take back to the hostel to get our stuff. And then we were not sure at which time our train could leave: Moscow time or Yekaterinburg time, but somehow we were sure that it would be Moscow time. So we were two hours early for our train to Kazan, wanted to sit in the station, but we would have had to pay, so we walked around – still watched by a lot of police, sat on a monument, made acquaintance with a drunken man and eventually killed time to catch the train to Kazan.

While walking through the city and passing by all the different monuments we came up with four categories of Russian monuments starting with most of important: 1) communists, 2) war heroes, veterans, 3-4) composers and writers (Russian intellectuals).

Now we can say that during the journey Yekaterinburg-Kazan we had the worst train experience. We had two groups of neighbours: 1) A granny with her grandson; 2) a pretty young Russian couple.

1) First of all it started with this child (Pavel) who cried and called ahead his mother who was staying in Yekaterinburg. They were sending Pavel (5 year old) with his grandmother to Novorossiysk to renovate their apartment in Yekaterinburg during this time. We can understand that because was really annoying. During his life he got everything he wanted and all relatives were under his control. It took not long for him to start to give orders to everybody in the wagon. As he wanted to sleep we were not allowed to even whisper. But as it came out Pavel liked Katha as you can see on the photo. But Katha didn’t find Pavel too attractive despite of the fact that Pavel climbed to the Kathas bed wearing only the underwear! My personal opinion is that Katha disliked Pavel’s teeth which were brown coloured and rotten. But the best thing was that the grandma gave her grandson more and more sweets to eat and did not go with him to brush teeth. Probably sweets were the best method to keep him quiet and handable for three nights in a train smelling like everything possible, chicken, vodka, fish, beer, ready to serve meal, sweets and a lot of people – and to top all of this the ventilation system did not work properly.

2) The couple did not seem to happy each other, they fought which resulted in slamming doors, which already got slammed quite often because we had the coupe right by the toilet and garbage. They annoyed us even more when they started to eat their smelly fish in the middle of the night and we already felt sick – so this did not make it any better, which resulted in us taking us coal tablets. During the night we slept pretty bad and the air was just horrible. Waking up quite early, having breakfast we noticed that the couple was up early too and that the guy was acting strangely and they fought again. After a while we saw the half empty vodka 1,0 l bottle. He fell asleep while standing and was ordered by his girlfriend to go back to sleep on the upper bed. He slept for a while, but then when he wanted to get down he fell like a drunken ass flat on his face, almost hitting Pavel and us. It took some time to get him up and when he was back on the bed and asleep, his girlfriend also drank vodka shot (unbelievable we thought, probably her only solution). Well, best of all, the guy woke up again and fell back asleep after opening a beer and drinking it. The grandma was pretty angry and all of us quick annoyed and so happy to leave the train.

07.06

We had small breakfast and some tea, which tasted horrible, but we picked one particular type, because of the wrapper. The whole time of the train ride we thought about a plan how to steal the nicest tea and it was not really easy. Because most people had they own cups and we were foreigners and only foreigners steal shoes tea cups, BUT we managed to steal one tee cup without being caught.

Setting out of the train was a great feeling, out of the station searched for the trolleybus. The trolleybus drove quite long through the city and we could get a first impression. Managing to get to the correct station we walked around a house while we found the right entrance. The entrance of the hotel was a normal door with to a large panel system building. We took an old elevator, making funny noises to the 7^th floor. A nice Russian guy Anatoly (who was definitely a gay) welcomed us and let us into a small apartment, 2 rooms, kitchen, hall and bathroom. The hostel was one room with three bunk beds. There were two Argentinean guys and two German guys. And now we could finally take a shower and just stretch out for a moment on a normal bed. We packed our things together and asked Anatoly how to get to the monument, which signs the border of Europe and Asia. We took the trolleybus to the bus station. We asked also the bus driver to tell us when to get off to see the monument. We fell asleep in between, because we were really tired.

In 50 minutes we found us in front of a small (but the oldest) Europe-Asia monument. We were a bit disappointed because it was nothing special and was not similar to the pictures we have seen before. Actually there is 3-4 such kind of monuments and the next one was just 500 m away. We took a walk through the taiga and finally found the second monument which was much bigger and also in some way similar to Russian style monuments (huge, massive, 24h secured). All it was not sufficient for us and we decided to find the third monument too, which was as we figured out pretty close to the Yekaterinburg.

We didn’t know the timetable of the buses and so we decided to save time. I think Katharina hitch hiked for the first time in her life (me for the second:D). What an experience in Russia! Only problem with hitch hiking was that the driver didn’t understand which monument we meant (may be because Veronikas poor Russian:D). So we visited Memorial to the victims of political repressions which looked pretty much like some cemetery. We were not satisfied and despite our doubts about hitch hiking we tried to catch next car. This time it took more time but finally one van driver were kind and brought us for free to the third monument. We were happy because we also could buy there some ice cream! On the way back to Yekaterinburg we got first to the IKEA and we went to a supermarket near by. We bought some food to cook dinner: fresh parmesan, tricolour pasta and green pesto. After shopping we took a bus again (with Swedish signs) to the city centre. We walked a bit through the city and then got absolutely exhausted back to the hostel. Took another shower, ate our great and very delicious dinner. After quick internet session we went to bed.

06.06

Well, our first longer stop (~5 min) was in a town X. Actually it must be a city because this train doesn’t stop in small towns. We went out of the train and met some local businessmen who were selling everything a train passenger could need. An old woman sold chicken (100 Rub) and cutlets. The smell of this food was exactly how it supposed to be. It was at 12 o’clock and we just finished our breakfast. So we were hoping to get some babushka cooked chicken from the next stop at 15 o’clock in Kirov. We were quite disappointed by the fact, that at this train station people were selling stuff we didn’t need. For example toys stuffed animals. Chicken selling babushkas were on this train station forbidden. I think they have there a local mafia who controls the trade on the station. We bought some ”Doshirak” noodles and were waiting for the next longer stop at 19.

At 19 o’clock we stopped and there were again a lot of people selling goods, mostly alcohol and some food, sunflower seeds, vegetables etc. Since we really wanted to eat chicken we looked in every babushka’s basket and found one who sold chicken with potatoes and we bought a bottle of water as well. After some minutes we sat back in our coupe having dinner. To be honest the chicken didn’t taste good, but at least we ate some of it – we had to because our neighbour would have looked really strange at us. Our dinner was a great picnic. As dessert we got a chocolate cake from our neighbour. Afterwards we played cards again with our neighbour and his friend. Then we watched a Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It was quite an acrobatic act because we did it in on the upper bed and beds in train are usually pretty narrow. It got quieter around us and when the film was finished, everyone was already a sleep around us.

Then the train stopped at Perm and we could not go to the toilet, because when the train stops in a larger city – we can not go to the toilet for 20 minutes before and after the train station. We slept a lot better than the first night, but a lot shorter, because people started waking up at 4.30, even though the train did not stop in Yekaterinburg before 8.30h.

05.06

On this day Katha and me woke up early and we had plenty of time to pack our stuff, to buy some food for our two days train journey and to take last copies from lonely planet travelbook (whole trans-siberian book was just too heavy to take it with us and so we decided do take only those parts which were most relevant to our trip).

We had at least 40 people around us in this train. They are calling it platzcart wagon, the cheapest one, where you don’t have your room and all people are separated just by some walls. As Katha went to WC she didn’t know what to expect. It was pretty shaky experience. Slide rails outside St. Petersburg were not the newest ones. She had some problems as she wanted to wash her hands. But then Veronika helped her out. In old Russian trains you must just push up a button under the water tap! At the same time we got really beautiful view from the window. Two rainbows!

We were in train like superstars! I supposed to be Katharina’s assistant and speak Russian when we needed to communicate. But i refused because Katha has to start speaking Russian. I knew her Russian is actually good, but she is sometimes to shy to speak it.

Larisa from the train gave us her number 8-911-546-71-28. Nobody understands why we are doing this trip! Well, because we just want see and experience a bit more of Russia and because we can!

Actually our train was a Russian luxus train. Microwave, toilet paper, towels, mirror, soap, people selling newspapers and drinks, chocolate bars, hot water bar, vacuum cleaner!

Katharina fells really really stupid in between, because she does not understand - so I (katha) hope it will get better, but one thing I already know, I will be deadly tired from listening and trying to understand… I want to speak better Russian, but I am as always to afraid of talking! (May be I should have brought my dictionary along?!).

Its amazing what people take with them when going with such a train: the wagon smells funny, because of all the different smells of the various foods (chicken, noodle soup, champagne, tea, salad.

Two women close to our coupe just finished their 2^nd “Sovetskoye Shampanskoe”. They are celebrating successfully passed exam and they start to talk louder and more unclear from minute to minute, while they are listening to music played by their cell phones and sometimes they sing happily along.

We were totally tired when we got at the train and because it was still early and light outside we tried to keep us awake. At 23 o’clock we got ready for bed, but were not tired anymore. So we played „Дурак“ with the little boy Артём, who is going to Yekaterinburg with his grandma for the summer holidays. It was quite fun and I am sure by the end of this trip he is trained well, since we have played „Дурак“ quite often in the dorm. (still Veronika dislikes this game). So then around 12 o’clock we finally went to bed and fell a sleep. But we woke up in between fairly often. All the time we were talking in between. As around four a clock we woke up because of the sunrise – it was a very beautiful light. Both of us however were to tired to get up and to take the pictures. We opened the window, I got lots of fresh air, but Veronika did not. It was hot in the train, because they switched off the ventilation system, because one woman in the whole wagon complained and apparently when train stopped at night she got out and started screaming. But both of us did not hear that. I woke up almost every two hours and Veronika seemed to sleep well, at eight o’clock I got up for the first time and at ten I got up for good.

Through Russia by train: St. Petersburg – Yekaterinburg – Kazan –Nizhniy Novgorod – Moscow – St. Petersburg. 05. 06.2009-16.06.2009

This trip diary is written by me and Katharina Borngaesser.

To be clear from the beginning I must say, that it was Kathas idea to undertake such a trip. One day as I was writing my bachelor thesis (and of course I wanted to do anything else but that) I went to Kathas room and we just browsed a Russian map from Internet and pointed out all possible destinations. The main idea of our plan was that we took only trains, usually night trains. It saved us some time and money as well. We paid for our train tickets only 120 € and I think that was a really great deal. In Yekaterinburg and Kazan we booked hostel for one night. In Moscow I contacted a friend of mine Andrei and he offered us his whole apartment and so we could stay there as long as we wanted. We were looking for a new experience, and we definitely got it.