8/4/97

Woke up to find snow covered taiga slipping past. I'm in the top bunk for a change, so I've got an excellent view of the izbas dotting the countryside. Some are half miniaturized; almost Wendy houses. Erik and Vladik decide on soup for breakfast, and during the meal I discover that Erik and I were born the same day. Made me wonder what could have happened to me if I had been born in Armenia; quite possibly dead, as I soon found out they had both served in the war against Azerbaijan.

About ten am I get my first experience on station catering, Russian style. The train pulls in, and women of all ages cluster around the carriage entrances loudly advertising hot food, sausage, cucumber and vodka. We got some hot chicken and potatoes for about 8000 roubles. After finishing, we head down to the restaurant for some drinks and, to my surprise, a soft porn film on the video. I amused myself for a while thinking of the reaction if the same thing happened on British Rail; "Dear Sir, I was disgusted etc". Incidentally, the food is much worse on the Trans-Sib train compared to Gdansk-St Petersberg, but the line is a lot smoother, so it's easier to keep everything down. Oh, now the dining car is showing Top Gun, which doesn't seem to be much of a hit with the locals, who double their drinking rate.

Went back to my compartment, and a man about my age pokes his head around the door and asks if he can practice his English ( I won't mention his name for reasons that will become obvious later). As I cause great merriment to all by practising my Russian, he quietly explains his present situation- rather grim- in English. Effectively, he's looking to emigrate to the US within the next three to four months. I had expected the usual reasons of unemployment and poverty; I was wrong.

After his service in the Army signal troops (I gathered he worked in electronic warfare), he attended trade school in Perm for two years, training in security systems, and worked for the college for two years after that. Around 1991, he realized that he would be first in line for the dole queue, and set up in business with a couple of friends, running a kiosk in Moscow. His friends ran the "shop", while he bought an ex-Army truck, and shuttled back and forth from Perm, carrying farm produce; a valuable staple in those days. After a year, they expanded by opening two more kiosks- and their problems began. In Russia, what is called the "Mafia" takes many forms. I knew that Chechens and other Central Asians were well represented in the Moscow underworld, but apparently Russians do most of the low level terrorizing. What's more, they completely lack the long term viewpoint that has always served the Cosa Nostra well; i.e., don't take it all, or they will have nothing for tomorrow. In short, their demands broke the business, and they returned to Perm. Luckily, he knew some people working in the local magenese mines, and they needed someone to sell their product for them. The state owned organization that used to do the job, had effectively lost their monopoly, and various foreign interests wanted the magenese. This career had really taken off by 1995, but then he ran into his old problems again. The local government and militia decided they wanted their cut (about twice what he owned!) and his business partner was accused of the murder of one of the mine managers, despite him having been in Switzerland at the time! Since, then he had withdrawn from most of his activities and cached his money elsewhere, while hiring a local lawyer to speed up his application for US citizenship. In the last few months a further complication had arrived; he had acquired a fiancee (a militiawoman!) and she was now two months pregnant. The deadline for getting to the States was now set in stone, and he was in a big hurry. I hope he makes it; he impressed me as someone who wants to make an honest living and work hard. His friend? Still in jail with no sign of a trial; quite normal for Perm I suppose, it was one of the great GULAG cities.

9/4/97

It's two am, and the Armenians are leaving. Unfortunately I had to turn down their offer to show me round the bars of Sverdlovsk; neither my train ticket or my visa would allow that! Another Russian arrives and goes straight to sleep, with me following him soon after. I wake up and go to breakfast, and when I return Sergei is staggering about while a series of youngish Russian women pop their heads round the door and chat. After introductions, we swapped some stories and supplies; sausage from me, Johnny Walker from him. To my amazement (I'm getting a lot of this here!) he was returning from Dubai, which he visited once a month for a week each time. He was a little coy about what he did, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was similar to white slavery, given the company he kept and the general air of the likeable rogue that he exuded. He had joined the Navy at seventeen, and served for twenty years as an officer cadet and officer; mainly in the Pacific Fleet. In his time he'd been based in Vietnam (Cam Ranh bay), Kamatchaka, Vladivostok and Yemen, but now kept to an even stricter timetable; one week travelling to Dubai, one week there, one week travelling back to Omsk. I got the impression that his wife wasn't happy with this, but that this was fine with him! He'd tried various routes to and from Omsk; he was presently using a flight to and from St Petersberg, then taking the train, but the most remarkable was definitely the drive all the way via Saudi, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran! Wish I could get that sort of luck with visas.

Sergei got off at Omsk; 2710 k gone and I'm about half way. There's no one who wants to correct my pronunciation, so I'm sitting in the restaurant car writing this. The manager is now a lifelong friend, partly because I drink so much, but mostly because I've just donated him all my leftover change from the UK, Poland etc. His collection is extensive, and includes Kirgizistani and Vietnamese notes as well as old Chinese FEC. The old Soviet notes stand out too. I get a couple of badges and all I can eat and drink in return. While I'm showing off the family photos one of my carriage attendants arrives, and over the next two hours we learn a lot about each other. She's a native Siberian (Buryat), with some of the longest hair I've ever seen; when it's down! She makes two round trip journeys a month, which hardly seems like much of a life, but I gather that she's glad to have a job at all.

10/4/97

Lovely sunny day, with 4000k gone and 1200 to go. We stop at a station, and while getting some hot chicken (that's what the babooshka's shout- honest!), I bump into a group of Swiss, Canadians, Dutchmen and Austrians from the first class carriages. They're all stopping at Irkutsk too, and two are going on to Mongolia and then on to Dalandzadgad in the south Gobi- exactly where I'm going. Perhaps I can grab a lift- they seem amenable. While discussing this and other matters in the dining car, I enquire as to what two middle-aged and married professionals (doctor and engineer) are doing eating lemon flavoured meat soup in the middle of Siberia. Turns out that they wanted to see Hong Kong handed over, and the wives didn't want to come.

Siberia is becoming extremely pretty now, with Swiss type villages dotting the landscape and large pine forests everywhere, with much less of the heavy industry in evidence. I was assured that this is the best time to come, as the mozzies and horseflies arrive in June. The other thing you notice is that night is falling earlier and earlier; dawn being at about 3 am last night. Just before I went to sleep at 9 pm the train stopped in the middle of nowhere for about half an hour. Fir forests as far as the eye could see, covered with a sky full of stars and an ethereal silence. The temptation to grab my rucksack and start walking into the taiga was surprisingly strong.

Erik and Vladik	Babushka's at a station, somewhere in Siberia