Siberian Express

We only rode on a train once in our first five months in Russia, and that was when we arrived. Since moving to Novokuznetsk we've ridden a train several times to attend conferences or go on a visa trip. Most of the time we get a купе (pronounced coo-peh, a private sleeping compartment) on an overnight train to and from N'sibirsk. It takes about 7 hours and we can mostly sleep through the stops along the way. The купе is heated. Very heated. Russians really love their heat. You kind of have to experience it to fully understand. The купе ends up feeling like a sauna only without the dry part, because by the time you get to your destination, you're pretty well soaked! When we traveled in October we told the conductor it was too warm and asked her to turn the heat down. She turned it off and we were just fine! I'm sure she thought we were crazy. We haven't dared to ask for that since because it's gotten much colder outside and the купе would be too cold for us by the time we got to our destination. The combination of too much heat, frequent stops along the way and the short night make it so we arrive rather tired, but not bored. When we arrive they don't announce the stop. We just have to pay attention and when the train stops around the scheduled time, we get off. Often the train creeps into the station and sometimes it takes us a few minutes to realize that the train has fully stopped.

For one of our trips they had us take a day train and we got regular seats. They just happened to be in first class. The trip was delightful. Snow was swirling and flying past the windows, just like you'd expect to see in Siberia. Some of the time a movie was playing on TVs mounted throughout the train car. No one had earphones; everyone could watch it or try to ignore as they wanted. Since we don't understand Russian, it was easy for us to ignore. We think our car had a different movie than the one next to us. We're not sure because we weren't really following the movie, but it looked like the actors and scenery were different when we walked through.

The seats we got for our day train were in a family car. A couple of rows of seats had been taken out and a carpeted play area installed. Our seats just happened to be right across from the play area. We enjoyed watching the kids have fun.

We thought it was cute that they treated the play area like their home--notice the boots on the floor at the entrance

Just after Dave snapped these pictures, we noticed a sign saying pictures weren't allowed. It was the international no sign (a red circle with a line through it) with a picture of a camera, so we couldn't claim we didn't know what it said. We're glad no one paid any attention to what he was doing.

Something we don't understand is their security. When we enter the train station in N'sibirsk, we go through a metal detector. It isn't turned on and the guards don't check any of the bags. However, after we get off the train we go through a metal detector that is turned on. We haven't figured that one out yet. In Novokuznetsk the train station is closed because they're remodeling so everyone walks around the end of the building, never going through any security. A couple of years ago we took Amtrak and never had to go through any kind of security, so any security at a train station seems strange to us.

This week's Russianism:
Do you know how cold the metal toilet seat is in an unheated restroom on the Siberian Express in the middle of winter?

In case you're totally lacking in imagination, here's what the metal door on our building looks like right now. The white around the edges isn't decorative paint! This was in the middle of the day--there's even more frost on it in the morning.