We were pleasantly surprised by the standard of our train and by the companions who we were going to be sharing with for the next four days - Marina Petrovana (from now on referred to as Grandma on account of her checking her daily blood pressure reminding me of Grandma testing her blood sugar levels every day) and her daughter Irina. Grandma is simple adorable - her whole face scrunches up as she laughs and though she speaks not a word of English it is obvious we would get on from the start. Irina is much more reserved but as sweet as can be and her odd words of English help us have the most fruitful conversations throughout the next few days. Other companions on our journey include our provodnista (carriage attendant) aka Steve Redgrave (as he was the spitting image) and a drunk, rather smelly fellow called Sparo, known to us as Flat Cap (seen as he never once took his flat cap off - or changed once his clothes for that matter!)
Flat cap took an instant liking to me, on day one he chatted and stroked my face, on day two bought me an apple, by day three he had told me he loved me and bought me a box of chocolates from the restaurant carriage and finally stumped up for the big stuff - champers - though that was mainly as I had mentioned it was Stu’s birthday recently - when he asked how old we were. Flat cap claims to be 35, we think more like 40 and I’m certain he will feel 50 plus when his wife gets her hands on him as he rocks up at home, having been away for two years (working as a carpenter) - drunk and smelly from the train! Actually - he starts to drink less as the journey goes on. Day one and two he was on full form - repeating his hilarious one sided conversations with us that reminded us of a London Comedy Club sketch we had seen, where the actors make up languages and talk jibberish with the addition of sounds and gesticulations. Flat cap was just like this - he spoke loud and fast Russian to us at great length even though we only speak “English Minglish” as he says - though I doubt he realises the humour of this. He adds in little sounds - ‘zzzzzzp’, ‘derup derup’ and then just throws his hands up laughing - knowing we just don’t have a clue. By day three and four, Flat Cap is remarkably quiet - he knocks his head with his hand telling me it pounds and he is suffering - but still he smiles sweetly at me and continues to stroke my face - I’m faintly flattered, highly amused and perhaps a touch scared!!!! Poor harmless Flat Cap. Although he literally didn’t have a word of English and we clearly no Russian - we got on perfectly fine and he was no end of amusement for us on our journey. Though his all too familiar smell of body odour did put a wee dampner on our relationship!
So entertained were we that during the entire four days we never once read our books (save for the guide book) or turned on our ipods. Grandma and Irina were our main source of constant entertainment and we spoke with them at length about so many things despite again not sharing a language. From what I can gather Irina works in Moscow and Grandma has been visiting for three months, to get help for her high (or is that low) blood pressure. It might help if she stopped eating raw sugar cubes and ladening her eggs with salt. She flew over to Moscow but they are travelling back to Ulan Ude together by train. Irina has two daughters, one studying medicine and the other economics. One of them has either been to England in 2006 to learn English or is going to England for six weeks (or months) - I can’t quite work it out. Grandma has five grandchildren from five to 20 years old and loves them all - of course she does - she is so full of love and sweetness - at one point even playing with my toes like I was a little girl. She hugs me a lot and we all laugh a great deal together and share huge excitement when lengthy conversations finally bring about a very small, obvious or menial point.
They teach us how to play the most pointless Russian card game imaginable. First point of concern was that Russian cards only go from card six upwards, second point of concern was that this game seemed to be made up as they went along and thirdly they were cheating (though in a funny way). They found it hysterical when I pulled them up on their cheating - we found it hysterical when they simply seemed to make a new rule up and everyone found it hysterical that Stuart, despite not having a clue of the game, kept winning and I, actually beginning to understand the silly game, kept losing. It might sound trivial but to us, this simple way of breaking down boundaries, brought so much fun and laughter to our journey - I really felt we had known Grandma and Irina for so much longer than just a few days - we had better more intricate conversations with them than I have had with many long term acquaintances back home!
We talked about the Buryat Tribe, of which they are part of; about our jobs; of Umal fish in Lake Baikal and where to eat them; of our families; and of Checkov. They were amazed that we met in Africa and laughed at how long it took Stuat to finally marry me! Grandma lies on her own and does all the work at home and as far as I can tell that includes working some land.
It is amazing how with time and care you can break down the barriers of language and how with patience and creativity you can get any message across. Every conversation was rewarding, though sometimes frustrating and always tiring. Grandma doesn’t stop talking to us - in pure Russian of course and sometimes Irina just roles her eyes at her and tells her to be quiet as there is no way she can translate it! Inevitably we manage to understand at least part of the message anyway. Grandma talks fast and with excitement, directly to our face as if she thinks we can understand and we just nod and smile and patiently work things out.
They are the perfect roomies. We quickly get ourselves into a set pattern - they eat their dinner first and then move over so we can make use of the little table and eat our food. They never mind us sitting on their beds (as we had the top bunks) and we respect their space by spending good time “upstairs” mainly sleeping. It is amazing how much sleeping goes on in the train. Of course there is not much else to do in terms of activity - eating makes you tired so you sleep and sleeping makes you tired so you eat. Stuart thinks it should be called the Trans Fatty Acids Train as we just can’t stop scoffing - ok, I can’t stop scoffing - especially when we pick up street food from the platforms - delicious dumplings and meatballs.
Concentrating so hard on every second of conversation is also very tiring and the heat is almost unbearable. That was the biggest surprise of all. Here we were expecting to be freezing our wotsits off, sitting wrapped up like the Michelin Man, when instead I had my tracksuit pinned up and would have happily lounged about in my bikini (which I am sure Flat Cap would have loved!) You cannot open any windows as they have been screwed down for the winter and so the rooms were steaming hot from the heater that you could not turn down. At night I had to sleep with a wet towel to keep cool and we had the door open every evening and throughout the night to try and let just any cool air in. Meanwhile the back cabin, which had the only remotely clean window to look out of, totally iced over and there was ice filling up the corners of the floor. To begin with we laughed at all the ice cream sellers on the platform - but they had a point!
Each carriage has their own attendant who looks after everything from the passengers to the coal to keep the hot water boiling (free hot water throughout the journey). You can buy tea from them and they get off at every strop, whatever the time, suited and booted to see passengers off and others on. They keep check of everything - locking the toilet doors before we get to new stations, all the cleaning, and even knocking the ice of the train parts as it freezes up. Some station stops are longer than others and often this is simply to give time to chisel off the inches of ice over the cogs and mechanisms of the train. It is amazing how at up to minus 30 (more later on in the year) and travelling through metres of permafrost, mountainous land and huge stretches of nothing the trains run completely on time. Not once were we late - in fact more often than not we rolled in a few minutes early.
On the last night I had left a card for Grandma and Irina, just to say thanks for their company and had written a little message in Russian. Strangely none of us could sleep that night and Grandma was feeding me cornflakes at midnight. They found the card, earlier than I had expected and as I lay pretending to be asleep Grandma dictated the message she wanted to write back to us. In the middle of the night, still all awake she thanked me for our card, holding it to her heart and kissing it and in return they gave us their addresses to send photos to and the deck of Russian Cards so we could carry on playing the pointless game forever!
At five in the morning, on day four, we were both actually very sad to say goodbye to them - but on with the adventure!
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