TRAVELOGUE #15

When: Thursday, June 22
Where: Siberia (#5 Train)

Exerpts from a letter to Asher:

Hello love. I am composing this letter in the dining car of the #5 train to Moscow. There are just a few things not-so-romantic about this moment. 1) The pink and orange plastic flowers are in need of dusting. 2) The air conditioning is broken; it must be over 85 degrees in here! 3) The train is wobbly, making writing rather challenging. I almost feel like the table is consciously evading my pen. 4) The cook gave me a very severe look when I arrived.

So many Russians actually, have a very grave countenance. They all look like they just spent five hours standing in line for a loaf of bread. Today marks the third day on the train - really, only the second full day - and we have two more days after this. I have now started the Brother’s Karamazov. I’ve also begun to learn some Russian. My goal is to be able to read Cyrillic words well enough with decent pronunciation. Finally, while in Beijing I bought two small Lonely Planet guides for Moscow and St. Petersburg, so I’m reading up on the history of those cities. I’m a bit mixed up physically since the train schedule and clocks are all on Moscow time, which is five hours earlier than the time zone we started in. So my watch may read 3 PM, but my body feels 8 PM.
I’ve met some interesting people so far. Sergei, for example, is a bleary eyed Russian returning to Moscow from Mongolia after being away for 13 years! He pretty much sat down at my dining car table, uninvited although not completely un-welcomed. He was kind enough to treat me to a bottle of Piva (beer) while he imbibed in several small bottles of vodka and a very large bowl of borsch. We chatted laboriously through my phrase book. I learned that he is 46 years old, has three sons; the youngest 18 and the oldest 26. He was very excited to see them again. I can only imagine, having been away for so long. His eyes became even more teary and bloodshot when we spoke of them and twice he stood up and pantomimed an embrace punctuated by him kissing the tips of his fingers. I asked for their names, but he couldn’t remember! He was really quite knackered, but come now, how can you put on a show like that only to forget your son’s names? I was all, “Fyodor? Fyodor Karamazov is that you?”