End Of The Line

The most common sight along the road, birch trees

Although I had been sweet talked into buying a $25 bottle of champagne by the two service girls, Tatyana and Natasha I eventually got over it and chalked it up as the price to pay for a cheap date with two good looking Russian girls. The rest of the day went by without incident, I generally passed the time watching the scenery go by, which generally consisted of endless birch trees intermixed with small villages.

Later that evening I ventured into the “lioness den” aka the restaurant car where the girls basically lived and worked. As I walked toward the dining car I passed by a small sign that said no smoking and who should be under that sign but Natasha sucking away at a cigarette. Eventually after finishing her cigarette she came back into the dining room appearing a bit drunk and embracing me as if I was some long lost friend.

The dining car is a great place to get acquainted with all types of different people. Case in point the year before I got to know two guys from 3^rd class who were involved in a no-holds-barred take down arm wrestling match. They saw me sitting across from them and asked me to cheer one of them on while they were arm wrestling. So, basically I was a cheerleader saying “я за Вадим” “I’m for Vadim”. Their arm wrestling matches continued for a good hour only to stop every few moments for a beer break.

Sasha and myself

This year I got acquainted with three other people, a Russian guy, Sasha, a Central Asian guy and a cute Ukrainian girl who was studying political science in Russia’s third largest city, Novosibirsk. They all were involved in playing the Russian card game “durak” which means fool in Russian. They introduced themselves to me and when the Ukrainian girl introduced herself the Russian guy quickly interjected and said “she’s from Maidan”, referring to Ukraine and the Maidan “revolution” or really a coup that swept a democratically elected pro-Kremlin president from power in favor of a puppet government of the US and EU. The Ukrainian girl turned to me and said “don’t ever get into politics with Russians”!

One of the many beautiful churches along The Golden Ring

The next day was Russian Orthodox Easter and my final day aboard the train, The Tomich. About mid-morning we pulled into our very last stop before Moscow, the Golden Ring city of Vladimir, which also served as the nation’s capital back in ancient times. For those not familiar with Russian culture, The Golden Ring is a group of eight ancient Russian cities consisting of countless beautiful churches, monasteries and spectacular architecture. Once I stepped off the train I noticed the city was alive with the sound of church bells ringing………I thought what a way to cap off a great journey across the nation!

Vladimir churches

Tatyana sleeping after a very long day

As our trained lurched toward Moscow Tanya, one of the servers who sweet talked me into buying a bottle of champagne (see The Honey Trap part I and II) came to my compartment one last time to chat with me. She said her dream was to visit Red Square telling me that she had a six-hour layover in Moscow till she had to be on the next train back to Tomsk. Since I’m a veteran of the Moscow Metro I told her it would be super easy to get there and that all she had to do was go to the nearest metro station Комсомольская/Komsomolskaya and ride several stops to Охотный Ряд/Okhotiny Ryad and basically just follow the people. Yet, even with my advice she still seemed hesitant and told me she'd see. It felt a bit odd that here I was from the United States telling a native Russian how to get around Moscow. But for me Moscow is like a second home, I know the Metro system quite well and feel 100% comfortable using it.

Welcome to Moscow!

At last we pulled into Moscow and with that my 10,000 km (6,000+ mile) journey was finally over, one that I’ll never forget! But that hardly meant the excitement, the fun and intensity of Russia was over……….far from it! Stay tuned for more exciting adventures during my last few weeks in Russia!

the monument to the end of the Trans-Siberian railway