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| 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 3rd 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.
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| 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”!
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| 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!
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| Vladimir churches |
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| the monument to the end of the Trans-Siberian railway |
