Next stop: Moscow!

We will be leaving Irkutsk in about 3 hours  (4:16pm) bound for Moscow and again on the Trans-Siberian Railroad as it passes through Irkutsk from Vladivostok westbound to Moscow.  On this next we will be traveling 2,475 miles over a 3 day period.  We hope that this final leg of the journey is just as fascinating as the first part.  We do hope however, to meet some English speaking people aboard the train and hope that our first class coach isn't so barren this time. We enjoyed a leisurley breakfast at the hotel which included fried dippy eggs (Andrea's favorite) potato salad, fried fish patties, soups, sausages, cheeses and chocolate donut holes!! 

The breakfast buffet

Our Hotel

 After breakfast, we spent the morning shopping for supplies for our meals on board; the hotel was next door to a very large market. We bought bread, juice, fruits, more ramen noodles😕, cheese , a couple of wines and we splurged on a bottle of Champagne!   We also bought some meat for dinner.  Sounds easy, right? Not really.   We had been concerned if the meat had to be be kept refrigerated or not.  So with the help of Google translate, we were able to determine that the pepperoni type meats do not.  But, what we didn't know was what type of meat we were buying. We proceeded to point at several different pre-cooked and vacuum packaged meats and communicated with the sales clerk, by pointing and mooing and oinking and Bill even let out a "whinny" one time which brought a big laugh!  She mooed and pointed and oinked and pointed and sometimes she even let out a combination of an oink and a moo. Needless to say, we drew a lot of stares and laughs but the whole experience was just that; an experience we will never forget! We think we bought beef slices in one package and a combo of beef and pork in another.  Here is our happy sales clerk and you can see the meat selection to the left of her. 

Happy meat lady

We returned to the hotel to check out of our room  and hang in the lobby until our taxi came to haul us to the  train station. We were informed that we could have another late check out and didn't have to vacate our room until the taxi arrived. 

Hotel Lobby

All the stairwells had beautiful plants

  This thrilled Bill so he could nap and Andrea got to play on the internet (i.e.; write this blog)!  See you in Moscow! 

A day of rest and relaxation, supposedly.

Every eight or nine days we book a down day in our schedule to do laundry and just re-group. Today was the day! When we asked the hotel staff where a laundromat was located, their response was "we can do the laundry for you".  After reviewing their price sheet, $3 for a pair of underwear and we have 18 pair as an example, we knew we better find something in the city.  This was a challenge and the staff were of no help.   Andrea got on-line and researched laundromats in the area and a Facebook page popped up under a travel group called Happy Frog Travels and they talked about getting their laundry done in Irkutsk. After a series of messages with Happy Frog, we were able to determine where the laundromat was located. We loaded up our small wheeled rolling suitcase and a rather large Wal-Mart bag (you know, the big 'ole tacky blue ones) and headed down the street to the Central Market. Our rolling duffle coverts into a backpack so Andrea carried that on her back and Bill carried the Wal-Mart bag. We say "down the street" loosely because it was probably 1 1/4 miles away, in the rain and mud. Now there is public transportation but we had no clue which trolley line or bus line to get on and didn't want to end back up in Siberia.  So, with the help of our friends at Happy Frog showing us a picture of the building, we finally found it and trudged up to the second floor and unloaded all of our laundry.  

The laundromat attendant pointed to the prices for wash and dry, she determined we would need three washers and dryers, plus the various detergents and softeners, and the total amount due was 770 rubles, which is about $13.  Now, being two accountants, we were ecstatic since the calculated total for the hotel to do our laundry was $191!!!!  We did a spreadsheet to marvel in our savings....

	Ruble
Item	Price Per	Qty	Total
pants	250	7	1750
underwear	150	19	2850
shirts	250	16	4000
sweaters	300	2	600
socks	100	15	1500
			10700	Total
			$191	Coverted to US dollars

Since we now had two hours to waste we toured the Central Market. You can find anything here!   Some of the market is indoors and other areas are down dark alleyways. It reminded us of the Grand Bazaar in Turkey.  They were selling flowers, cakes, veggies and fruits, breads,

And meat, raw meat, just sitting out in the open, unpackaged. We saw a man cutting up a pig head that still had the hair on his ears, the pig that is. 

We headed outside and went into an area selling clothing, shoes, electronics. It was a very dark and narrow series of alleys and this is where we became slightly nervous. It was like we were wearing signs that said "we're American and we want to spend money "!! Everyone was running up to us trying to speak english and sell us whatever they were hawking.  We quickly got back into the main area and Andrea negotiated with a man selling hats for a warm stocking cap.

The city is a combination of old and modern architecture. 

We watched a car being towed in a very unique way for parking in the handicap spot. It almost made it into the tow truck when the owner came up raising hell and demanding the tow truck driver set it back down.  This is when the police showed up to sort it all out....and we left!!!  Click here for a link to the video:

Towed!  

 We eventually made our way back to the laundromat but not before enjoying a small lunch of the local fare.

Our laundry was nicely done, we had to fold and pack it ourselves, and we headed back to the hotel to do what this day was intended for: REST!  We are staying in the Hotel Europa and it is very comfortable. Our room: 

This was the best shower we've had in three days! 

The hotel restaurant:

Setting our sites and where to eat dinner and get a good nights rest before boarding the train tomorrow afternoon! 

At the mercy of Siberia

It is said that one of Bill’s great-grandmother’s favorite sayings to describe the complete helplessness of a situation was to be “At the mercy of Siberia”. We’re pretty sure she never got within 10,000 miles of this place but she sure did aptly nail the description of barren, nothingness, and wasteland called Siberia. More about that later, but to back up a bit as to how we got here…

We spent our last day in Vladivostok with a late 2 p.m. checkout, repacking and reorganizing and making our grocery store run for all the provisions needed for the six-day train run. There was a store about ten minutes by foot and we found it to be very well stocked, reasonably priced and clean. Libations were also there, in a separate checkout area…and also well stocked. It was somewhat of a challenge to haul it all back to the hotel (all uphill, of course) but we trudged onward…Andrea in the lead. Decided to have a late lunch\early dinner since the train left at 7:10 p.m. As we collected our luggage and ordered the taxi at the hotel, another nice young man who checked us in…named Maklim…said he was getting off work and would just take us to the station. It actually took us thirty minutes to go the two miles to the station due to the rush hour congestion and general madness of the Russian drivers so we were able to have a good chat with the young fellow. Turns out he had just completed his compulsory one-year service in the Russian army and was now in training at the hotel. He was 23 years old and was proud of his country but also inquisitive of ours.


The train terminal was built in 1899 and it was a beautiful structure. The cornerstone was actually laid by Tsar Nicholas II, at the time the crown prince, who rode out all the way from Moscow for the occasion. Could you imagine that trip 120 years ago?? Here is the terminal:

The terminal signs and schedules were somewhat of a challenge to read and surprisingly, there was not wireless so our Google translation app was useless. But, we bumbled our way through it, found the platform number, our coach number and boarded our humble home for the next three days before our mid-way stopover in Irkutsk, Russia…2,469 miles away.

Our train 

Our train is Russian Railways train # 001 and is known as “The Rossiya" Russia’s flagship upscale train that makes the six-day 5,556-mile run from Vladivostok to Moscow every other day with minimal stops. Looks like there are about twelve coaches plus a restaurant\bar car. We are in first class, meaning two people share a private compartment that looks like this:

There are nine first class compartments in our coach and presently, only three are occupied. Surprisingly, the compartments have no private toilet or lavatory facilities but there are two WC’s at the end of our coach. There’s a shower for rent for $2 that we discovered two days into the trip. Its like a camping shower, rinse, lather up and then rinse again before you run out of hot water!

There’s also second-class…four people to the same-sized compartment…and then there’s third class…or steerage as Andrea likes to say…which is about sixty hammocks per coach, three high on each side and ten rows. You have to wonder how someone travels the equivalent of New York to L.A., then back, and then back again…hanging from a hammock? Looks like this:

                                      

We think our beds are a little more comfortable.

Each coach has a Provonista…the boss of the coach who keeps order, cleans frequently and enforces all the rules. Her job is also to keep the boiling vat of hot water full so you can prepare your meals. We bought instant coffee and oatmeal for breakfast, ramen noodles galore for lunches and dinners and cups of instant potatoes to go along with whatever we buy from the train stop vendors.

The boiling water station

Our Provinista is a pleasant lady named Olga (we think) whom early on, we bribed with a big bar of chocolate and a Donald Duck T-shirt we bought at Wal-Mart for such matters. This is her waiting for us to board. She always announces how much time we have when we get off the train at the scheduled stops along the way. If you miss the re-boarding, the next train does not come thru for two days!

Anyway, we’ve made a few stops along the way just long enough to get out and shop at the local markets that are conveniently located by the railway or setup on card tables and manned by old Russian ladies with gold teeth. Bill is determined to buy and eat one of these bad boys soon:

The Local Market

At some stops, the ladies did not set up tables, they just walked with their goods in baskets and invited you to take a peak and buy.  

We are spending our time reading, watching downloaded movies on iPads and just staring out the window looking at the fascinating scenery. The Siberian expanse is mind-boggling. Then, along comes a town that looks like something from the 1800’s…. ramshackle homes, dilapidated half-built crumbling concrete buildings, dirt roads…what’s the deal with all this??? We’re anxious to talk to some Ruskees to get their spin on it.

There’s a thirty minute stop around 4 p.m. today at a place called Chernyshevsk Zabaikal’skly so we’ve decided to buy dinner from the old-lady vendors selling their wares at the station. Breads, meats, pickles, and smoked fishes will be the selection. There’s no prices displayed…we will just hand them some rubles and hope they’re honest.

Bill successfully negotiating dinner 

She's probably saying "Where did he come from?!!" 

 This was dinner. Andrea was not too happy with the meat. It was very gamey tasting.

Now, this looks more like it! 

So, this is a glimpse of life on the Trans-Siberian. With no internet or newspaper, we are completely cut off from news of the world. Hope Kim hasn’t launched those nukes.

If not before, it looks like we’ll post this when we get internet access at our hotel in Irkutsk.

Here are a series of favorite pictures along the route:

Cemetary

Temple in a small village

This next series is the vast plains in Siberia

Most of the homes had colorful blue or green windowsills and fences

Getting a little colder with lots of frozen lakes and streams

This sweet girl was happy to get off the train and run for a little bit!

   
Sunset while we ate dinner, it was beautiful!

We were up in the mountains about an hour before we arrived into Irkutsk and it started snowing.

Irkutsk is home to the worlds largest and deepest lake. Right now parts of it are still frozen.