Greetings from Иркутск, or Irkutsk, over 5,000 kilometres and 5 time zones from Moscow (BST + 8 hours).
I set off last Monday, which seems an age ago, on a trip that traversed two continents and brought me to the heart of Siberia. I travelled slowly but steadily across those 5,000 kilometres aboard the Rossiya, the Moscow - Vladivostok service that's the queen of the Russian train fleet. By which, read twee: I have never before travelled on a train with green tasseled curtains, tapestries of Russian landmarks, and quite such lovely runner carpets.
The train journey was great - hopping on and off at stations, buying food from local traders - but, at 5 days, very, very long. It's also quite disorienting that the train continues to run on Moscow time throughout, while you inch your way across 5 time zones.
The whole experience was very entertaining, nonetheless, and highlights included: making friends from Poland, Russia, Germany and France; a couple of nights with rather copious amounts of alcohol; squeezing 17 people into a compartment as a result of the previous two highlights (no mean feat!); our provodnista (carriage attendant) getting rather drunk one afternoon and passing out in one of the compartments; making friends with the other provodnistas and provodniks; and a rather bizarre evening that involved flagging the train off at a rather remote station while wearing the provodnista's hat!
After 5 days of rather rudimentary facilities (hot water from the coal-fired samovar, cold water "showers" in the rather horrific track-drop toileted bathrooms, not enough room to swing a goat), it was a relief to get off the train and travel to Lake Baikal for a few day's relaxation. And some hot showers!
Listvyanka, where we stayed, was beautiful, and not just because of hot running water: I've enjoyed hikes to the local landmarks and beauty spots, swimming in the (freezing!) lake, and lots of omul, the local fish (nice fried, less so smoked).
Now, it's a day in Иркутск, then back this evening at 20.25 (15.25 Moscow time) on board another train for 2 days. Next stop, Ulaanbaatar and Mongolia!
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
So long, farewell ...
And so it's goodbye to Moscow.
After a very sunny final day taking in the sights, I'm off for Siberia on the number 2 train tonight.
Moscow has proven to be quite an experience, squeezing in everything from the usual (Kremlin) to the slightly less usual (Lenin's Mausoleum) and the downright bizarre (assisting someone in my tour group who had been robbed with the militsiya). Altogether great fun, though, and a heartily recommended city to visit.
As I'm on a train for the next 5 days, scaling 6 time zones, I'll be doing some confused sleeping, a lot of reading, and a little memoir writing ... so see you in 5!
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Hello, Moscow!
I turned up at my new hotel on Tuesday morning with most of my possessions (thanks to not being awake, I sadly managed to leave a few toiletries lighter than I had intended, but nothing irreplaceable!).
The hotel is 28 storeys high and, well, bloody huge. It's one of 4 built out by Izmailovsky Park for the 1980 Moscow Olympics: outside, a large concrete block; inside, a rather strange shade of aquamarine with excessive amounts of marble. After registering my passport (Russia requires that you register your visa within 3 working days of arrival into the country - otherwise, you may have any number of issues with leaving!) - not made more comfortable by the fact that the hotel staff mislaid my documentation for a while - I made my way back into town to go around the city centre.
Red Square is amazing - it's a staggeringly large space, entirely pedestrianised with only marching routes for parades marked out on the ground. It's bordered by the State History Museum on one side, the Kremlin on a second, GUM (originally the state department store) on the third, and St Basil's Cathedral with the Moscow River behind it on the fourth. Yesterday was spent looking around the city centre and taking a tour of the Metro (absolutely amazing - fantastic architecture in a number of stations!). I met up with the other members of my travel party last night, and we had dinner (well, we tried to - it didn't go terribly well!) and a few drinks.
This morning, breakfast (the hotel provides a breakfast buffet with offerings such as cucumber, pickled radish, omelette cubes (!) and porridge - but, most importantly, lots of coffee) was followed by a walking tour around Moscow. Later, I went to the sculpture park (after the Soviet era, many sculptures were pulled down - some of which are now preserved for posterity/tourist gawking just outside the city), Gorky Park, and then spent some very rewarding hours in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. With an absolutely staggering collection, the Pushkin's only real drawbacks are that it has too large a collection and, with such a large and eclectic collection, its curatorial selections are sometimes a little stilted or unusual.
I'm about to hop in a much needed shower and rest my tired feet, then it's off to try and find a nice restaurant to celebrate my last night in Moscow!
Tomorrow night at 21:25, I leave Yaroslavsky on train # 2 (the Rossiya, bound for Vladivostok), where I'll be for four days - next departure, Irkutsk!
До свидания!
Monday, 21 July 2008
Du bist hier
Hurrah, I've arrived in Moscow, beautiful capital city of Russia.
I arrived at Heathrow T2 at 4.40 a.m. but, thanks to Austrian's policy of checking everyone in at a check-in desk, and a manic full service, followed by a crush to get through security, I came close to missing the flight! Oops!
Nonetheless, made it and enjoyed good Austrian hospitality and bad Austrian food (mmm - powdered eggs!) on the way to Vienna. At Vienna, I disembarked, got a bus, went through passport control (twice) and security (once), before getting back on the exact same plane and sitting in the exact same seat. Vienna - Moscow was a pleasant flight with a good quality lunch (everyone else seemed to get meatballs, while I got a lovely thyme-infused chicken with a zucchini salad - I have a feeling that, by the back of the plane, they might have been running out of food) washed down with a few glasses of wine and accompanied by a film.
Domodedovo was absolutely manic, and it took about 90 minutes to clear passport control - which, once you got to the window was officious and efficient if nothing else! Picked up my bags and headed into Moscow. Found my hostel eventually (quite well hidden away, and they'd forgotten to mention that their sign was stuck to the third-floor window, rather than the ground) and settled in to there - it's more than adequate, with very comfortable facilities and, best of all for when I arrived, a hot shower with good water pressure!
I'd gotten to know a few people on the flight, so I arranged to meet up for drinks last night, and went to a Russian restaurant and a bar along the way, bringing yet more people - all of whom will be travelling (at least on parts) on my train.
Navigating around the Metro is quite difficult at first, but great fun once you get the hang of it - prompt services every 90 seconds or so, amazing architecture in the stations, and at about 30 pence a journey, just cannot be faulted!
I'm off to move to my hotel for tonight now, then hopefully head back into town and do some sightseeing - Moscow, here I come!
I arrived at Heathrow T2 at 4.40 a.m. but, thanks to Austrian's policy of checking everyone in at a check-in desk, and a manic full service, followed by a crush to get through security, I came close to missing the flight! Oops!
Nonetheless, made it and enjoyed good Austrian hospitality and bad Austrian food (mmm - powdered eggs!) on the way to Vienna. At Vienna, I disembarked, got a bus, went through passport control (twice) and security (once), before getting back on the exact same plane and sitting in the exact same seat. Vienna - Moscow was a pleasant flight with a good quality lunch (everyone else seemed to get meatballs, while I got a lovely thyme-infused chicken with a zucchini salad - I have a feeling that, by the back of the plane, they might have been running out of food) washed down with a few glasses of wine and accompanied by a film.
Domodedovo was absolutely manic, and it took about 90 minutes to clear passport control - which, once you got to the window was officious and efficient if nothing else! Picked up my bags and headed into Moscow. Found my hostel eventually (quite well hidden away, and they'd forgotten to mention that their sign was stuck to the third-floor window, rather than the ground) and settled in to there - it's more than adequate, with very comfortable facilities and, best of all for when I arrived, a hot shower with good water pressure!
I'd gotten to know a few people on the flight, so I arranged to meet up for drinks last night, and went to a Russian restaurant and a bar along the way, bringing yet more people - all of whom will be travelling (at least on parts) on my train.
Navigating around the Metro is quite difficult at first, but great fun once you get the hang of it - prompt services every 90 seconds or so, amazing architecture in the stations, and at about 30 pence a journey, just cannot be faulted!
I'm off to move to my hotel for tonight now, then hopefully head back into town and do some sightseeing - Moscow, here I come!
Saturday, 19 July 2008
I packed my bags tonight pre-flight
I have a theory (well, more of a superstition) that, on every holiday, one thing must go wrong. The plane will leave late. I'll forget my toothbrush. It's preferable that the thing that goes wrong is small and inconsequential as, when it's happened, it means that everything else on my holiday must go right, so having it happen allows an internal sigh of relief.
I think my holiday thing has already happened - I went to see J off at King's Cross St Pancras and noticed they have a new Rituals shop. Years ago, Mum gave me a present of their keemun lime tea, and I've been craving it ever since so I took the opportunity to buy some. Rather stupidly, in the course of some Phileas Fogg style send-off drinks, I then took the opportunity to lose the bag with the tea and my mp3 player in it. Clever, but hopefully that's my thing done.
I'm packed now, and ready to go to Heathrow for the first leg of my journey. My library fines are paid, so I shouldn't have my results withheld, I have my passport, visa, clothes, shoes, an array of reading material - and I think I'm all ready to roll!
Tonight, my journey starts off rather inauspiciously with the Tube to Heathrow and a night at the Jury's Inn. Tomorrow morning, it's Heathrow Terminal ... let me check that ... 2, and a 6am departure to Vienna.
Russia, here I come!
I think my holiday thing has already happened - I went to see J off at King's Cross St Pancras and noticed they have a new Rituals shop. Years ago, Mum gave me a present of their keemun lime tea, and I've been craving it ever since so I took the opportunity to buy some. Rather stupidly, in the course of some Phileas Fogg style send-off drinks, I then took the opportunity to lose the bag with the tea and my mp3 player in it. Clever, but hopefully that's my thing done.
I'm packed now, and ready to go to Heathrow for the first leg of my journey. My library fines are paid, so I shouldn't have my results withheld, I have my passport, visa, clothes, shoes, an array of reading material - and I think I'm all ready to roll!
Tonight, my journey starts off rather inauspiciously with the Tube to Heathrow and a night at the Jury's Inn. Tomorrow morning, it's Heathrow Terminal ... let me check that ... 2, and a 6am departure to Vienna.
Russia, here I come!
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Ready to go?
When you think about it, 17 days travelling across swathes of the world sounds significant but I hadn't really appreciated until last weekend quite what that amounted to in terms of preparation.
Last Saturday marked the start of holiday shopping - first, down to Boots to get a range of creams, pills and potions designed to arrest any incident, short of a serious car crash, that one might succumb to in the northern hemisphere. Antihistamines - check; oral rehydration salts - check (and in a tasty blackberry flavour too - mmm!); water purification - check; sun tan lotion - check; DEET spray - check; bite cream - check; anti-aging moisturiser - well, I was in Boots.
Thanks to the wonderful world of Boots 3 for 2, points promotions and vouchers, I managed to save a small fortune, spend a large fortune, and get a voucher for £2 off something I'll never want to buy.
Next stop, Blacks. The credit crunch and bad weather earlier in the year proved an unexpected boon, and I happily skipped away with a deeply-discounted pair of hiking boots and a fleece (Every treatise on Mongolia insists I'll need it, even in July & August, but I'm not quite convinced!). I balked at paying £35 for a Cag in a bag, so we still need to find something waterproof!
Back to Blacks (Amy, eat your heart out!) yesterday. And Milletts. And Ellis Brigham. And Ice + Snow. And I eventually found a rucksack that fitted the bill - comfortable, filled with pockets and with a nifty non-sweaty-back system. All the rage, I'm sure!
And so, I think I'm nearly ready - a few final purchases remain to be made, but this morning, I've been finalising preparations by getting my Trans-Mongolian reading list in order. Over the coming weeks, I'll be enjoying:
Hurrah - I think I'm nearly ready to go!
Last Saturday marked the start of holiday shopping - first, down to Boots to get a range of creams, pills and potions designed to arrest any incident, short of a serious car crash, that one might succumb to in the northern hemisphere. Antihistamines - check; oral rehydration salts - check (and in a tasty blackberry flavour too - mmm!); water purification - check; sun tan lotion - check; DEET spray - check; bite cream - check; anti-aging moisturiser - well, I was in Boots.
Thanks to the wonderful world of Boots 3 for 2, points promotions and vouchers, I managed to save a small fortune, spend a large fortune, and get a voucher for £2 off something I'll never want to buy.
Next stop, Blacks. The credit crunch and bad weather earlier in the year proved an unexpected boon, and I happily skipped away with a deeply-discounted pair of hiking boots and a fleece (Every treatise on Mongolia insists I'll need it, even in July & August, but I'm not quite convinced!). I balked at paying £35 for a Cag in a bag, so we still need to find something waterproof!
Back to Blacks (Amy, eat your heart out!) yesterday. And Milletts. And Ellis Brigham. And Ice + Snow. And I eventually found a rucksack that fitted the bill - comfortable, filled with pockets and with a nifty non-sweaty-back system. All the rage, I'm sure!
And so, I think I'm nearly ready - a few final purchases remain to be made, but this morning, I've been finalising preparations by getting my Trans-Mongolian reading list in order. Over the coming weeks, I'll be enjoying:
- Paddy Linehan's Trans-Siberia: Inside the Grey Area
- Orlando Figes' The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia
- Paul Grogan's Barbed Wire and Babushkas: A River Odyssey across Siberia
Hurrah - I think I'm nearly ready to go!
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Eek! A week?
After receiving my passport back late last Friday, I've travelled to Hamburg on business (and, sadly, probably my last business trip with my employer, as I prepare to transition out of my current roles and leave the organisation in a month), and I'm currently enjoying staying in a beautiful and very calming city.
That didn't stop me waking up with a start at 4am and hollering "Bugg*r" to myself as I realised I'm off to Moscow in just over a week ... it hadn't quite set in that I'm leaving quite so soon so, calming Hamburg influences notwithstanding, I'm considering descending into mild personal panic.
This weekend will, I think, be spent purchasing and packing in preparation!
It's almost as though people know I'm readying myself as well, as I received the following lovely missive from HSBC:
To: Mark Subject: Charges for ATM usage abroad Date: 08 Jul 2008 Message:
We're writing to let you know that from 9 August 2008, our ATM transaction fee for overseas cash machine withdrawals using a debit card will increase from 1.5% (minimum £1.75) to 2.0% (minimum £1.75).
Also on 9 August 2008 we'll be introducing a cap of £5.00 on these charges. This means no matter how large the amount you withdraw, you won't pay more than £5.00 for one transaction.
Did you know that ATM transaction fees do not apply to overseas cash withdrawals by Bank Account Plus customers? Click on 'Current Accounts' and then 'Bank Account Plus' to find out more.
Thank you for banking with HSBC.
£5.oo? How terribly kind. Thank you, HSBC ... I do so enjoy contributing to your distributable profits!
Oh, as for that passport of mine, it's firmly locked in the hotel safe, and it's staying there!
Saturday, 5 July 2008
Have visa, will travel.
Great news! After no small amount of time and money, I collected my passport last night proudly containing a Chinese visa, the last of my travel documents needed for travel.
All's good - have passport, so can travel to Germany on Monday for work and, ultimately, to China too. Just over two weeks now!
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.
With 18 days to go, I'm currently wedged in a sandwich of the wonderful and the less wonderful.
Good
I've finished my Legal Practice Course, marking what's hopefully the end of seven years of third-level education (and moving me another notch along the way to being a qualified lawyer). Provided I've passed my final examinations (the results of which are released when I'm in deepest Siberia), that's a massive weight off my mind.
Which leads on to the second wonderful - I went to the doctor to have my travel vaccinations topped up yesterday, and found that the end of the LPC has also resulted in my blood pressure dropping by around 20%, putting it firmly in the normal category. Double hurrah!
Bad
I still don't have my Chinese visa. The embassy have been dragging their heels as a result of new requirements they introduced earlier this year requiring tourist visa holders to prove their journey in and out of China, and show proof of accommodation for each night that they're in China. All fine, except that I'm not booking my own tickets in - they're being provided by an intermediary ... so finding a form of words that is satisfactory to the embassy has been a little challenging.
I'm hoping this morning that the documentation I've sent off will be sufficient and tick all the relevant boxes - however, the delay in getting the visa means that I've had to update to a same day rush service so I can have my passport returned in time for a work trip next week. That, combined with the introduction of a new mandatory intermediary "Visa Application Company" by the embassy has increased my visa costs by a whopping £70-odd, making consular fees a lot more than I originally anticipated.
Add to that the additional £100 I may have to splash out to be vaccinated against Japanese B encephalitis and tick-borne encephalitis (symptoms include swollen brain, swollen testicles and, erm, death!) and a happy bunny I am not at the moment.
Still, I'm hoping that these are all minor hurdles on the way to a marvellous holiday!
Ugly
Unfortunately, there has been some political unrest and violence in Mongolia this week following general elections. Here's hoping, for everyone's sakes, it calms down soon.
Good
I've finished my Legal Practice Course, marking what's hopefully the end of seven years of third-level education (and moving me another notch along the way to being a qualified lawyer). Provided I've passed my final examinations (the results of which are released when I'm in deepest Siberia), that's a massive weight off my mind.
Which leads on to the second wonderful - I went to the doctor to have my travel vaccinations topped up yesterday, and found that the end of the LPC has also resulted in my blood pressure dropping by around 20%, putting it firmly in the normal category. Double hurrah!
Bad
I still don't have my Chinese visa. The embassy have been dragging their heels as a result of new requirements they introduced earlier this year requiring tourist visa holders to prove their journey in and out of China, and show proof of accommodation for each night that they're in China. All fine, except that I'm not booking my own tickets in - they're being provided by an intermediary ... so finding a form of words that is satisfactory to the embassy has been a little challenging.
I'm hoping this morning that the documentation I've sent off will be sufficient and tick all the relevant boxes - however, the delay in getting the visa means that I've had to update to a same day rush service so I can have my passport returned in time for a work trip next week. That, combined with the introduction of a new mandatory intermediary "Visa Application Company" by the embassy has increased my visa costs by a whopping £70-odd, making consular fees a lot more than I originally anticipated.
Add to that the additional £100 I may have to splash out to be vaccinated against Japanese B encephalitis and tick-borne encephalitis (symptoms include swollen brain, swollen testicles and, erm, death!) and a happy bunny I am not at the moment.
Still, I'm hoping that these are all minor hurdles on the way to a marvellous holiday!
Ugly
Unfortunately, there has been some political unrest and violence in Mongolia this week following general elections. Here's hoping, for everyone's sakes, it calms down soon.
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