Drinking With The General And Other Tales Of Travel Intrigue From The Trans-Siberian
“Do you speak any other languages?”
“Only Spanish, but that doesn’t do me a hell of a lot of good in Asia.”
–Conversation between another backpacker and me as we prepared to board the Trans-Siberian.
There is something unspeakably cool about riding the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Although I hate using as slangy a phrase as “cool,” there simply is no other word for it because it’s one of those trips people talk about their entire lives, but either put off doing it until they are too old to do the little bit of roughing the trip requires or they never get around to it..
It’s easy to see why the trans-continental train has captured the imaginations of so many. It isn’t just a ride; it’s a piece of history. It’s a link to pre-Revolutionary Russia when Tsar Alexander III approved the building of a railway to defend Vladivostok from Chinese invasion. Even now, years after the collapse of the USSR, there remains a whiff of intrigue and undercurrent of paranoia surrounding the route with officials still doing their best to closely regulate who can get tickets and when they can leave the train.
It is one of the classic travel routes whose names still evoke pictures in the listener’s mind. The Silk Road, the Orient Express, Route 66. The Silk Road and 66 are long gone and the Orient Express isn’t what it used to be. The Express still runs, but all the mystery seems to have gone out of the Paris-to-Istanbul route Agatha Christie wrote about. The train covers the same route, but not as stylishly. The rich carpeting, wood paneling and niceties that made it an institution have been replaced by a modern metal train giving it all the charm of Amtrak and the character of a Motel 6. In fact, its reputation is so diminished there is now another train with the same name that runs twice weekly from Bangkok to Singapore.
Fortunately, the Trans-Siberian has kept its charm complete with its red and blue cars, wood paneling, a samovar in each car and a provodnitsa (attendant) to watch over it all from her den at the front of each car. The attendant (males are provodniks) lives on the train year-round (except during vacation) and does everything from collecting tickets and a bit of vacuuming to putting down the steps at each station so passengers can get off.
According to Bryn Thomas’s Trans-Siberian Handbook, Chinese attendants, or fuwuyuen, aren’t as ambitious. In fact, Thomas quotes Norwegian traveler Matz Lonnedale Risberg as saying, “The Chinese staff on the Beijing Moscow train must be the laziest sleeping car attendants in the world. They do absolutely nothing but cook for themselves and chat to their colleagues.”
Our fuwuyuen was more out-going, but only because he had a side business: selling beer. We didn’t learn about his other job until later, however, because we were too busy introducing ourselves to each other and twittering nervously about what a great adventure it was going to be once we started despite all the worrisome reports to the contrary. Alex, a mining company worker from Kalgoolie, Australia, even said his mother told him there’d been bombings in one of Moscow’s subway stations that day. Then a representative from our travel agency gave us a safety lecture, instructing us to watch each other’s backs and showed us how to secure a secondary lock on our doors so that no one could break in while we slept.
Although most of the other backpackers didn’t know it, Alex had another reason to worry. As the group left the train to take last-minute pictures on the platform, the agent asked him to do a favor for Moonsky Star. Since he’d booked a side trip to Mongolia, the agency asked if he would deliver $3,000 to the man meeting him in Irkutsk. In return, he would get a discount on his ticket. When he asked why the company needed a courier, the agent was vague, saying it was easier then going through banks. Alex reluctantly agreed to do the job, but came to regret his decision more and more as we approached the Russian border.
As with any movie, the cast of characters emerged early as the train chugged out of the station. There was Nancy, a journalist who had left a newspaper job in Tasmania; Alex, the explosives worker; Patrick, an Australian who’d had his drink drugged and was robbed on the first day of his travels; Rita, an Aussie nurse; Rita’s sister; a tall, loud Aussie who seemed to fancy himself an amateur Australian Rules Football (footy) player; Craig, an English physics graduate returning from a year in Japan; Lois, an Aussie lawyer who bought her own ticket in Beijing; Vanessa and Tanya from Denmark; and a Japanese social studies teacher. If not for the two 50-something airline pilots who had booked their first class tickets through the same agency, I would have been the oldest person in the group.
And then the drinking began.
To be honest, the beer buying came first, followed by the ceremonial drinking of a bottle of rice wine that tasted and smelled like foot odor, then the posing for fake sports action photos in the hallway, but that’s just so much splitting of hairs. No matter how you look at it, the festivities started when a Chinese man wearing a uniform looking like a cross between that worn by a soldier (long great coat, epaulets on the shoulder) and a train employee (conductor’s hat, pass key) offered to sell us beer in unlabelled bottles. I can’t say that he was such a great salesman, but he had a great sales pitch — even though China isn’t known for its beer.
“Last chance to buy. No beer after border.”
The pitch was so successful many backpackers stockpiled six packs and 10 packs to forestall the crisis. Having so much beer around, it just naturally made sense to crack open a few and try the best lager the Trans-Siberian had to offer. Although everyone commented on how bad it was, all soon got down to some serious drinking. The more everyone drank, the more we saw our Chinese friend. As the market glutted, however, the backpackers invited him to join the party and soon everyone got silly. Not drunk, just goofy enough to prompt the footy player to start playing Australian rules football complete with his own play-by-play in a corridor that was only three feet wide. Once the imaginary match ended, the cameras came out so Mr. Footy could get some fake sports action photos. All of the backpackers took pictures of him standing there with an intense look on his face as he pretended to bounce the ball off his head. Years from now, I’m sure he’ll have to explain to his grandchildren why he was playing football on a train, but seeing him ham it up made us all laugh.
But maybe it was just the beer.
By now, the beer man was so snockered on his own vintage and whatever else his customers offered him, that he agreed to pose for action shots, prompting footy boy to set up an elaborate tableau where the ball was bouncing off the beer man’s head while a second player watched the trajectory of the ball and a third player appeared ready to make some sort of defensive move. (What type of defensive move I couldn’t tell you because I don’t know footy. For all I know it could have been the highly effective earlobe pull or the equally sneaky and extremely technical swirly, which requires the use of an off-field toilet.)
Once the photo session ended, the amateur athlete jokingly offered $10US for the fuwuyuen’s pass keys only to be greeted by thoughtful silence. It was a sobering moment when we realized he was seriously considering the offer and might have agreed to it had we been serious and offered a few more dollars.
Although many people refer to the route as the Trans-Siberian Railroad, it’s really a combination of three lines: the Trans-Mongolian and the Trans-Manchurian in China plus the Trans-Siberian in Russia, which runs from Moscow to the far Eastern port city of Vladivostok. Both feeder lines start in Beijing (or end there, depending on your point of view), but branch off, with the Manchurian train heading westerly through Shenyang, Harbin and Manzhouli before joining the main line in Chita, Russia, a major military and industrial outpost in Eastern Siberia. The Mongolian line heads west through Nankhou, the Ghobi Desert and Ulan Bator before joining the main line at Ulan Ude, the capital of the Buryat Republic.
There are a few other differences between the two lines. The Trans-Manchurian leaves later in the day and takes 12 hours more to reach Moscow. The Trans-Mongolian costs less, takes less time and has luxury cars not available on the other Beijing train, according to “The Trans-Siberian Handbook.” The savings are offset by the cost of a Mongolian visa, which riders must have even if they never leave the train when it stops at a station. Both trains have the same second-class compartments, however. And the dining cars are also similar, which is to say the food on both is quite bad.
China wasn’t supposed to be part of the Trans-Siberian when Russia began building it. In fact, the line was slated to run from Moscow through Irkutsk and just north of the Chinese border through Kabarovsk so Vladivostok could be protected from China. Once the surveying work was done on the highly mountainous region, however, Russia realized the route would cost too much. So, the Tsar turned to his Far Eastern neighbor and offered to pay China’s debt after its loss of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894. In exchange, the Chinese leased Russia a long thin strip of land through Manchuria. The line was finished in 1901. The Trans-Mongolian was finished in 1956.
The train may be elegant, but that elan doesn’t quite stretch to the dining car. Not in China, anyway. I didn’t discover how bad the food was until the second day when I was exploring as much of the train as the compartment conductors allowed. I stumbled across the restaurant after passing through 10 or 15 cars and decided to join Andrew and Paul in sampling the train’s wares. Despite rumors to the contrary, a travel agent had assured us everything was at least edible. Indeed, he was correct. It was pricey ($1.50 to $3), but not terrible. Andrew ordered chicken with peppers, which was good. I had an item called “stir-fried vegetables,” which turned out to be only one vegetable stir-fried — spring onions — but a lot of them. Patrick ordered rice and soup, which he said was awful. While we kept it down, it was no incentive for us to eat there again.
Ramen noodles quickly became the order of the day.
Even the stations where we stopped in China offered little relief. Although the entire group got out of the train in search of food at each platform we always found an unchanging landscape of the same unattractive foods: ramen, dubious looking cooked rice, pre-packaged foods we were afraid to buy because we didn’t know what they were, and the same dead ducks that looked like they had been run over by a steamroller, then sealed in plastic to preserve their lack of freshness. The Chinese must have been impressed with themselves for finding this unique method of food preservation, because they felt a need to hang the unattractive critters from the top of every food cart on every train platform in the country. At least, all the ones we stopped at.
The selection of goodies at Manzhouli, the train’s last stop before crossing into Russia, was slightly better. Maybe because it’s the last place to get rid of Chinese Yuan, which are so valueless they can’t be exchanged for other currency, even equally worthless rubles. Combine the money situation with a stop of up to three hours and there’s plenty of incentive to shop just to have something to do. The selection included chocolate and marshmallow pies, beer, vodka, ramen, Chairman Mao hard candies, pickles and, of course, hand-packed duck.
My first visit to the dining car may not have been worthwhile, but the rest of my first expedition through the train proved profitable. I not only got a feel for how long the train was (about 70 jillion cars), I also discovered a Russian woman with a small lapdog that she liked to let wander the halls. I’m sure that having a small dog on board the train isn’t so unusual, but I’m also sure my reaction was. Every time I came through the corridor and saw it I would greet it by saying, “Doggie! Hello, doggie, how are you today? Hiya, hiya, hiya!” during which time the dog would bark its fool head off or wag its tale so violently the rest of its body went along for the trip. Initially, the woman hated my visits and would snap up her dog whenever she saw me coming. By the end of the trip, however, she just rolled her eyes and gave in while the rest of the people in the car would hang out of their compartments just to see what the wacky American was going to do this time.
Hey, it’s not high concept art, but after four days on a train without radio or TV anything passes for entertainment.
I also met Brian and Margaret Truman and their three children. It’s hard to say whether they adopted us or we adopted them, but the compartments of the family on vacation from living and working in Bangkok soon became our home away from home. In fact, we began calling them “The American Family” and their compartments “The Land of Plenty” because they would give us treats whenever we visited. The snacks ranged from great fruit flavored hard candies all the way to tasteless pumpkinseeds, but we loved them just the same.
All the drinking and silliness of the first night ended when we were reached Manzhouli, the last stop in China, and were roused from our beds at 5 a.m. so that we could get out of the train, fill out customs declaration forms, pass along passports and stand around for a good long time in the early morning cold with nothing to do except shop or huddle for warmth. As I’ve said, the shop’s food selection was poor and there were few souvenirs, but there were pickles. Since I hadn’t had good pickles in months, I bought a jar. The pickled cucumbers had been hand processed and I didn’t know how fresh they were. I delayed eating them until I saw other people eating theirs.
The stop was uneventful, but nerve-wracking because all we could do was stand around sans passports wondering whether we should worry or not. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong (other than lie about my career), but I experienced the same gut-wrenching, groundless fear many tourists feel when they pass through customs, regardless of the country. “Yes, I know I’ve done nothing wrong, but I know these guys can search me for no reason and I’m powerless to do anything about it. Please, God, don’t let them strip search me,” really should be a traveler’s mantra written on the back of every country’s customs declaration form just to help traveler’s give shape to their formless fears and put their concerns into perspective.
The border stop in Russia wasn’t as uneventful, however.
I don’t think anyone likes border crossings because there’s so much that can go wrong. Traveler’s journals are filled with tales of officials who make no bones about wanting baksheesh, rubles or bucks to do what they’re paid to do. The stories make it seem that something as simple as a poorly chosen word, a misunderstood gesture or an official’s getting up on the wrong side of the bed is all it takes for an innocent vacationer to spend hours in a dimly lit room with an inquisitor yelling questions in a foreign language, accusing the victim of working for the Central Intelligence Agency. The longer we waited, the worse our imaginary punishments became, going from simple deportation to summary execution.
Until Barbara Streisand entered.
I’m not talking about the scary Mecha-Streisand South Park fans know, or the older, politically active Streisand. No, I mean a woman who looked like an older, slightly heavier version of the likeable singer/actress from “Funny Girl.” That’s not to say we didn’t take her seriously. It’s hard not to when she’s wearing a martial uniform and is accompanied by a man with a gun. Still, after seeing her I knew everything would be okay.
The first warning the crossing in Russia would be difficult came when the car conductor passed out customs declaration forms asking passengers to list all the cash they had on hand, regardless of what currency the country was from. Then a Russian functionary came on the train and counted each person’s money to make sure they listed the right amount. Each passenger was confined to their compartment until the count occurred, leaving every one to simmer in a soup of their own fears. If spending so much time waiting (and not being able to go to the bathroom) was disconcerting to even the most experienced traveler with nothing to hide, it was apocalyptic to Alex, who was so tightly wound he looked like he’d been on a three-day all-espresso diet. He was pacing, sweating heavily and visibly shaking. As Tom Hanks said in You Have Mail, “He makes coffee nervous.”
I don’t think anyone likes border crossings because there’s so much that can go wrong. Traveler’s journals are filled with tales of officials who make no bones about wanting baksheesh, rubles or bucks to do what they’re paid to do. The stories make it seem that something as simple as a poorly chosen word, a misunderstood gesture or an official’s getting up on the wrong side of the bed is all it takes for an innocent vacationer to spend hours in a dimly lit room with an inquisitor yelling questions in a foreign language, accusing the victim of working for the Central Intelligence Agency. The longer we waited, the worse our imaginary punishments became, going from simple deportation to summary execution.
Until Barbara Streisand entered.
I’m not talking about the scary Mecha-Streisand South Park fans know, or the older, politically active Streisand. No, I mean a woman who looked like an older, slightly heavier version of the likeable singer/actress from “Funny Girl.” That’s not to say we didn’t take her seriously. It’s hard not to when she’s wearing a martial uniform and is accompanied by a man with a gun. Still, after seeing her I knew everything would be okay.
Our customs officer looked more like this….
Than this.
Alex wasn’t so sure. Of course, his fear came from getting caught carrying someone else’s money. It didn’t help when she counted his money and discovered he was off by so much that she wanted him to fill out a new customs form with the correct information at the station. Once she left Alex went from having the shakes of an espresso fiend to the subtle tremors of a playful California quake measuring 6.0 on the Richter Scale.
When we were finally allowed out of the train Alex and I raced for the bathroom. The customs agent saw Alex and motioned him into the office but he and I quickly did our best to explain that he needed to go to the bathroom. She just laughed and pointed us in the right direction.
He later said he was so nervous and shaking so much that the customs agent tried to help him relax by sitting him down on a comfortable couch, getting him water and turning on the TV.
Alex wasn’t the only person having trouble, however. Over in first class a similar drama was unfolding with the American Family. Justin Truman, the middle son, wrote he had $150 on his customs declaration form but each time the customs official counted, he came up $39 short. The functionary was nice about it, though. He had planned to fine the father until he saw the size of the Truman family. Although there were only five of them, they were quite imposing because Margaret, Bryan, Justin and Jeremy are big boned and easily over six feet tall. Only 11 year-old Amanda measured less than six feet, but with an 18 year-old and a 16 year-old brother well over the mark, it was obvious she would eventually reach the same height. Despite their intimidating size, they were as friendly as could be. The agent said he couldn’t fine a man with such a big family when he was traveling and wished Bryan a good vacation. He did, however, make Bryan buy $500 worth of rubles at the official rate, which was far below the bank rate.
That’s how the First International Bank of Truman was founded. For the rest of the trip, any time a backpacker ran out of rubles, they came to Bryan. The rate may not have been the best in Russia, but it was preferable to missing the train while searching for a currency exchange.
After all the terrible things that have been said over the years about Russian functionaries, it was nice to see that the generalizations aren’t necessarily so. The customs official was so nice he also told Amanda she could watch the changing of the bogies underneath the cars if she wanted. Once the backpackers heard about the news, we asked if we could tag along with them. The official agreed.
Wheel housings underneath the car. The new wheels Dropping the compartment on new wheels. Finishing the job.
The change of bogies, or wheels underneath the carriages, is necessary because of the difference between railway systems in Russia and China. Like North America and most of Europe, China uses Standard Gauge track. The Confederation of Independent States, however, uses Five Foot Gauge track, which is 3.5 inches wider than Standard.
The whole process occurs in a large shed at the end of the rail yard and is quite a show. The train is wheeled into a shed that barely looks big enough to fit three or four cars, much less the entire thing. Once inside, the carriages are raised off the bogies by hydraulic lifts, the old bogies rolled away, new ones rolled into place, and then each carriage is lowered into place. It may sound like quick work, but it isn’t. The carriages are heavy, the wheels on the bogies come up to an average-sized man’s chest and the fit must be perfect. In fact, rail yard workers spent most of the five hour stop in Zaibakalsk testing the train running it up and down the track in front of the station to make sure everything worked, doing troubleshooting when it didn’t.
Once the show ended, Chris, the Japanese social studies teacher and I went into the surrounding town–in hopes of finding something to do, I guess. We didn’t want to wander too far, however, because the train often left without sounding a horn. When it was time to go the car conductors simply picked up the stairs, packed up the passengers, closed the doors and left. At the same time, we were sure it was going to take a while to finish.
As it turns out, there was no reason to worry that we would find something to do in Zaibakalsk and miss our train, because there was nothing to do there. It only took two blocks for us to realize it was one of the most depressing towns we’d ever seen. The unpaved roads were dusty, rutted and in ill repair, the crumbling block apartments were all an unwashed institutional-white-turned-dirty-grey and there were no stores in evidence despite the town’s proximity to the station. We didn’t see much more during our 10 minute jaunt because the farther we walked, the seedier and more frightening the town got until we finally decided to rush back and make sure the train was still there.
It wasn’t.
Although we were sure it was going to take hours for the work to finish, all three of us knew we were in trouble when we returned because the train was nowhere to be seen. Even worse, there were no passengers on what had been a busy platform when we left. We rushed back to the train depot prepared to tell customs officials the sad story of how we got left behind only to discover everyone had gone inside because the restaurant had opened. There wasn’t much to eat, but there were plenty of seats and it was something to do.
When the train finally left the shed an hour later we still couldn’t board because rail workers were still trouble-shooting, running the train back and forth across the tracks to make sure the cars attached to the wheels. We knew the job was necessary, but it was still unnerving to watch the train pull out of the station without me on it. Granted, none of the other passengers were on it, either, but it was still odd. Intellectually, I knew the train wasn’t leaving without me while I was there, and I knew I had all of my stuff because customs officials made us take it off
the train, but on a deeper, more visceral level seeing the train steam out of the station still gave me that “I’ve-gotten-to-the-gate-on-time-to-see-my-airplane-leave-without-me” feeling.
Five hours later, we finally rolled out of the station and everything picked up speed.
The mood lightened substantially once we started moving. It’s not as if we had crossed out of one brutal, repressive country into a peaceful, freedom-loving democracy. Indeed, we had crossed into a country that could still be just as repressive, only this one had scattered pockets of lawlessness due to the collapse of the same political system that provided the necessary glue to keep things going in the country we had just left.
Still, the improvements on the train were immediately noticed. We still had the same carriages, but the car attendants were friendlier, the train moved faster and, according to Amanda Truman, the dining car was much nicer. We even noticed a marked improvement in the quality of the food on sale at each platform. In mere hours we had gone from ugly vacuum packed duck and dried noodles to beautiful overstuffed pieroshkies, cheese blintzes, plump roasted potatoes, fresh bread and the occasional smoked fish all sold by babushka-wearing little old ladies who could have been my grandmother. Although I was a little worried about how safe the food was, I couldn’t resist.
There were times when the food was so good I expected the skies to open and a chorus of angels to sing “hallelujah” just so I’d know I had died and gone to Jewish soul food heaven. It was hot, fresh and easy to identify. I didn’t have to point and ask what it was. I knew what a blintz and a pieroshky were and these were better than the best deli food I’d had back home. All that was missing was some good chopped liver and the spicy, garlicky pickles deli owners used to leave on their tables in tubs. I had my own pickles, but I hadn’t opened them yet and wasn’t about to until I saw other people eating their own pickles.
While we were stopped, Amanda said the train had changed dining cars and it was now much nicer. As a result, all of the backpackers had to try it. We weren’t optimistic after our last visit and the horror stories we’d heard about train food.
We were pleasantly surprised to find an English menu and food that was out of this world, if a bit pricey. The menu was extensive with foods ranging from borscht and roast potatoes to roast chicken and beef. The problem was any resemblance between what was on the menu and reality was strictly coincidental.
“I’d like the beef, please,” one backpacker said.
“No have,” said our waiter, looking like he’d much rather be somewhere else doing something else as long as it wasn’t this.
“I’ll have the soup,” another said.
“Finished,” the man replied.
Finished appears to be the internationally recognized way of saying, “We don’t have it,” “We’re all out,” or “We never had it, never will and we wouldn’t sell it to you even if we did, you imperialist Yankee pig-dog” even in countries where English isn’t a distant third or fourth language such as Indonesia, Russia, China and Poland. I can’t begin to explain how bizarre it was to try to buy something in a Bulgarian store where the owner didn’t speak any English and have him say “Finished” when a customer explained to him what I wanted and the item was out of stock.