Trainspotting

Russia is 7 days wide and 14 days long, according to Ilya Merenzon, who prefers traveling by train and enjoys meeting the restaurant car waitresses.



I don’t like flying very much. I can take a flight if I have to, and I do fine on the familiar JFK to Moscow route, especially since I learned that $150 in cash given directly to the stewardess (exemplifying the shady nature of the Russian economy) can put you into a lovely business class seat.

But I don’t like to take domestic flights within Russia. This often proves to be a very messy experience. At some point in the journey, I always find myself waiting in some airport lounge trying to avoid using the restroom that someone else has just used, and used sloppily.

On domestic flights, you don’t walk into the plane through a connecting tube, as in most modern airports. Instead, they take you to the plane on a small bus (if the plane is parked far from the exit), or you simply walk to the plane. Once, before a flight to Chelyabinsk, the large industrial city in the Urals where I was born, I walked up to the plane and saw the captain opening the cockpit window to have a casual smoke. I don’t need to tell you what a disturbing scene this was for me and the other passengers who witnessed it.

So now when I go to Chelyabinsk, I take the train. The train is a convenient and inexpensive way to reconnect with the Soviet past, or an even deeper, tsarist past, when hefty government officials in frock coats drank tea from crystal cups with silver glass-holders and dined on grilled duck and hare pies, taking a comfortable route to their estates in the Urals.

The old world charm is partially gone now, but some nice features still linger: the glass holders are still there, the first-class cars are lovely, and through the compartment window, one enjoys an ever-changing landscape of breathtaking and often absurd scenes. By the time the train takes you outside of Moscow (the train to Chelyabinsk departs around 8 p.m.), it gets dark, and I usually turn the lights off in the compartment and open the blinds. And believe me, what you see from a train window is the best documentary ever. When the train slows down as it enters small towns, you see 14-year-old girls going to a village club to dance, older folks returning home after fishing and scary-looking young men selling matryoshkas at the small train stations. You also see shabby village houses, multi-million-dollar villas and everything in between.

Every experienced train traveler has his own routine and set of rules. I developed mine over the years as a result of my bouts of aerophobia:

1. Travel only in the first class compartments. There are three types of cars in the Russian train: the “kupe” (quadruple), the luxury sleeping car (double) and the “platskart” (horrible, doorless six-person sections). Don’t try the platskart unless you have to. Try to imagine a huge car divided into six-person sections with only two bathrooms per car and people eating, drinking (and by drinking I mean the serious, abnormal consumption of cheap alcohol), babies screaming, people who traveled for many days without showering taking their shoes off… Well, you get the picture. The luxury sleeping car, on the other hand, offers conservatively classy accommodations. It is six times as expensive as platzkart and twice the cost of a kupe. Usually, there are fewer passengers than compartments and one ends up alone in a double. A small donation (a bribe, for those who prefer clear definitions) will ensure that the conductor will not put a roommate in your section.

2. Try not to take trips that last longer than 30 hours. You get bored and a little dirty. There is only one shower on the train, in the chief conductors’ car. I have never used it and would advise against trying to.

3. Buy a lot of magazines for the trip. It’s very nice to read, say, Esquire or GQ while crossing wild forests or snow-covered mountains.

4. Don’t bring a lot of your own food onto the train, not even the customary fried chicken — there’s no point. Instead, explore the train’s dining car. This is the most sacred place on the train. It takes up a whole car, which is usually strategically located 2 cars away from the luxury car. This means it is close enough to reach easily but far enough away that you won’t be bothered by the noise. And at times there is a lot of noise.

The restaurant car is one of the few remaining Soviet archetypes, along with fondness for hockey and vodka with fried potatoes. In the good old Soviet days, when it was impossible to buy ham or cheese or milk in the grocery store, the train restaurants had it all: beef steaks, smoked salmon and, most importantly, Pepsi! It is still a mystery to me how train dining cars were so well-stocked all that time while every other cupboard in the country was bare. 

Another good thing about today’s dining cars is that they have not been renovated since the 1980s, so you can observe the original design. The only noticeable change that took place in the 1990s was that the portrait of Lenin was replaced with a Japanese television set. If you ever find yourself in the restaurant car, make sure to try the stuffed egg appetizer and rassolnik, a traditional Russian soup with meat and pickles. I don’t know why, but the rassolnik in a train restaurant is always far superior to the stuff at the most expensive and stylish Moscow establishments.

By the way, you will probably be waited on by a very young and good-looking waitress wearing a lot of cheap makeup. When not busy at the restaurant, she makes rounds of the train with a food trolley loaded with beer, peanuts and Snickers bars. She has to be good looking because it improves sales. With their caked-on makeup, dining car waitresses look like moderately expensive rural town call-girls. This adds a little subconscious eroticism to the restaurant visit.

Speaking of eroticism, I’ve encountered some really well-made Russian porn movies where all the action took place on a train. Since then, I have often fantasized about being accidentally put into the luxury compartment with a horny model. It’s never happened.

5. Drink lots of tea. On the train you will encounter a real Russian tea ceremony: unlimited tea is included in the price of the ticket and the conductors will be more than happy to bring the tea to your compartment. They take it very seriously. The train rules say they have to offer you tea at least three times a day and serve it to you as often as you like. You will also be offered little cookies, but you’ll have to pay for those.

But in the end, the train ride is not about the food or the views or the eroticism. It is really a meditation, a unique state of mind you sink into. You go from city to city while the sun and the moon move around your compartment and at night you sleep without really sleeping, listening to the pulse of the tracks beneath you.