Moscow to Irkutsk

We were the only tourists on the 4 day train journey from Moscow to Irkutsk, not only that but we soon discovered that we were the only English speaking passengers on the train also. Our train was one of the more modern ones so our compartment was quite comfortable.

2nd class compartment

The restaurant carriage on the train was bad, so bad that we never ate there. But we were expecting this so we were prepared with noodles, bread, soup, biscuits and coke. Every carriage has a samovar so you have constant access to hot water.

Samovar on our carriage

About 1 hour into the train journey we noticed ice was starting to form on the carriage window. Our compartment was warm but the window itself was freezing. It meant if we wanted to keep something cool we could leave it by the window, it was like having our own mini fridge.

Ice forming on the inside of the window

At the end of the carriage where the entrance door was it was pretty cold, you could even say it was freezing....

Its cold!

We had a leaflet with the names of the stations that the train would stop at, the times and the duration for each stop. All times for Russian railways are in Moscow time even when local time will be different as you are crossing between time zones. Before the train arrives at the station the carriage attendant, known as a provodnitsa (female) or provodnik (male), locks the toilets. Once the train stops the carriage attendant then knocks the ice from under the carriage.

Ice under the carriage

The provodnitsa on our carriage did not speak English and was no particularly friendly. Any contact we had with her mainly consisted of her shouting at us in Russian and us saying that we didn't understand. We avoided her as best we could for the duration of the journey but this one not always possible. At one point I went to the samovar to get some hot water for some noodles and she came running our of her compartment and shouted at me. She took me noodles, made a gesture that indicated that I should stay where I was, she arrived back 2 minutes later with my noodles full of boiling water. We soon realised that her shouting was not necessarily a bad thing that just seemed to be how she spoke.

Noodles, noodles and more noodles.

Whenever there was a stop for 15 minutes or more we got off to get some fresh air or in Martin's case to have a cigarette. We normally only stayed outside of 2 or 3 minutes as it was always freezing and most of the long stops were in the middle of the night so it was always around -20 or worse. Here is a photo from one of the early morning stops.

Early morning stop