The first leg of the trans-siberian trip was from Moscow to Irkutsk. Martin and I decided to travel together for this part of the trip so we went to the station to buy our train tickets the day before we wanted to leave. This time around we know the train number that we wanted and the time it was leaving so using the guide book I wrote instructions in Russian. Things were a little more serious this time around as the train ticket was going to cost around €250 as we were buying a 2nd class ticket for a 4 day day train trip. We couldn't afford any mistakes.
We queued for about 20 minutes at the station and eventually got served. As expected the lady at the ticket desk did not have any English. She understood my Russian note and took our passports and then showed us the amount we had to pay on a calculator. The people in the queue behind us were very interested in what we were doing and were looking over my shoulder most of the time. We found this a bit frustrating when we were counting our money to pay. Everything appeared to go well with the ticket purchase and she returned out passports and was stapling out tickets together. At this point Martin commented on how he was relieved that it had went so well. About 10 seconds later the ticket lady started talking to us in Russian and making hand gestures that looked like she was sleeping. We said that we didn't understand but she just repeated it again and again. The the person next in the queue started trying talking to us in Russian, she was trying to explain it to use as well but in a more friendly tone. Then the next person in the queue started too and eventually there were 5 people talking in Russian to us and the ticket lady shouting at us. This went on for about 30 seconds although he seemed like much longer, eventually some lady who was in another queue shouted over at us that they were telling us that they had included the price of our bed linen in our ticket so we would not have to pay for it on the train. We said OK and the ticket lady gave us our tickets. We checked them using the guidebook ticket reference and everything was in order.
Our train was at 11pm so we had a look around the station and the tracks so we'd know where we had to go the following day. We found the marker that indicates the start of the trans-siberian railway.
The start of the Trans Siberian Railway
We queued for about 20 minutes at the station and eventually got served. As expected the lady at the ticket desk did not have any English. She understood my Russian note and took our passports and then showed us the amount we had to pay on a calculator. The people in the queue behind us were very interested in what we were doing and were looking over my shoulder most of the time. We found this a bit frustrating when we were counting our money to pay. Everything appeared to go well with the ticket purchase and she returned out passports and was stapling out tickets together. At this point Martin commented on how he was relieved that it had went so well. About 10 seconds later the ticket lady started talking to us in Russian and making hand gestures that looked like she was sleeping. We said that we didn't understand but she just repeated it again and again. The the person next in the queue started trying talking to us in Russian, she was trying to explain it to use as well but in a more friendly tone. Then the next person in the queue started too and eventually there were 5 people talking in Russian to us and the ticket lady shouting at us. This went on for about 30 seconds although he seemed like much longer, eventually some lady who was in another queue shouted over at us that they were telling us that they had included the price of our bed linen in our ticket so we would not have to pay for it on the train. We said OK and the ticket lady gave us our tickets. We checked them using the guidebook ticket reference and everything was in order.
Our train was at 11pm so we had a look around the station and the tracks so we'd know where we had to go the following day. We found the marker that indicates the start of the trans-siberian railway.
The start of the Trans Siberian Railway
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