Bishkek-Moscow Train

I got on the train with no problems, despite the large amounts of conflicting advice I got about actual departure time from locals. Since the tickets are sometimes printed in Moscow time, I had to make sure, and I got everything from 6 in the morning (from the hostel, clearly wrong since Moscow is earlier than Bishkek) to noon (the ticket said 9). Well, it was noon, as the travel agency I got it from promised, and I stocked up on instant noodles. After having tried them across the journey, I can provide the following ranking of brands:

1.       Big Bon

2.       Dosirac

3.       Big Lunch (“Beeg Lanch”) 

Somewhere inside Kazakhstan, day 1

A special note here: Big Lunch gives you more noodles, but the nasty sauce is not as tasty and there is less spongy meat than the dosirac. I have become an instant noodles expert, and my digestive tract/general health hates me for it.

For a 73 hour train ride, it sure flew by. The scenery isn’t very spectacular, though the Kazakh desert on the second day is amazingly desolate. Also, passing through southern Russia after Samara was definitely a scenic highlight as well—leaning out the window to watch the sun set over the unending, fertile fields and villages was unforgettable. 

Southern Russia, day 3

I didn’t finish the vodka, but that’s OK. I mostly passed the time by sleeping, listening to music, and getting hustled by dining car attendants, which was really annoying, but they could only get me for about $2 every time so it wasn’t so bad. But the dining car is a super annoying hustle, as I was tricked into buying the attendants beer after they (!) invited me to drink with them. Good thing beer was a dollar.

Changing locomotives in Samara, day 3

The other passengers were fine—actually, a lot of them were migrant workers without tickets who were just moving from compartment to compartment, using a short-distance cross border ticket procured from who knows where at the necessary borders. One guy, who fit the description of “urchin” if I ever saw it, shared my compartment several times, including an extremely annoying episode when he decided that 2 AM was a good time to sit on my bunk (I had the bottom) and have dinner. And the babushka sitting across from me woke up and encouraged him to eat more! That is the one annoying thing about bottom bunk—people will sometimes treat it like their own even if it isn’t. It is the first time this happened to me, but I’ve heard of it happening before. It’s hard to figure out what constitutes manners here; just as I was about to say something he finished and went back to his bunk. It’s a risk, but I don’t think that 2 AM dinners are the norm and booking a bottom bunk is usually just fine (plus a better view in the morning).

The aforementioned babushka and her teenage son were also very friendly, sharing their extensive collection of food with me. That has often happened to me as a solo traveler on soviet-style trains, and to others considering a similar journey I would advise buying enough food to sustain oneself but also being open to the strong chance that you will be offered food.

Food vendors, somewhere deep in Kazakhstan, day 2

There were a number of other characters. There were two guys who asked me about working in America. There was the grandpa Miroslav, who had two fingers on his right hand, which functioned as a sort of claw, and the grizzled look and attire of an explorer: a tan, lightweight button down shirt with tan trousers and a hat with the sides buttoned up. We talked for an hour, though it was hard for me to keep up with his Russian. All I caught was something negative about Bush, something incomprehensible about “Our USSR”, and something else about how communism failed because humans tried to replace god. His consistent theory was that people could understand each other, even if governments could not. Of course it was hard to disagree with him here. It was also hard to disagree with him anywhere, since he talked so fast and excitedly that it felt necessary to agree even if I had no idea what he was on about. He also made his introduction to everyone in the car by trying to sell his kettle of tea for $100 as a joke. He was my favorite person on the train.

Once I got to Moscow I got on the Nevsky Express to St. Petersburg. With cheaper tickets, better service (i.e. free food) and an equal travel time to the Sapsan, it was the way to go. The Sapsan is just like any other high-speed train anywhere and is in fact the same design is in use in Germany, China, and Spain. Would highly recommend the Nevsky Express 

, even though it only has one departure per day.