From the Urals to Moscow

World Adventurer (October 17, 2003 Chautauqua)

    On the sixth day of my rail journey across Russia, I was looking forward to arriving in the capital, Moscow, the next day, Sunday, May 4th.

   The train was in western Siberia, only two hours ahead of Moscow time, closing in on the Ural mountains, the dividing line between Asia and Europe.

   Before that, we would stop in Yekaterinburg (1,818 km from Moscow), one of the places I almost broke my journey at. There is a lot of history there.

Ekeratinburg (Sverdlovsk) terminal

   The city was founded as a factory-fort in 1723 by Peter the Great, who was determined to take advantage of the area's mineral resources, and the name of the town reflects that - Catherine is the Russian patron saint of mining. At one time, the town was also named for Peter's wife, but this was "overlooked" after Peter discovered she was unfaithful, and had her executed.

   The town became a big industrial centre, supplying the local mines with machinery.

   In July 1918, Tsar Nicholas II and his family were murdered there by the Bolsheviks after being held prisoner for a short time. Shot to death in the basement of a house, their bodies were thrown into a mine.  Their killers attempted to destroy the evidence with grenades and acid, but the bones were found in 1991, and interred in St. Petersburg in 1998.

   In 1924, the city was renamed Sverdlovsk, after the man who had arranged the murders. The city grew during World War II, with the influx of many war industries. Sverdlovsk was off limits to foreigners until 1990.

   In 1960, U2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down near there, wrecking the Paris Peace conference. He was tried and held as a spy before being exchanged back to America in 1962.

   In 1979, a chemical leak from biological weapons plant Sverdlovsk-17 caused 64 deaths.

   The city took back its original name in 1991, though many people (as well as some rail timetables) still refer to it as Sverdlovsk.

   Its latest claim to fame is that it is the "home town" of former President Boris Yeltsin. He was born in a small town 190 km to the east, and studied civil engineering at Yekaterinburg's technical university. He was the foreman, and then the head of the house-building organization before joining the Communist Party, becoming regional head in 1976. He was popular, and was promoted to head the Moscow Party in 1985.

   In 1991, the old guard of the Party attempted to oust Gorbachev, and it was partly due to Yeltsin's rallying of the people to resist that helped it fail. Elected President, he had a colourful (to say the least) tenure before stepping down in 2000.

Terminal exterior

   The train arrived in Yekaterinburg about 4:14 PM, just as a cloudburst drenched the platform. Our stop was scheduled to be a long one, and I took the opportunity to go out into the street to have a look around. The city was a lot bigger and more modern that I had imagined.  The station itself was a work of art, with a lot of marble and cut glass chandeliers in the foyer.

Terminal interior

   I bought a bottle of vodka from a vendor on the platform, who showed me how to hide it under my coat. I guess the providnitsa's look out for this, and confiscate from any offenders.

   We were all standing around the platform, getting the last kinks out of our legs before we took off, when the train started moving! A mad rush, and everyone was aboard safely. Whew!

   We travelled through the Urals from the 1,900 until the 1,600km marker, but they sure were nothing to write home about. They just looked like a lot of rolling hills to me. Pretty countryside, though.

Passing through the Urals

   The 1,777 km marker is a large white obelisk, and this marks the dividing line between Asia and Europe. The vodka I had bought helped in our celebrations of the event.

The divider between Asia and Europe

   That evening, we passed through Perm (1,433 km from Moscow), which is best known as the model for the town of Yuriatin in the book "Dr. Zhivago," and for a series of UFO sightings in the 1980's. This is another defence industry city formerly closed to foreigners. One of the local attractions is an old Stalin-era prison, Perm-36.

   At the 1,356 km marker, we passed into another time zone - only one hour ahead of Moscow.

   The next day, there wasn't too much to do besides last minute packing. My Japanese travelling companion, Masako, had reservations at a hotel close to the train station, so I decided to string along and see if there was room for me, as well.

   At 10:00 AM, we stopped in Nizhny Novgorod (500 km from Moscow). Founded in 1221, it was renamed during Soviet times for the writer Maxim Gorky. It is Russia's third largest city (pop. 1.5 million), and is a big economic centre. Many firms co-operate in joint ventures with western firms.

   The famous dissident, and Nobel laureate, Andrey Sakharov was exiled there until 1986.

   It was there that we crossed the Volga River, one of the world's longest (3,700 km). It only falls a few hundred metres, so it was mostly slow and majestic until some 1930's hydro-electric projects turned it into a series of stagnant reservoirs. Sewage and other types of pollution are doing great damage to the sturgeon that produce caviar, and causing many beach closures.

   At 2:00 PM, we stopped for the last time before our final destination, in Vladimir (125 km from Moscow), which was founded in 1108 as a fort, eventually becoming the capital of the territory known as the Kyivan Rus. It was devastated during wars with the Tatars, and recovered each time, but its importance gradually became eclipsed by Moscow's rise.

   There is a wonderful old steam engine at the station, and a beautiful church - St. Dmitry's Cathedral - on hill overlooking, but our stop didn't allow much time for exploring.

   The countryside had changed dramatically since Siberia. There were now many farms and towns, giving the scenery a settled look. Going through more populated regions, there was a lot of filth and refuse, and even what looked like a "tramp city," with down-and-outers living in whatever they could patch together for shelter. The ground was still quite wet everywhere as we approached Moscow.

   I was thinking about two would-be world conquerors, Napoleon and Hitler. The former had taken this city, but he did not hold it long. The latter was stopped just short of winning the battle for Moscow, and so he lost the war. Now here was a kid from the Canadian prairies, following in their footsteps.

   There was a lot of city to go through before we arrived at Yaroslavsky Station (0 km from Moscow). It was raining, and my goodbyes to the two Aleks and the other passengers I had gotten to know were a little rushed. The providnitsa gave me the pin from her uniform, the logo for the train. I gave her and her companion some little souvenirs of Canada, which seemed to touch them a little. Then it was down the platform to the station proper, and then to the subway to the hotel - the Izmailia - which overlooked a former royal hunting reserve. That evening was spent resting from the trip, eating some real, hot food, and re-establishing contact (via e-mail) with the world. The next day would be given over to exploring the Russian capital.

The view from my hotel: Moscow!

A Dream of the Rodina

World Adventurer (October 3, 2003 Chautauqua)

   Regular readers of this column are enjoying (I hope) my tale of a rail trip across Russia. As I write these words, I am once again living and working in Korea, in the city of Pohang. I arrived here on August 26th (my birthday) to once again bring the wonder and excitement of the English language to the children of "Wonderland" school.

   Pohang is a relatively small city, by Korean standards, a little over half a million people. It's main industry is steel-making. The plant is a small city itself, stretching many kilometres southwards. As it is on the coast, there is access to some fine sandy beaches.

   In my last column about life in Korea, I was describing the match-making that goes on before a typical wedding. I had promised to follow up with a story about how a traditional Korean wedding takes place, but I was forced to forgo that, as I had not completed my research. I now have that research in hand, and I am ready to tell that story. We will get to it, just as soon as I complete my "saga" of my trip across Russia, and my adventures in Poland.

   I had reached the half-way point in my journey, and the Aleks and I thought it would be a good idea to start mixing our drinks. We started with beer (pronounced "pee-va" in Russian), and continued with vodka, the ubiquitous part of any Russian's lifestyle.

   Alek (no, the other one) had a bottle of cognac to add some more fuel to the fire, and on top of all this went something that I believe they called "balsam." By the end of the evening, we were all reeling off to bed, and if their heads were as big as mine the next day, it was a wonder we were all able to fit in one compartment. The sun was waaaay too bright as we rolled into Krasnoyarsk (4,104 km from Moscow).

   During the night, we had passed over the Yenisey River, the dividing line between eastern and western Siberia. We were only four hours ahead of Moscow time. During our stop in Krasnoyarsk, not too many of us were stocking up on alcohol. I went for some water and juice, plus the usual homemade food sold by the locals.

   On our way again, we passed the 3,932 km marker, the halfway point between Moscow and Beijing.

   My compartment was now no longer the main gathering place. Alek (no, the other one) had left us the day before, and the two remaining shifted down the car to a compartment with a couple of soldiers and the Japanese girl, Masako.

   There was the usual conversation, card playing, and drinking. I took the opportunity for some quiet time in my own compartment.

A line of con-apts next to the tracks.

Kind of reminded me of Korea.

   I reflected on the scenery we were offered during our trip through towns along the way. It seemed like we were travelling through the worst sections, with trash, run down buildings, and even some encampments of what must have been homeless. These could be seen on all the train platforms, begging from the travellers. There were some pathetic little children involved in this activity as well, trying to look as needy as possible to the wealthiest-looking people they could find.

   Our own train car began to reflect a certain run-down quality, as well. There began to creep in the aroma of unwashed bodies. Everyone was a little rough around the edges as the days on the move began to mount up, laundry became dirtier, and trips to the bathroom became less frequent. Our compartment was not too bad, but just walking past some of the others could make you eyes water.

   There was some music on the train. There were intercoms in the passageway, and in each room, which brought in radio stations from each town we passed. It was an eclectic selection, to say the least. From the latest Madonna tune to up tempo "disco" to what sounded like Russian folk songs.

   We just kept rolling through the "Rodina" (motherland). Past Mariinsk (3,719 km from Moscow) and on into Tayga (3,571 km from Moscow), which has a branch line northwards to the closed (to foreigners) defence-industry city of Tomsk.

   Through these parts, the land is much more settled, with less of the endless forest, and more of the farmsteads set in what the Lonely Planet guide calls a "Cinemascope landscape."

   The great Russian writer, Anton Chekov, wrote in his essay "About Siberia," "You'll be bored from the Urals to the Yenisey. A cold valley, crooked birches, fields, once in a while a lake, snow in May on the barren cheerless banks of the Ob tributaries..." He was writing about the old post road, and some may say the description still holds true. I was still interested in watching it go past, though.

The terminal at Novosibirsk

   At the 3,488 km marker, we passed into another time zone. At the 3,332 km marker, we crossed the Ob River, one of the world's longest. Here we stopped at Novosibirsk (3,343 km from Moscow), Siberia's biggest city. Founded in 1893 because of the railway, it has grown into a large industrial city, and a crucial link between Moscow and the far east. It was 10:00 PM, soon time to turn in for the night.

   While I slept, we passed through Omsk (2,716 km from Moscow), which was the city of another great Russian writer's ( Fyodor Dostoevsky) exile during the 1850's. He had gotten involved with some revolutionaries, and been imprisoned for a time before being sent to the east. After his experiences, he wrote Crime and Punishment. His writing focussed on individual freedom and responsibility, and the infinite worth of the human soul.

   We also passed into a new time zone, and were only two hours ahead of Moscow.

   Just after 8:00 in the morning, we stopped at Yshyn. Our next stop was at 11:15, in Tyumen (2,144 km from Moscow), the oldest city in Siberia. Founded in 1586 near the site of one of the Mongol hordes old cities, it was the hiding place for Lenin's body during World War II.

   The weather had turned grey and rainy. The land was very wet and marshy. Sometimes it seemed like the railbed was the only dry ground in the country. There were still great stretches of forest in between the sometimes isolated farms. I thought I saw some snow mixed in with the rainfall.

   The trip, now into its sixth day, was nearing its end, and the time came to prepare for arrival in Moscow, but not before seeing some of the most interesting places yet.