On arrival back to Ulan Ude station to complete the last 60 hours of the epic 9000 km journey, I cannot enter the station. It is cordoned off by troops with Kalashnikovs and police in riot gear. All seems quiet and talking to the others waiting they have been here for up to 2 hours. Nobody has any information as to why. An ambulance with lights on leaves the scene and suddenly we are given the all clear and it is back to normality.
The Trans Siberian was constructed between 1861 and 1916 at a time when road travel and vehicles were inferior to rail. Tsar Alexander 111 started the project and his son, future emperor Nicholas 11 laid the foundation stone in Vladivostok. Nicholas was emperor at the completion of the line at a troubled time during WW1, just before the 1917 revolution that would end the Romanov dynasty. The official length of the journey is 9289 km and it crosses 7 time zones. Branch lines down to Korea and to Beijing via Mongolia occurred later in the 20th century. The latter is often mistakenly referred to as the trans Siberian where its true name is the trans Mongolian.
The train experience is very basic. The sleeping benches are hard and make for a disturbed night sleep and the locals who travel on this tend to self cater their food for the trip. There is almost no English spoken and there seem to be very few tourists. The locals can’t understand why anyone would bother to take the trip.
The scenery outside is pleasant if not monotonous. The Russians call this taiga, large expanses of green grass, rolling hills and the occasional pine or birch forest. Of itself pretty but after 7 days of the same I am pleased to complete this “marathon”.
I am in a 2nd class cabin, 4 bunks and a toilet at the end with a washbasin. A large samovar at one end of the carriage is a constant source of hot water for tea and the ubiquitous instant noodles. I spend a lot of the day in the perennially empty restaurant car, allowing me to spread out and really stretch my legs. Unfortunately, for this leg the menu is entirely in Russian which means that I am having to struggle with phrase books to get a meal ordered.
Nonetheless the scenery is pleasant even if it is the same for thousands of kilometers. Roll on Vladivostok!
Vladivostok station – the end of the line.