Bunker 42

Bunker 42 was one of the main underground bases in Moscow during the Cold War – a place for 2500 important people to live for a month whilst the gamma radiation subsided. It is a special place for many reasons. The Soviets test fired atomic weapons to find out the correct depth needed for full protection – so it is 65 meters down (18 floors) – and can survive a 15 kiloton explosion less than a kilometer away. So quite well protected then. First of all you have to find it! It is quite well hidden in a suburban street […]

Cold War

Cumulative distance covered so far – 2997 km, Weather -9 degrees C, light snow showers. I’m back in the USSR! Its not very cold here for this time of year and this is a problem – there is black ice everywhere – getting off the train with luggage proved pretty tricky.. I almost decided to leave my boots at home in an effort to save space in my bag, but they really are essential here – not just cold protection from the snow but ankle protection from any unlucky falls. A couple of days here on a specially devised (by […]

Commander in Chief

“The Hunt for Red October” (1990), Paramount Pictures If you followed my journey to Shanghai last year then you may remember the semi military command structure of my Trans-Mongolian train. As a recap, there are a pair of Chinese guards in each carriage and they report to a “Sergeant Major” who in turn works for the top man – who I imagine is the “Commander” of the train. I’m sure he has a better official title than this, but hopefully you get my drift. Its all in the flaps! The C in C (left) and RSM (centre).. On my first morning, […]

Naushki

Distance so far: 9142 km, – 30 C (estimate), clear skies I am currently sat at the Russian border waiting for my passport to be returned before we trundle over into Mongolia. A visa point in passing – Russian immigration don’t seem at all fussed about deregistering our visas. After going to the trouble of registering it in Moscow in the first place, I’m disappointed they don’t seemingly want (or need) to deregister it. Perhaps the exit procedure does this automatically in the system these days? It’s too complicated a question to try and ask, so I’m just going to […]

Ulan-Ude

Distance so far: 8889 km, -25 C, sunny, GMT +8 The train has just left Ulan-Ude (we are still on time!) after a 40 minute stop, our longest so far. Overnight we passed through Irkutsk and have covered another 1200 km since this time yesterday. We seem to have a fresh engine each day – still on overhead electric at the moment, but changing to diesel tomorrow. We came in alongside the Russian Trans-Siberian “Rossiya” train which I think goes on to Vladivostok – but we soon part company and branch off this line soon to start heading South, bound […]

Ilanskaya

Distance so far: 7622 km, -30 C (estimate), cloudy. Local time: GMT+8 Just a short update from Ilanskaya. I got off the train to have a look at the new locomotive whilst we took on more coal. The temperature has dropped considerably since yesterday. There was no thermometer on the platform (often there is a digital clock and thermometer) but a local wrote “-35” in dust on the side of the train. It’s so cold now that my camera shuts down in a couple of minutes if its out of my pocket. Stephan went to see our train commander to […]

Novosibirsk

Distance so far: 6582 km, -25 C, pitch darkness, stars. Just a few night time updates.. I had to strip right off this afternoon as the temperature on board my carriage was about 30 C. I was impressed that my carriage attendant understood how I felt and said he could turn down the heat, but I have only just worked out how. He has opened the roof panel above the toilet at the end of the carriage, stuffed a blanket inside and jammed the door open with the giant pair of chop sticks (actually used to unblock the toilet)..Somehow this […]

Omsk

Distance so far: 5962 km, -22 C, sunny This morning I woke at a place called Ishim. Our direction has obviously included a bit of South as well as East over the last 24 hours as it was light at 08.00 Moscow time today. Looking at the map we are in fact very close to the border with Kazakhstan. My daily routine starts with a trip to “Little Russia”, our restaurant carriage, for ham and eggs. This morning I spotted someone having sausage and scrambled eggs, so I took a photo and showed it to the lady who takes the […]

Kirov

Distance so far: 4207km, -21 C, freezing fog. Morning! I woke at dawn today (that’s about 09.30 Moscow time) – just in time to try getting off the train for the first time at the stop in Kirov. The drill is that the carriage attendant gets kitted up, enters the outer compartment of the carriage (unheated) and opens the door. He then gets down, scrapes off the ice, sweeps away the snow, and wipes the handles so you can get off safely. All you need to do is agree how long the stop is for – but I’m not trusting […]

Nizhiny Novgorod

Distance so far – 3962km, -19 C, clear and very dark. I finally set off on the Trans-Mongolian this evening after a busy final day in Moscow. One of my biggest nightmares was of course missing the train (it goes just once a week), and for a moment I nearly did. Alexie and I had a quick Georgian dinner (rather special veal and pork dumplings) and as a consequence we then spent and hour and a half in a typically huge traffic jam back to Yaroslavsky station. Anyway, it worked out okay thanks to Victor, our driver, who must have […]