Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia (36 page)

More often than not, this was dinner on the train. And honestly, I began to crave it. Boxes of instant noodles were on sale at every train station for as little as twenty rubles (sixty-seven cents) each. We kept a good supply at all times, so when hunger hit, you could carry the noodles and your tea cup to the hot water samovar at the end of each train car, fill up, and your meal was ready.

Walking on water: Lake Baikal freezes solid during winters, and Russians love to tempt fate by driving, biking, and taking strolls on the ice. Sergei and I opted for a hovercraft.

I wondered whether this would be the last photo ever taken of me and Sergei alive. To cross frozen Lake Baikal, we hired a hovercraft that seemed, shall we say, makeshift. It resembled a minivan superglued on top of a pontoon with a steering wheel inside that was surely ripped off a Russian Lada automobile.

Sergei Sotnikov: proud husband and father, NPR producer, awesome travel mate, best friend in Russia.

Lenin, pointing toward the train station in Vladivostok on a snowy evening.

Russian train platforms are full of energy, chaos, and confusion, overwhelming the senses. The smell of cigarette smoke blends with the smell of coal and occasionally the smell of sweat from passengers who haven’t showered for days. Everyone is in a hurry, dragging suitcases over the concrete. There’s a nonstop stream of announcements blaring from speakers, occasionally clearly enough to understand.
(David Gilkey/NPR)

In the dining car I often go with beer and pistachio nuts. They are reliably available, unlike most else. Menus will have dozens of offerings—seafood, meat dishes, soups—but the required ingredients are often not on board. The television doesn’t appear to have worked for a decade. And even though we’re several time zones east of Moscow, the clock is set to Moscow time, a quirk of Russian trains that was designed to avoid confusion but seems just to fuel it.
(David Gilkey/NPR)

Something about this scene captures Russia for me. In the background, pristine Lake Baikal, a World Heritage site that the Russian government seems to neglect and underappreciate. Storm clouds impose themselves on what could be sunny skies. And an old Soviet Lada, symbolizing a previous generation’s engineering ingenuity, sits unclaimed on a snowy shore. (David Gilkey/NPR)

Zhanna Rutskaya used a link of Belarusian sausage as a baton, waving me into her cabin. So began my education about life on the Russian rails: It’s all about sharing food and conversation. Her cabinmate—they, too, had only just met—is Sergei Yovlev, a die-hard fan of Yaroslavl’s pro hockey team. The 2011 team died in a plane crash. Yovlev said the ability to survive tragedy is “the way the soul of a Russian person is built.”
(David Gilkey/NPR
)

Albina Ostrovskaya (right) lost her husband a decade ago. Like too many Russian men, he died before the age of fifty. Her sister-in-law, Tamara, often makes a three-day train journey to Moscow to keep her company. She likes to fit in some shopping. “Here, I have a rug, a small rug, my clothes, and something to eat,” Tamara told me, pointing at her overstuffed parcels. She doesn’t mind the train at all. “Nice people in the cabins, so we have a good time.”
(David Gilkey/NPR)

Viktor Gorodilov is a Russian lumberjack. He lives and works in the timber-producing village of Sagra, where there are no paved roads and no reliable police response. When a criminal gang made its way there and the police didn’t show, villagers fought them off using rifles and pitchforks. They were charged with hooliganism and faced potential jail time. But Viktor’s son, Andrei, helped with a public relations campaign to fight the charges. “Publicity was our protection,” Andrei told me. A lesson in democratic values? Maybe, Andrei said. “But our Russian mentality has to be protected, too.”
(David Gilkey/NPR)