Trans Siberian Train

Moscow

Train station Kazanskoje, crowded place with many scan doors. There is many metal detector in Moscow: in underground, on the commute train station, on regional train station, supermarkets, malls and many more places and for the first time I am wondering if it safe in Moscow. Why do one need so many? I don't see any sens with it, that because the security men any way don't check properly what you have in luggage or pockets I saw even how a girl with a big backpack even don't went thru control station, so what you need this for if the control system is not working? Many question few answers that is Russia.

The coupe is quite old without air conditioning and without electric outlets. The people make comfortable their beds and stay there for most of the trip. The toilets are absolutely the most scary story on the train, very disgusting place.

                              

I bought a Tele2 sim card to use internet on the train but this was a bad choice because beside Moscow and some major cities you will not have internet, although the guy in the phone store assured me that is not a problem when I asked if I will have internet in all Russia, so never believe a seller.
Ears props is the ultimate thing you need to have with you, we had window open almost all the time and the noise was penetrating my bones, not a pleasant thing specially if you want to sleep some hours during the night.

Novosibirsk

Novosibirsk is the biggest city in Siberia and so is the anger of the people. I met some local people who explained how the things are going in Novosibirsk. Well corruption is prospering the roads look more as a test track which car makers detect the vulnerable parts of the vehicles. Many buildings are in bad shape and free healthcare is more or less a sci-fi. 

People are tired and they try to find a way to escape the city and in the best case escape country to get somewhere but not Russia.

To note that old generation of people arguing that Russia will never be as Europe. The same do younger generation but the different between them is the changed mentality. More and more of young generation look after a better life no matter where so they move more easily without looking back.

In the future not the place where you have born or language you speak will decide where to live instead this will be those wealthy, energetic and modern places where one want to live qualitative life.

Irkutsk

Even the monkeys in picture shows how things are going in Irkutsk.

Walking round Irkutsk I realize immediately at the train station how poor and devastate the city is. After I couldn't get any feeling of a city center or a core I moved to explore the suburbs. It look like a place after a battle. The smog is thick and dissolve my lunges, numbers of dogs barking round looking for something, I supposed for food, a muddy road and half abandoned houses of wood, people with heavy and exhausted faces are walking swinging to avoid the puddles. This is like a sad picture of 18th century or wild wild west.

The train was my home for 7 days, I felt shortly how my coupe became my private room though it is 3 more people in it. There is some weak connection between my roomies, we talk about situation in Russia what is good, what is bad, a lot of politics, travel histories, strangers but still feel that we are together. I loved to stay very late in the night watching movie and thinking about how the world will change in the future. When everybody were sleeping then it was quite and silence I could hear every unusual noises of the train which I missed during the day. Sometime I was walking in the wagon to enjoy the emptiness fulled of people and the emptiness of dark sky fulled of stars.

The nature is amazing here no doubts, I wished to have more time to explore the wildness of this places, hope next time I will not plan too much to have space for enjoying moments of this huge arial of forests, mountains and rivers.


Tomorrow i will take the ferry to South Korea in waiting for another world :)