Metro Moscow

As a tunnel engineer I have to dedicate a special chapter to the Metro in Moscow. It’s the easiest, quickest and cheapest way of getting around in this city. Many of the older stations are marble faced or frescoed – real art pieces.

   

You rarely wait longer than two minutes on the platform before the train arrives. Nonetheless, it may get packed during rush hour. Up to 9 million people a day ride the metro – more than the London and New York City system combined.

   

Moscow

With the arrival in Moscow comes the official Trans-Siberian train journey to an end, but not yet my train adventure!

Sunlight glinting off golden domed churches. Blond tall women emerging from black Porsche Cayenne cars. Uniformed military at every corner around the Kremlin and Red Square - This is Moscow!

   

The Kremlin is the place, enclosed by a high wall, where the autocratic tsars, communist dictators and democratic presidents have done their best (and worst) for Russia. Inside this ‘City within a city’ are many covernment buildings (closed to public) but also ancient cathedrals where the Tsars were crowned and buried.

   

Within the Kremlin I visited the Armory, an opulent collection of treasures accumulated over time by the Russian State and Church. It’s called the Armory because the collection is priceless, and it’s housed in the most secure building within the Kremlin, the former weapons store!

   

As famous as the Kremlin is the Red Square, outside its wall. I had the chance to visit Lenin’s tomb there – the father of Soviet communism. Humourless guards ensure that visitors remain respectful while passing by the embalmed Lenin. On the impressive Red Square you will find beside Lenin’s tomb the history museum, GUM shopping center (nice glass roof structure) and Basil’s Cathedral.

   

   

Lot of locals enjoy the warm weather and the late sunset around the lovely Aleksandrovsky garden, where also the tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located.

   

There is much more to explore in Moscow: The Metro with its beautiful stations, Arbat, Museums, and much more. Also the quality of life is back, as the food selection in Moscow offers more than cucumbers and tomatos.

   

Even I’m only 2500km away from home, I am heading towards north to St. Petersburg tomorrow.

Ekaterinburg

Ekaterinburg was found as a factory-fort in 18th century as part of Peter the Great’s push to exploit the Ural region’s mineral riches. Later military equipment factories were set up here, as the raw material to cast these products lays in the Ural. Up to today Ekaterinburg is a major military city.

   

The city was closed to foreigners until 1990 because of the many defence plants. I enjoyed strolling through this lovely city with its many outdoor eateries.

After eating cucumbers and tomatos in all different variations throughout Siberia, I was pleased to find fruit boothes along the streets. It’s a small city which can be explored by foot within one day.

   

Ekaterinburg is also known as the place where the murder of the royal Romanov family took place in the early 20th century. On my second day, I went out of the town to the monastry, where their bodies were discovered. For Russians this is a pilgrim place deep in a peaceful birch forest.

Still on the Asian continent, I took the chance to cross over to Europe at the Asia-Europe border; one foot in Asia and one in Europe! This is a symbolic meeting of East and West where clash of continents is the real deal.

   

Tomorrow I will definitely cross over to the Europe continent as I will board the train to Moscow.

In 50 hours through Siberia

This was my longest nonstop train ride so far – over 3300km and passing three time zones. You must know, that all long distance trains run according to Moscow time. That’s mostly not the time zone you are in, so you have to stay alert and do your own maths to keep up to time!

     

The train stops every few hours for 20-30 minutes to change the locomotive. That’s your time frame when you can catch some fresh air and buy some food – the locals stock up on beer. This was more than necessary as the restaurant car was lousy on this train. Everything I pointed out in the menu they said NYET (no). On big stations you find food kiosks, on smaller ones babushkas are selling snacks on the platform.

   

Honestly, the scenery was quite boring throughout Siberia. I saw birch forests after birch forests and once a while the train crossed one of the many rivers. There were many villages along the track before and after the bigger cities datcha compounds (weekend houses) could be spotted.

   

Even so the scenery reminded me of the Swiss Jura, it was not boring at all, as my cabin mates changed about every 6 hours. They were always Russians with zero English knowledge (my Russian is not much better…), but they tried hard to get thto know the foreigner better. One guy even called up his friend on the handphone, who was then the translator for 30 minutes.

On any long distance Russian train you will soon learn who is in charge; the Provodnitsa (carrage attendant). Apart from checking your passport and train ticket before boarding the train, handing out linen and shaking you awake in the middle of the night when your train arrives, the provodnitsa’s job is to keep her carriage tidy. They also can provide coffee, tea and snacks for a small price.

   

The south of the track marked every kilometer with a km sign showing the distance to Moscow. Thanks to my travel book, I knew what to look out for at different km. With lesser Lada cars (more Japanese cars) I spottedout of the train window told me that I was leaving Siberia behind..

The landscape became more hilly as the train entered the Ural region. After 50 hours, I got off the train at Ekaterinburg, the economic and cultural capital of the Ural.

Irkutsk – The Paris of Siberia

I had to leave Lake Baikal to get back to the Trans-Siberian railway route. Irkutsk is the old trading and administrative center of Siberia. In fact it was the gold rush which made the city rich, and it aquired the nickname ‘The Paris of Siberia’ for its high quality of living – but that was long ago….

It is the first city where the Asian population gets lesser and the typical blond Russian ladies appear on the streets. Europe, I am coming closer!

I spent one night here before the train take me across Siberia for over 48 hours to Yekaterinburg later today.

Lake Baikal

After an other night on the train I arrived early morning in Irkusk. I had a good sleep as a Russian on the train shared his beers with me before we both fall asleep. Nowadays, the Russians drink plenty of beer, which becomes more popular as Vodka with the younger generation.

Listvyanka, where I spent the last two nights, is the nearest village to Lake Baikal from Irkusk. Lake Baikal  – The Pearl of Siberia – is the world’s largest and deepest lake (1637 m). As such, it contains one quarter of the world’s fresh, unfrozen water, which never gets warmer as 15 C. The lake itself is a living museum of flora und fauna, 80% of which is found nowhere else on the planet. Most famous are the fresh water seals and a salmon like fish called Omul.

   

In  Seberia the tourist industry is not much developed, that is while I had a homestay with a lady, who cooked fabulous the last two days for me. It was a typical Siberian wooden house; washing was done exclusively in the Banya (Sauna) and for calls of nature there was a drop toilet at the end of the garden.

   

After visiting the Baikal museum (very interesting), I rented with three British tourists a small boat to explore the tunnels of the old Circumbaikal Train route along the south-eastern shore side of Listyanka. The boat ‘captain’ Aleix was enthusastic to show us the beauty of the lake.

   

Unfortunately, it was raining heavily on the second day, so my planned adventure hike was flushed away by the rain. It was extremely cold for me (~10 C), so I stayed in with the homestay lady most of the day.  Next morning the top of the lake surrounding mountains were snowcapped! Siberia for me has always been a snowy city, now I could witness it during summer!

   

The lake water is exceptionally clear and pure, that’s why the locals drink water direct out of it.

Ulan-Ude

The night train brought me to the border town of Russia. The border crossing (in the train) took 10 hours (!!!), as everything was done extremely slowly. I have been told this is the standard time at this check-point.

    

For the last 500 km of the Trans-Mongolian route, I had beautiful weather once again. The train followed the shores of the Goose lake and further along the Selenga river. The landscape changed to green hills with trees. I haven’t seen a tree since we left China! In the evening I arrived in the city Ulan-Ude in East Siberia.

   

The streets were crowded with young folks, so I was heading to the city center – called Soviet square. Only now I found out that today is Independence Day in Russia. A big party with fire works was ongoing under the eyes of the world biggest Lenin head statue. I’m now so far north that it only gets dark at midnight (and bright at 5:00 am).

 

Ulan-Ude is the capital of the Buryat Republic. 30% of the population here are Buryat people; they look like Mongolians. Their ancestors lived here long before the Russian came from the West. Siberia lies in Asia, and its populations were historically Asians. I visited a typical Buryat village an hour drive outside the town. As they have forests here, everybody lives in wooden houses. Beside the housing, the culture and food are the same as in Mongolia.

     

Ulan-Ude is a pleasant small city which is known for its military aircraft (SU planes) factory as well as crosspoint for the Trans-Siberian / Trans-Mongolian railway. I visited the Ethnographic Museum which is located outdoor in a forest and it displays local architecture.

   

Today I visited an other small village outside the town. Tonight the train leaves for Irkutsk – the capital of Eastern Siberia.

Mongolia

Before we start, we would like to apologise for the lack for pictures in our China’s blog. We had problems with the firewalls in China but in Mongolia, we were able to upload our pictures. So please take a look again at our China blogs (with pictures this time).

70% of Mongolians still live in gers (camel-felt tents), exactly the sort their national hero Genghis Khan used for himself 800 years ago. Mongolia is barely touched by the 21st century outside the capital city Ulaanbaatar. Half of the Mongolians are Nomads with livestocks consisting mainly of sheeps, goats, horses, camels and cows. Due to the animals needs, they persude the herding life and move every season.

   

By no imagination could Ulaanbaatar be called pretty. After we showered down the Gobi Desert sand, which was all over us after the train ride, we immediately had to leave for a 2 days stay in a ger camp out in the steppe. Only five other tourist were in the camp with us – the pure opposite to the multi million cities Shanghai and Beijing where we were coming from. We spent our free time playing the traditional ankle bone games (bones from the goats) and archery. The highlight was horse riding in the vast open space of the steppe!

   

Still, staying in a tourist camp was not enough for us. We wanted the real thing! So we decided to stay 2 days with a Nomad family. They have a little boy and he does nothing but chase after calves and ride horses! While the parents daily life is herding, milking the livestock and immediately processing all the milk in different products. We had the real ‘home cooked’ meals and mutton was the main dish. Beside a day trip to Erdene Zuu monastry in the ancient Mongolian capital Khara Khorum, we liked most riding the camels.

   

   

Back in the soviet apartment blocks city Ulaanbaatar, we spent half a day sigthseeing. But there is really not much to see! We had a last local dinner (can’t see lamb meat and salty milk tea any more) before our ways split. April had to go back to Singapore and flew off while Marc was boarding the night train to Russia. The blog will continue to follow Marc to Switzerland, where April will join him in 4 months time.

    

Entering Mongolia

The train ride from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar (capital city of Mongolia) was one of the nicest so far. Crossing the mountains in the northern part of China, the scenery changed  and trees eventually disappeared and the landscape became a 180-degree panorama of steppe. The train continued north entering into the Gobi desert.

   

   

In the evening, we arrived in Erlian, the border city between China and Mongolia. As Mongolian and Russian trains run on a wider gauge than the standard gauge use in the rest of the world, the bogies must be change. We decided to stay on the train to witness the two hours process.

 At Erlian, April found out that Singaporean is only entitled to stay in China visa-free for 15 days. Thus, she overstayed by 7 days and had to buy herself off. It was a RMB500 (S$100) per day fine but we managed to get it down to RMB300 in total!

The remarkable journey continued with frequent sights of  gers (felt tents) and livestocks.

   

After 30 hours on the train, we arrived in Ulaanbaatar.

Beijing

Early morning our express train from Shanghai arrived. By local bus, we went into the city center where our hostel was located. It is hidden in a Hutong (historic narrow alleyways) just next to the Forbidden City.

   

On our first day, we explored the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. A pity that most of the tourist attraction are under renovation in preparation for Beijing Olympic Games 2008. The air was quite polluted as Beijing burns coals to generate eletricity.

   

 

What is a China visit without climbing the Great China Wall. We decided to avoid the popular tourist section – Badaling. Instead we took a local bus to Jinshanling which is 150km outside of Beijing city. From there we trekked almost tourist-free to Simatai for 3 hours. The wall was well preserved with many watch towers. The 10 km trail was steep and stony but the experience was worth it.

   

 

The next morning, we went to the Summer Palace. During the ancient time, royalty came here to elude the summer heat that roasted the Forbidden City. The complex is dominated by Kuming Lake and several temples.

   

With one year to go for the Olympic Games, the construction of the stadiums is almost completed. We took a cab to the future Olympic park, which is at the moment a huge construction site, to have a glimpse of the ‘Birdnest’ stadium.

 

The 798 district is a new hangout place for the arty farty (also known as artistic people) with tons of galleries to showcase their art. We also managed to catch the local acrobatic show which was spectacular!

   

A visit to Beijing is not complete without their signature dish – the Peking duck. All around the city were also food tents selling everything from starfish meat to dumplings. 

 

After a busy four days in Beijing, we will move on to Mongolia.