How to...travel the Trans-Siberian Railway

“The Russian Railways welcome you worshipful passengers! You are serviced by the personnel of the Carriage Sector of the Eastern Direction. We bid you godspeed!”

So read the moving LED display as we boarded the Rossiya (train #002) from Moscow to Vladivostok, our home for the next four nights and days. We were in ‘kupe’, or second, class sharing a four-person cabin. We bought tickets in advance on line in the UK from G&R International and collected them from their office in Moscow. Our command of Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet was too poor to allow us to buy tickets at the station, but it can be done. Indeed, for any amateur code breakers it is quite fun.

Our days on the train typically consisted of sleeping late, eating, reading, eating, chess, reading, eating, reading, sleep. The train has a few stops each day where you can disembark to stretch and buy provisions. At most stations there are kiosks or vendors selling water, beer, noodles and sometimes local delicacies such as dumplings, smoked fish and potato donuts. However, it’s worth buying grog and vitals before boarding (e.g. pot noodles, pot mashed potato, bread, cheese spread, dried fruit, biscuits, tinned fruit, tomatoes, cucumbers, tea and water) as it’s often cheaper and then you can dine when you want rather than be governed by the train timetable. We didn’t make it to the restaurant car, but understand the food to be rather hit-or-miss and relatively spendy. Most pot noodles come with a fork, but you would be advised to take a knife, fork, spoon, bowl and cup. Then with the constant supply of boiling water from the samovar you are pretty self-sufficient.

A note on toilets: Since the toilets are not self-contained but merely empty their contents straight onto the track there is a ‘sanitary zone’ for about ten minutes either side of, and at, a major station, when the doors are locked. The tap in the sink works by pressing up the short metal widget at the back of the tap. If you ask (gesture) nicely, the carriage attendant will lend you a shower nozzle to enable you to wash all over.

To engage locals in dialogue a Point It book, map and photographs from home are recommended. With these tools we managed to hold a ’conversation’ with our cabin mates for about 10 of the 7,200 minutes we were cooped up together.

Otherwise, just lie back and enjoy the scenery (trees until Irkutsk, much more variety from there to Vladivostok) in the intermittent air conditioning (works when the train has gathered speed) and piped music (usually of the repetitive beats variety - the 9am house remix of jingle bells was a particular highlight).

After the first night’s sleep it is amazing how you get into the groove and time whiles away, helped by crossing seven time zones. Over eight nights we travelled 10,039km - the entire length of the Russian Federation from west to east. It is an amazing, and utterly unforgettable, way to travel.