# Travelled Moscow - Vladivostok?



## v v (Nov 10, 2016)

Has anyone reading this forum made this Trans Siberian journey?

We may be next March and I have a couple of questions for anyone who has knowledge of in particular Vladivostok arrival and moving on from there.

Thanks


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## Steve4031 (Nov 10, 2016)

I don't personally. Flyertalk has forums for different parts of the world as well as each airline and hotel chain. There will be a section on Russia and that should help you with information on Vladivostok.


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## v v (Nov 10, 2016)

Thanks for that.

We're trying not to have to fly out but use a train or bus to get into northern China (Harbin), it's proving difficult to work out how to do it. There is a ferry to S. Korea but we will be heading to Taiwan and would prefer to use rail through China to get there.


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Nov 10, 2016)

Seat 61 is the go to website for you.

http://www.seat61.com/index.html


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Nov 10, 2016)

There a page from London to Taiwan. It takes 14 days, however the route is via China.

It seems Vladivostok to Taiwan is not a direct travel choice.


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## Devil's Advocate (Nov 10, 2016)

I second the suggestions to review posts on Seat 61 and Flyertalk. There are likely to be entries on other English language travel forums such as Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor as well. Although it may not be obvious at first glance Youtube has become a travel blogging mecca and some blogs have become popular enough that their authors have managed to turn their experiences into a full time career.

Do keep in mind that while AU does a good job covering Amtrak questions many of us have only limited and/or intermittent experience with passenger rail beyond North America. Much of our shared knowledge is specific to US routes and a handful of Canadian trains. I'd imagine most of us know as much about riding Russian trains as a domestic Russian forum would know about the specifics of riding Amtrak trains.


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## v v (Nov 10, 2016)

Thanks both, I have already been into (and found good information) on Seat 61 but will try Flyertalk. I knew it was a long shot but also knew there are members here who travel outside the US and was hoping to get lucky with that small piece of information I'm missing, and I like this forum a lot so an opportunity to be here.

The problem is that there is a Chinese passenger train that crosses the border north of Harbin, but as I want to travel from Russia to China it is proving difficult to locate how to buy tickets outside China. Also thought that there may be another route relatively near to Vladivostok (within a day's travel) that I have missed completely (bus is possible but wanted to travel by train), ah well.

I did ask Russian Rail and they can only offer a 3 day return down the line in the Moscow direction before taking the train through Mongolia to China, but we hate going back over ground we have just travelled. They knew of the cross border train, that it existed but had no purposeful information on it including how to buy tickets.

I guess this is the challenge of being slightly off the beaten track, but I will pursue this using your suggestions.


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## bretton88 (Nov 10, 2016)

RealRussia is the place to go for train tickets.


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## Gemuser (Nov 11, 2016)

I travelled Helsinki-St Petersburg-Moscow-Vladivostok in 2010 and would be happy to answer any question.

Can't help you with getting to China by train as I believe the only rail connection goes via North Korea.

Another possibility is the ferry from Vladivostok to Japan.

There are many other aspects to this trip we could discuss.

Allen


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## tp49 (Nov 11, 2016)

v v said:


> We're trying not to have to fly out but use a train or bus to get into northern China (Harbin), it's proving difficult to work out how to do it. There is a ferry to S. Korea but we will be heading to Taiwan and would prefer to use rail through China to get there.


Worst case if you wind up having to fly IIRC there's a flight from Vladivostok to Harbin or to Beijing. If you're heading through China to Taiwan by rail would you be thinking of ending up in Xiamen and taking the ferry to Kinmen (Taiwan) then the domestic hop from Kinmen into Taipei?


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## v v (Nov 11, 2016)

Thanks again, but this is just the start of our planning so no detail in place apart from an approximate departure date from London or Paris of the second week of March. We may also be travelling with others so we are a little more circumspect of taking maybe a tough bus ride (in the Siberian winter). Having only just returned from the US we are still sorting out and catching up, but I did hear of this mystery train north of Vladivostok and it has fired the imagination. If it's difficult to do then it makes it even more interesting.

We are soon off on a business trip for 10 days and will only have erratic internet, but will follow all the recommendations on here over the next few days.

Allen, thank you for that kind offer, I'd like to ask questions of you as I get closer to the detail. Would you prefer I post here (so others can read) or pm you?

tp49, not sure but I think that's about the very rough plan. We are headed initially to Kaohsiung City to meet up with someone we met on the Californian Zephyr (knew I could get an Amtrak mention in here somewhere!) and then spent time together in San Francisco, after that we explore a little of Taiwan then fly back to Europe.

By the way, we are looking to travel as much as possible on a tight budget. We are not wealthy but do spend all our spare cash on travel as one day we wont have the energy, ability or will to travel so frequently.

Thanks


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## Ziv (Nov 11, 2016)

I did the Trans-Siberian twice and had GREAT results using Monkey Shrine to book the Tickets and hotels. I went through Beijing though so your results may differ.


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## v v (Nov 11, 2016)

Another good looking source, thank you


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## Gemuser (Nov 12, 2016)

V V, which ever way suits you is OK by me.

Allen


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## v v (Dec 15, 2016)

OK, we're back and have started booking parts of the journey. It is not going to be the journey we imagined in every detail but it does include Moscow to Vladivostok and then to Taiwan.

So far ~ London - Brussels - Cologne - Berlin - Warsaw - Kiev - Moscow - Vladivostok - Kaohsiung City - Taipei

We have friends joining us up until Moscow and then we travel on alone on the 002 Rossiya to Vladivostok . Have already booked from London to Berlin but can't book any trains after that as the tickets are not yet available, more available in 5 days time.

Have spent some time using Seat 61 to check on ticket sources, there are major differences from company to company for the same journey. From London as far as Warsaw all tickets have/will be bought directly via Deutsche Bahn via their English language website The savings compared to Rail Europe/SNCF/Polrail are enormous providing it is done soon after the tickets are available. Within Poland it's difficult not to use Polrail as the site works very well but is expensive.

From Kiev to Moscow we are using RZD which is Russian Railways which is not the same as Russian Rail, again Russian Rail and Real Russia are at least a third more expensive than RZD although the RZD website (also in English) is a bit quirky, but with some patience and time working out why certain things happen it works pretty good.

Sorry can't post links on this forum as there is a problem from both France and the UK with our computers, mentioned this in the past.

From Vladivostok we will now fly via Hong Kong to Taiwan and will fly out of Taipei. Intend to travel on the Taiwan high speed train between Kaohsiung City and Taipei. From Taipei we don't know which direction yet but should know within 2 weeks. Our hoped for direction is to Los Angeles, Sunset Limited to New Orleans then onto either Orlando or Miami with Greyhound to fly back to London, but we may fly west via Thailand for a short first look as have had friends rave about the people there, we'll see.

There are two smaller problems that have occurred in planning so far. UK (and other) passport holders have to have a transit visa for Belarus, a visitors visa for Russia and a visitors visa for China. If we had Real Russia arrange these for us it is quite a lot of money but worse we have to remain in the UK for up to 4 weeks as each visa must follow the other as our passports are required. At this time of year we are very busy with work and that takes us out of the UK for a few weeks at a time so can't afford 4 continuous weeks in the UK between now and the end of February when we start on this journey.

To overcome part of this we could fly London to Moscow but we want to train, so travelling via Ukraine is the answer to not applying for the Belarus visa as we don't need a Ukraine visa. We have read that Kiev is an interesting and beautiful city so worth the day stopover we will have there.

The Chinese visa is plain expensive and time consuming, and as this was not exactly the trip we had intended we are over flying China.

The second minor problem is transport to Vladivostok airport from Vladivostok city center. There are 3 options, train, bus and taxi but none are heavily recommended. Cab would be easiest but may not be the budget option, train is supposed to be good but also read somewhere that it stopped running and started again so maybe not reliable? The bus station is way outside the city so I've read.

These are small things to overcome so we'll see.

Have found out why there is confusion as to how long the Trans Siberian takes, 6 days or 7. It is 144 hours on the Rossiya but there is a 7 hour time difference between the two cities. So technically it's 6 days exactly but in travel time adjusting for time zones it's 6 days and 7 hours. It is a funny system as all Russian railways work on Moscow time only so the further east you go the more out of sync you are with daylight.

That's it so far and sure to have a few questions for the experienced Russian rail travellers here.


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## Steve4031 (Dec 16, 2016)

Keep us posted. Good luck.


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## Long Train Runnin' (Dec 16, 2016)

Gemuser said:


> I travelled Helsinki-St Petersburg-Moscow-Vladivostok in 2010 and would be happy to answer any question.
> 
> Can't help you with getting to China by train as I believe the only rail connection goes via North Korea.
> 
> ...



Rail travel via North Korea is a no go for someone traveling on an American Passport. Trust me I tried everything I could to go via Beijing to Pyongyang by rail, but it is a hard and fast rule. From all of the agencies I contacted before I ultimately visited North Korea it was very clear there was no chance I was going to do it by rail. When I was in Pyongyang they wouldn't even let me go inside the rail station there once I was on the ground. The compromise they cooked up was allowing us to drive slowly past it, but stopping and visiting was totally out of the question. If you have an EU passport then it is no problem at all to travel by rail into and through parts of the DPRK, but with an American passport the only rail you are riding inside of North Korea is a cog railway up a mountain outside of Pyongyang or a maximum of 5 stops on the Pyongyang Metro. I will note that no foreigners are allowed to ride Line 2 of the metro regardless of passport they say Line 2 goes through "sensitive areas".


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## Barciur (Dec 19, 2016)

v v said:


> Have spent some time using Seat 61 to check on ticket sources, there are major differences from company to company for the same journey. From London as far as Warsaw all tickets have/will be bought directly via Deutsche Bahn via their English language website The savings compared to Rail Europe/SNCF/Polrail are enormous providing it is done soon after the tickets are available. Within Poland it's difficult not to use Polrail as the site works very well but is expensive.
> 
> From Kiev to Moscow we are using RZD which is Russian Railways which is not the same as Russian Rail, again Russian Rail and Real Russia are at least a third more expensive than RZD although the RZD website (also in English) is a bit quirky, but with some patience and time working out why certain things happen it works pretty good.


Ok, can you tell me how are you doing this? The only option on the RZD website I see for Kiev to Moscow train is online buying of a ticket which will have to be picked up in RUSSIA, which would be impossible for you. If that is not hte case, let me know, but I want to make sure you're good on this. If we confirm this to be true, I can point you to a different website which will be cheaper than English-based proxies.

Let me know and also let me know how much the Warsaw - Kiev ticket is. I may be able to point you to something different, depending on your preferences and time constraints as well as what you like. I think Lviv is a lot nicer to see than Kiev, and there could be an option to do that.


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## v v (Dec 19, 2016)

Warsaw to Kiev from PolRail comes out at 2072 PLN / Zloty for 4 people travelling in 2 x 2 berth compartments. There are 1, 2 and 3 berth compartments available. It's the 16:50 sleeper train that we will take, arriving in Kiev at 09:22. We'll be arriving in Warsaw at 15:00 from Berlin that same day. Our date of travel will be 28 February 2017.

Kiev to Moscow sleeper train when bought through RZD (when logged in) shows under 'passenger information' the possibility of buying E Tickets. I also read somewhere but can't find now that the trains with E Tickets available should have 3P under the train number, and the Kiev - Moscow sleeper doesn't.

Thanks for trying to help, hope others here can get something from this.


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## Barciur (Dec 19, 2016)

Right, so this does not support electronic registration which is e-tickets. I tried booking a ticket for another day but I am not seeing any information about the possibility of buying e-tickets. But I did book trains inside Russia from the website and there should have been a box already ticked there at some point. So I am afraid this might not work and you might have to go through different channels.

As for your Warsaw - Kiev train - sounds good, as long as there is no major delay from Germany. I have taken this train once and it was pretty decent, although not as comfortable as Russian/Ukrainian older cars, as this one has beds on top of each other rather than next to each other. They used ot have 4-berth compartment wagons on those trains but they do not meet the EU standards for something so they can't travel inside the EU any more.

This definitely seems like the best way to go for you. You're also not really getting screwed* as much* on PolRail - 2 berth compartment for Kiev-Warsaw costs about €95-€100 per person, so with 2072 PLN you get €460 - that's €15 commission per ticket, something to live with for a train that you just CAN'T buy tickets elsewhere - they are not available online, even for Polish or Ukrainian customers.

The reason I asked is because there is a cheaper train albeit not from Warsaw and more interesting way of getting to Kiev, but this is just your way of trying to get there and you have a decent connection so no bother. I will be definitely looking forward to hearing about your trip and reading your travel report!

Also - good job on not choosing the Belarus train - it would be faster, but there might be problems, as the Russians are not allowing EU citizens to cross the Belarus-Russia border at this point, so you could run across serious issues if you elected to go that way.


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## v v (Dec 20, 2016)

In truth compared to UK long distance or many UK train fares the Polrail prices are quite reasonable, but...

I initially ran a comparison between Deutsche Bahn and Polrail for the journey between Berlin and Warsaw, in GBP the prices were for the same train DB - £100 and Polrail - £208. I accept that DB have special offers at the opening of the ticket window and these offers may be very special, also that the Polrail website is very simple to use and in good English, plus the price for 4 adults in 2 x 2 berth sleepers on a 16 1/2 hour journey for 460 € is a good price, but my initial reaction to the Polrail price being more than double of the DB price for the same journey on the same day on the same train was how expensive they were as a company. Think I must not jump to too many conclusions in future and just research more.

Barciur, thank you for pointing out the issue with RZD and E Tickets, I hadn't picked that up as I started with RZD looking at their offerings on the Trans Siberian trains where E Tickets are the norm, and then went back to the Kiev - Moscow train as an after thought. I was hoping to use the Ukraine website to book Kiev - Moscow but found navigating around that not so straight forward. Again made an assumption that RZD had the same policy for international trains as for their domestic ones, more research needed.

Thanks to everybody for their input, will be back later with more questions.


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## Barciur (Dec 20, 2016)

Right. I e-mailed PolRail out of curiousity and they quoted me for Kiev - Warsaw single ticket as the same as the official price + 16 PLN for shipping. BUt I did e-mail them in Polish, maybe there is a difference.

As for DB and Polish difference, yes, differences are large - DB has different promos than do DB and maybe PolRail are just quoting the full price which is exchangable and refundable, whereas the promo fares are not. And the Promo fares are only available through Deutsche Bahn if coming from Germany and not a round trip.

As for the Ukrainian train, here's what you will find useful.

https://e-kvytok.kiev.ua/en/gd

On this website you can buy a ticket from Kiev to Moscow. This site is in good English and will provide you with Ukrainian tickets. Once you buy them, you get an e-mail confirmation and you have to exchange the e-mail you receive for actual tickets at the train station. This is not a problem, however, or not a big one - you have up until 15 minutes before departure to exchange them, but I wouldn't wait that long  Usually takes me 30-45 minutes to do this because often the ticket agent windows aren't market well, some have a break, you get stuck in line etc. But I bought tickets for Ukrainian trains through this website and I can definitely recommend this.


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## v v (Dec 20, 2016)

Barciur, you just beat me to it although with another company, UZ the national rail Co. Must thank you for taking the trouble, the Kvytok website is very easy to use and has some extra pieces of information too.

Earlier went back to Ukraine Rail (UZ), persevered but couldn't find a method of entering Moscow into the destination box even though I used 4 different spellings of Moscow. Contacted the email address given and after a bit of helpful to-ing and fro-ing got the correct spelling 'Moskva' for their website. It still didn't work as it needs either 4 letters to self fill the box or you type in the entire station name ' Moskva Kievskaia ' and then delete the last one or sometimes 2 letters and the self filling box will appear for you to click.

The UZ tried very hard to help and was very impressed, most but not all of the information shown on the Kvytok site is shown too and the tickets are just under 2€ cheaper so absolutely nothing in it. It appears that both companies need the tickets to be collected at Kiev Pass station but we have nearly 10 hours in Kiev so that is no problem at all.

Tickets for our departure date are available in 21 days time, can't wait.


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## Barciur (Dec 20, 2016)

Great. Glad that you got this figured out now!

On a side note, this might be the last time to travel on the Warsaw - Kiev train, as there are talks of getting rid of those sleeper cars as early as June. So glad you're still getting into it - make sure you take some pictures 

You will also be passing through my home town, Lublin, which you may or may not recall from some of my trip reports that I have done in the past. Wave for me


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## v v (Dec 21, 2016)

Have now booked the Warszawa to Kyiv journey for the 28 February using Polrail, very simple but no e-tickets so having to courier them to us. I'll do my best with photos of the Kiev Express sleeper and have noted that we pass Lublin at 7:20 pm so all set.

Do you know if there are any food shops directly outside Warszawa Centralna station as the 16 1/2 hour sleeper journey has no catering at all.

Thanks for all your help, very much appreciated


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## Barciur (Dec 21, 2016)

Yes. As you get off the train, you are on a platform underground. Escalators take you into passages of stores - cafes, bars, restaurants etc. There is also a large shopping mall adjacent to the station. Just check on one of the departures boards which platform you are getting back to so there is no stress and hassling later on. But there is plenty of things, also there is a supermarket upstairs in the main hall - there are steps leading to it and then once you're on ground level there are still steps and you should see a name BIEDRONKA somewhere - that's the supermarket, if that is what you want. It is a discount supermarket so they might not have a lot like a normal Tesco etc. would, but that should suffice. 

Enjoy your trips! Can't wait for your report and you are welcome for the help - if you have any further questions hit us up, somebody will probably know.


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## v v (Dec 22, 2016)

Biedronka is perfect, have 1 h 50 min between arriving from Berlin to leaving for Kiev so a supermarket in the station is just what we need, thank you again.


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## v v (Dec 29, 2016)

Questions for Gemuser and Ziv (or anyone else who has travelled the Trans Sib)

What class did you travel?

Was it a good choice?

Would you travel the same class again?

Did you travel end to end without getting off for a layover somewhere?

What time of year did you travel?

Thank you


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## ScouseAndy (Dec 29, 2016)

I did trans Mongolia in Kupe class ~ I broke my journey in Irkutsk and Ulan Bator before ending in Beijing

If I was doing it again I'd still stop in Irkutsk but the only think I'd change would be that I'd swerve Ulan Bator and Mongolia full stop and save the additional visa costs etc.

Kupe class was fine I shared the journey to Irkutsk with a Russian submariner based in the Artic Circle who was going to see family in Irkutsk all the way, the other berths had a 2 Russian on the 1st night who kept them selves to themselves travelling on business. When they got off an English couple in their 60s took there berth who had sold everything they owned and where travelling to Australia overland to live with their son.

I travelled in September and autumn had just started.


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## v v (Dec 29, 2016)

Enjoyed your story about your travelling companions Andy, that's what it's about for us, meeting people while watching the world go by from a train window.

Have read up a little about meals and how the dining car is rarely used by most, how did you get on with it? Are the babushkas on the station platforms frequent enough to supplement the dining car and whatever you take with you?

Last question for now. We are packing very light indeed and haven't as yet seen whether there are towels supplied in Kupe class, what was your experience?

Thanks for the info it's all appreciated, believe there's a big game on tomorrow (Saturday) somewhere.


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## Ziv (Dec 31, 2016)

v v, I took the Trans-Sib in late fall and January, and January was stunning. The snow and the woods were just un-ending. Late fall was ok but I missed the leaves changing color. (I think it was late fall because I can't remember the exact date and I can't remember green trees. I don't remember the month but I would bet that every month has something going for it.)

I don't think there was a towel in my compartment. There is no shower for 2nd Class cars/kupes, so the towel would be a bit less needed. I used a medium sized travel towel and washed up at the common sink every morning. It dried pretty quickly both winter and fall, the air in the train is fairly dry but not bone dry.

I went 2nd Class Hard Sleeper, which is a form of Kupe like Scouse Andy mentions. It is a 4 berth room with nice sized beds and a table that can be set up. 2nd Class Soft Sleeper costs more but is only slightly larger. I don't think hard or soft mean anything about the beds just about the level of space that you get. In kupe you usually have 4 people to start with and then frequently you end up with just 2 or 3 people for the part of the trip from Irkutsk to Moscow.

Deluxe 1st Class in really cool, it has just 2 beds, one up, one down, a table and a little seat PLUS it has en suite sink, shower and if memory serves, a toilet. But I am not sure about the toilet. But I really lusted after that shower on day 4 and day 5! 1st Class is worth the extra money! The share toilet was always clean for the short time we were in China, but shortly after we got to Russia it got kind of bad the first trip and the second trip it was really filthy.

The cafe car was good in China, and not that expensive. In Russian the soups and the borscht were pretty good, the other meals were kind of hit or miss. It seems like each of us found a dish we liked but they ran out of those dishes 2 days out of Moscow. Maybe we were supposed to tip/bribe them more? Not sure.

Tip the provodnik to lock your compartment when you are out shopping for food and beer during the stops. I never lost anything but the people I traveled with said that theft was fairly common if you didn't lock up.

We ate a lot of smoked fish and sausage, and drank a decent amount of beer. I brought about 4 Japanese ramen containers, 2 little red gouda cheeses and 2 dehydrated chile meals I got at a hiking store in Beijing. I cut small bits of sausage or smoked fish into the ramen containers before I hit the samovar/hot water machine. I don't think it was an actual tea samovar, it was just nearly boiling water which was really handy. The chile meals were supposedly enough for 2 people but they were small and cost about $9US each, which seemed larcenous, but I wished I had had more of them after they ran out. The gouda cheeses were a great change of pace.

I brought a 3 piece tea container with a tea leaf mesh container on top so I could pour the hot water over the tea leaves and then fill it so the leaves were steeping. Then I unscrewed and removed the part of the container with the tea leaves in it, leaving a half liter of brewed tea. These tea containers were really popular in China but I haven't seen them/noticed them anywhere else. Tea is huge in China, obviously, and every friendly traveler seems to have a special blend that they think is the perfect tea.

My first time on the Trans-Sib was during the winter and I traveled with a Canadian guy and a Nordic couple that were traveling 1st Class. The Canadian guy and I ran into the "business men" who were traveling from Beijing to the Russian Border. I don't think they all deal drugs, I think they carry stuff that is only marginally illegal, but there were a lot of them. That trip was kind of cool for the people we traveled with. In my kupe there was a woman that ran an orphanage in Ulaan Bataar and a Russian "business man". We also met 6 Russian commercial models, which was very cool! The funny thing is that they boarded wearing their make up and I didn't recognize them later that day when I saw them without the make up. And we met a couple Russian young men who were traveling to Israel to be security guys outside Israeli cafes in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. This was back in the really bad days, and the idea was that these bouncers would be trained to identify potential suicide bombers and they were to do their best (I am not sure if they were armed or not) to keep the terrorists from getting the bombs into the cafes or near the outside seating areas. I don't know if they were pulling our leg, but the other Russians seemed to take them at their word and it was apparently a relatively common way to work for a year or two and save a lot of money. The Russians that didn't like the idea called them a word they translated as "catchers". Which kind of gives you an idea of why they didn't like the job. If you catch a bomber just before the bomb goes off...

I got to help the lady that ran the orphanage carry 24 boxes of fruit from the last stop in China to the train. That was kind of cool. Apparently fruit is super expensive in Mongolia.

The second trip I traveled with a couple from Germany, and we were three in the kupe after a Russian guy left at the border of Russia. That trip I stopped off at Irkutsk, the trip to Lake Baikal took about an hour, but it was well worth it! Very cool stay, the Buryat people are very nice hosts, and they love to talk about Lake Baikal and their own history!

On the Trans-Sib, food was really important, booze nearly as important and books/kindles were right up there as well. We played cards a lot, we took unending photos, almost none of which are worth a hoot, and we drank a LOT of tea.


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## v v (Dec 31, 2016)

Well Ziv, what to say, in total admiration of your descriptions of living on the Tans Sib.

You have now created a problem for us, the draw of meeting all those people by travelling Kupe class is enormous, it's our kind of travelling. The fact that you swooned over 1st class travel makes us think, decisions, decisions. If you were to make a 3rd Trans Sib journey what class would you pick?

After reading the info and descriptions we can't wait, any more reflections on journeys taken or basic info on using these trains gratefully received.

Hope we all have a very happy New Year in 2017, and thank you AU forum


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## Gemuser (Jan 1, 2017)

We travelled in a tour group. I don't know the name of the class but it was the 4 berth compartment coach, not the dormitory style coach on regular everyday trains.

We had no problems with it, although we shared it with an english speaking couple so didn't have language problems that some fellow travellers did.

I'd do it again

We stoped only at Irkutsk and spent one night there and one night in a small village on the shores of Lake Baikal.

That was our only complaint, we did not make enough stops nor & the Irkutsk stop was not long enough to ride the Port Baikal Railway.

We traveled in August 2010 and were 6-7 days on the train [some train times were all over the clock as trains run on Moscow time].

One point to note, especially for the ladies, there are no washing facilities on the trains other than the hand basin in the toilets. The cars were not always in top mechanical condition and we ran out of toilet paper 2 days out of Vladivostok, but we never ran out of tea!


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## v v (Jan 2, 2017)

Thanks Allen, interesting to hear of the priorities, tea or toilet paper. All good information and best of all from paying customers too.

Our choice of which class to use has been made up for us as our friend from Taiwan wants to make this journey too so she is flying to Berlin to join us there. We decided to use the 2nd class 4 berth Kupe car to travel together so we'll see who we get as a 4th travelling companion.

Tickets for our Trans Sib travel dates are released later this week and having noticed there is a 10% +/- discount on the first few days/weeks of the tickets being on sale so will book immediately they are available. We are going to use the Russian Railways English language ticket booking system (RZD) as it is substantially less than any of the agencies, but of course if we get a problem we wont have the back up of an agency with good English speakers. But there again if travel was all about having everything under control there wouldn't be any surprises...


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## v v (Jan 8, 2017)

An update on purchasing tickets for the Trans Siberian online.

We have our tickets in 2 parts, they are both in English and the ticket that will get us on board is in Russian with some (enough) English translations. Buying turned out to be a saga though as all through the ticket buying process for the whole journey we have tried to buy directly from the train company and not agents, in the main it was successful but not always.

RZD the Russian Railways operating company have a good English language website, with a little practice it was very useable. They were priced the lowest and had the most up to the minute information on availability of tickets. At the end of the purchase section there is a page for paying for the tickets with regular credit or debit cards, it only needs translating as it's all in Russian. Over 2 days we tried 14 times with 4 different cards to buy these tickets but to no avail, 14 times we were told our bank had refused payment, now the 4 cards are with 3 different banks and all have more than enough funds to buy these tickets several times over.

We phoned our banks 5 times, two conversations were very long as interested agents also wanted to understand what was happening too. It turns out that the clearing house Visa okayed all the payments but the payments were never taken. More than this we don't know or understand. I also wrote to RZD on 4 occasions and they tried very hard to explain that they understood the system and described how payment was taken but had no idea either.

At this point we are desperate as the GBP is falling in value by the day (tickets were priced in Roubles) and these tickets are quite popular, we also wanted to get the 3 of us travelling into the same compartment. So took a look at the ticket selling agencies, the mark-up is very varied indeed. There are 3 companies who may be one and the same, Russian Rail, Russian Train, and Trans Siberian Express, all are based in St Petersburg. There is also Real Russia among others who are based in London (along with our banks) but their mark-up was nearly the highest but had to say they appear to operate a very efficient service, at a price.

We went for Trans Siberian Express only because on asking the 3 companies the same simple question they gave the answer that made most sense.

Went through their ticket purchase procedure which is quite straight forward, used the card we had used most and had failed most with RZD, bingo, payment made and all documentation sent to us within minutes. There were explanations with the documents and directions of what to do. Asking a further question after purchase their response was fast and complete with good information. We are happy and relieved ticket buyers and can on our experience heavily recommend Trans Sib Express.

Hope this helps others in the future.

28/01/2017 Update on ticket purchase problems - The company Trans Siberian Express have an office in St Petersburg, Russia, but payment was taken in euros to Riga, Latvia where they may have their head office? This has allowed them to ease the problem of making a card payment of any sort directly into Russia it appears.


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## ScouseAndy (Jan 9, 2017)

1st time I booked I used Real Russia agency as they also arranged my visa's.

Subsequently now I have contacts in Russia they buy tickets for me and I wire the money over.

Some hotels (and perhaps hostels) in Irkutsk will arrange tickets for a smaller mark up then the main agencies.


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## v v (Jan 9, 2017)

Thanks Andy, that's good to know for the future.


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## v v (Jan 31, 2017)

Today have completed the ticket jigsaw of what has morphed from a Moscow to Vladivostok train journey to a round the world set of travels, the last piece was the Kiev to Moscow sleeper train.

As we had a lot of difficulty trying to pay for the Trans Sib tickets from RZD (Russia State Rail) I wanted to use the Ukraine State Railway website as there are similarities in the way they operate. The Ukraine Railways have an English language website at www.uz.gov.ua click on the English tab at the top, then on Passengers which will bring up all the options. It's a very easy site to use but it's best using their version of town and city names, for example Kiev = Kyiv and Moscow = Moskva. Have to say the Russian RZD site was also easy to use too.

Booked the sleepers we required, went to the payment page and dreading clicking the PAY button after the experience with RZD. Clicked pay, completion of the transaction was super fast and we had our ticket collection document, this is not a ticket.

We can either present this document in Kyiv Pas station at a ticket collection window or find an automat and print our tickets ourselves. We have 9 1/2 hours between trains in Kyiv so plenty of time to use the system we want.

The Ukraine English language ticket purchase website was as slick as any other we have used, loved the little boxes you can tick when buying the tickets to order 1 tea or 2 teas per person, let you know later how that works.

We are using 9 sets of tickets on 11 main line train journeys in various countries, the most difficult train for us to catch is the first one from our home in Essex, England to St Pancras International, London! For 10 weeks there are major works on this line every weekend for 10 weeks, in effect the line is closed. The works frequently over-run on Monday mornings and we have to catch the first train on Monday morning! That is for a 40 mile train ride into Liverpool Street before catching the London Tube round to St Pancras. We decided that we will travel late the night before and hope we can sit in Starbucks at the station until our Eurostar leaves early 06:55 on Monday 27 February, only 26 days away.

We have brought this journey forward 1 year as having seen the rapid changes in the UK, the USA and soon to come France, Holland and Germany we are not sure how easy it will be to move around the world as it is at the present. This has led to us taking only about 2 1/2 months to put all arrangements in place of the more leisurely 6-8 months we would usually take, and it does all feel a bit rushed have to say.

That said, all tickets are bought and paid for, friends have invited us if we were passing near, and we are excited. We shall travel in some very different cultures and climates zones in one trip that have no connection to each other and for the first time for us, we do feel very fortunate being able to make this journey.


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## Barciur (Jan 31, 2017)

This is fantastic! Also, thanks to you I have found out that you are now able to book a ticket to Russia from UZ website, which was not the case as recently as the summer. This is clearly new so good stuff. However, there is no automats in Ukraine (at least as of this past summer) so in Kyiv you will have to go to the ticket office. Let us know how all that works! And let me know if they do in fact have ticket machines now that you can change your paper ticket into! That'd be great.

Anyway, very excited for you as well and looking forward to your detailed trip report! If you have pictures of any of the tickets, do post them! Always looking for tickets!

So what is your full itienary? Would you care to tell us exact trains/times you are taking them?


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## v v (Feb 1, 2017)

Thanks for your encouragement Barciur, I'll publish our detailed route a little later.

Most of the tickets we have are e-tickets but a few are physical tickets. Is it the schedule you want to see or the look of the ticket?


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## Barciur (Feb 1, 2017)

In terms of the tickets I am interested in the way the tickets look like, the schedule I'd be satisfied with just text version  So whatever physical stuff you might have I'll be very interested in seeing! Especially the Ukrainian ticekt to Moscow which you will get in Kiev, but of course that will not come until later  Thanks and good luck!


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## v v (Feb 4, 2017)

Now made most of the arrangements for our Trans Siberian train journey so have started a new thread with the build up and actuality of what happens, it's at :-

*The Accidental Round the World Trip*

Thanks for all the input here, as always a great help


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## v v (Feb 13, 2017)

Have a question for all those that have travelled on the Trans Sib ~ Ziv, Andy and Allen.

Tea is mentioned a lot and we are champion tea drinkers. Is there tea on board or should we bring it with us? and if it's on board is it black tea and is it loose or tea bags?

Part 2. Is it possible to get milk on board, can we say buy it from the restaurant or are there small sealed tubs available on the train or to buy in Moscow? If there's no milk available, did you all drink black tea?

Of course this is one of the more important aspects of this journey so hope someone can help us out.

Thanks


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## ScouseAndy (Feb 14, 2017)

I drank black tea and whilst it was available at a price intermittently (when they came round with the trolley) I brought a box of tea bags with me from the UK along with some instant cappuccino sachets and cup a soups as there is free hot water available 24-7

Out east fresh Milk is hard to come by and I hate sterilised milk since returning I discovered 3 months free of lactose resulted in me losing my torrelence to diary products and I'm now lactose free


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## v v (Feb 14, 2017)

Thanks Andy. Did you see any form of milk available on the platforms or the train?


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## caravanman (Feb 14, 2017)

Maybe take with you a small amount of milk powder / coffee creamer?

Ed


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## Ziv (Feb 16, 2017)

I would bring my own tea and packets of sugar. There were little kiosks with milk and stuff.


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## Ziv (Feb 16, 2017)

The kiosks were at the larger city stops, not on the train. And I would bring dehydrated food too. The hot water from the samovar on each car is perfect for Ramen or dehydrated chili.


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## v v (Feb 17, 2017)

Thanks Ed, Rosie had milk powder in hand so we're covered for a while. We'll also be taking mucho Yorkshire teabags too certainly enough for a week or so on the train.

Good to hear that milk is sometimes available from kiosks, what do Russians use on cereals? Ruth is bringing dried noodles and stuff from Taiwan, sounds like we could have a party as I'm taking some French wine... yes we are supposed to be travelling light.

Thanks again Ziv


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## v v (Feb 19, 2017)

In the event that one of the Trans Sib riders reads this I'd like to ask a silly question, does the Rossiya have a train whistle?

For both of us the most evocative part of any Amtrak or US freight train is the whistle, whether we are on-board or driving near a rail line. Every time we start an Amtrak journey it's always hearing the first whistle that adds that bit of anticipation and excitement, that we really are on another Amtrak train.

So being curious I was wondering if there is a Russian version of the Amtrak whistle?


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## ScouseAndy (Feb 20, 2017)

IIRC the train horn will sound to give notice of pending departure from stations but don't think this will give you time to run back to the platform, the notice given at times is hardly enough time for the steps to be raised and the doors secured so make sure you don't venture to far away from your carriage


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## caravanman (Feb 20, 2017)

I think Russians use vodka instead of milk on their breakfast cereals, you can try wine I guess... 

Bon Voyage!

Ed


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