v v, I took the Trans Sib twice, once in the winter and once in the summer and both were nice but the winter trip was the better of the two. The unending snowy forest was simply awe inspiring! I saw a hunter or two but it was just primeval in the empty vistas. When I was looking out the window of the train car, it seemed like it was just me, the snow and the birch trees. Even the apartment buildings by the side of the tracks were almost completely dark at night with only a few lights glowing.
How many billion Birch trees does that country have. After a while the vista you describe becomes mesmeric, how can any country be so vast. What about the train stations en route, all in different brightly painted colours.
We met a couple of young men from the city of Chita, a giant city in the middle of Siberia, one of the coldest places in Siberia. I think they said it was like living on an island. Our translator was a lovely 10 year old Russian girl who was Harry Potter mad and was learning English as fast as possible.
The lads (25-28 years old) were off to Vladivostok to buy a Japanese used car, it was a mere 3 days on the TransSib to Vlad and they were having a ball. In real life one owned a business the other was a surveyor, but on their 'holiday' thay acted like teenagers.
As I've mentioned for us it was the teeming life on the train with Russia passing the windows that was the draw. We nearly went back last year to vist central Siberia and Chita but Covid...
But the amount of time it takes to get from Beijing to Moscow is so LLLOOOONNNGG! I can't imagine doing Vladivostok to Moscow without at least one break. I stopped at Lake Baikal and it was very nice. Relaxing in the sauna after several days of train travel was a huge plus. On my non-stop summer trip everyone in my group somehow came to the mistaken conclusion that we were one day closer to Moscow that we actually were. Not good when we all realized we were a day further out than we had thought. Stopping off en route is a good thing.
I think we approached it as a challange, how would we feel doing that journey in one go. Three of us in our party and all very different, we all thought it was an amazing experience and 2 of us were actually disappointed to be leaving our moving home and the people we met on there, real withdrawal symptoms.
I used Monkey Shrine to get the visas and the tickets, and I recommend them. They saved me a ton of work.
Both trips I booked Soft Sleeper and ended up with 4 people on the first leg from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar and then had just one roomie in the 4 bed compartment for most of the rest of the trip. If I get to do it again, I will stop in Irkutsk again plus I will pony up the cash for the long leg and pay for a first class compartment with its own toilet, shared with just one other compartment. The toilets were the one irritating thing about the train, they get pretty dirty after a couple days.
And I would get more inventive with the dried foods I brought along. The samovar has boiling hot water so ramen is just the beginning. I hit a hiking goods store in Beijing for dehydrated food and though expensive they were worth it. I would definitely bring a tea mug with infuser built in to the mug. Some of the best conversations were with people about what they liked to add to their tea to make it the way they liked it. And I am a coffee guy normally.
We used three agencies, two for Russia and one for Poland, we travelled by train from London to Moscow the long way round including the Ukraine. The agencies can do things we mere mortals can't, sometimes at a price.
In the 3 cars we knew of the bathrooms were always immaculate, cleaned many times each day. There appeared to be a sense of national pride and duty in the way they approached it. The whole car and each compartment was vacuumed at least once each day, quite amazing.
These TransSib journeys really do leave a mark on you don't they, whichever route and whatever way you travel.
We just make do with regular matzah.
