Day Trip - The Train

Life in Konakovo can get, if not boring, samey. It is not a big town and options are limited to the market, cafe and Volga. So a day trip to Moscow is a welcome opportunity to escapes it's confines and get a shot of civilization for a day.

The train, an electric train run off overhead cables called surprisingly "the elektrtishski" runs frequently to Moscow. The one we want leaves at 7:25 on Sunday mornings. The beauty of the Russian train system is that the trains do actually run exactly on time, not one minute late or early. Growing up in England 7:25am meant anytime before lunch, so this is a wonderful experience. For this daytrip we have Steve, Scott, Dave, Tom and Tanya and of course myself who organizes, translates and generally makes sure we get there and back and have a good time. Taxis are ordered and we all meet at the station at the appropriate time. Tickets are purchased, one way, for 226 rubles, and we are good to go. The train is not exactly luxurious the seats are plastic or wooden benches which numb your backside after about 30 minutes, but getting up and walking about a bit helps. The train takes two and a half hours so a book and ipod is essential for the early part of the journey, later on as more people get on board and the train vendors start to operate people watching makes the time pass quickly.

There is only one class on the train, but there are three classes of passenger. There are those passengers who actually purchase a ticket, like ourselves, we are in the minority. There are those people who pay on the train, the ticket checkers come by three times on the journey, they charge a non ticket holder 50 rubles each time so a total of 150 rubles a significant saving of 76 rubles. Then there are the non payers, as the ticket checkers make their way down the train, people get up out of their seats and start to walk ahead of them, eventually this becomes a herd of humans moving up the train. Eventually one of two things happen, at an appropriate station they will run out of the train back down the platform and enter the train again behind the ticket checkers, this is a risky business and only for the young and fit, those who are unable to do this end up in the last compartment where they are locked in. They are then let out at Moscow, without paying, and just left to go on their way! It really is a tremedous transport system, run on the pay as you are able basis.

Anyway we are on the train, if not exactly hurtling to Moscow, making good progress. Unlike the Metro system where one takes a vow of silence to enter it, people chat and talk freely on the elektrishki. Soon our accents and language give us away and a group of three teeneagers come over, nervously, to investigate. "Whare are we from?" What are we doing here?" When we explain that we are from America, Australia and UK they look at us in disbelief. When we explain to them further that we work in Russia and that we enjoy it, they are incredulous. They look like life has played a very cruel joke on them, all they want to do is get out of Russia and here are foreigners living and working here, in Russia, who enjoy it! Once over the shock, they chat about their lives, they are students, on a day trip to Klin, a large town about an hour from Konakovo, they learnt English at school but only can remember a little, they love all things Western and would love to live in the USA. They ask us if we have seen JayZ, Snoop Dog, or Fifty Cent, we ask do they mean on TV or what, they say "No, just walking around the place, have you seen them?" we have to reply "No" which seems to disappoint them somewhat and makes us wonder if they wonder wether we are for real or not!! They are good fun though, and we have a good chat to them as we approach Klin.

Klin is a large town on the road from Moscow to St Petersburg, it has an enormous glass factory, Europe's largest, and manufactures glass for skyscrapers. It is a large employee in the region and a close shopping center for Konakovites. Klin is a psychological waypoint, on the way to Moscow you have another one and a half hours to go, which does not seem too bad, on the way back you have one hour left which seems no time at all. The rush of endorphins does wonders for your bum, which by this time has completely lost any feeling, and settling a littel more comfortably on the seat you believe you can easily put up with the relative discomfort. The country stations come and go, the train stops at every station, the doors open, albeit briefly at the small stations and the announcers says, "stand clear the doors are closing" once closed the next station is announced and we are on our way.

The countryside is interesting, villages and dacha communities pass by, I love the dachas and imagine myself owning one. Just a small one, maybe two rooms a large garden, an outside toilet and a small banya. I would grow tomatos and some vegetables, onions of course, and green peppers. In the evenings other dacha owners would come over we would drink some vodka, eat pickles and fish, discuss our gardens; discuss our renovations or expansions to our dachas. Maybe I could build a goat shed, goats milk I love, this would attract more friends and livestock husbandry as well as agronomy would be discussed. This daydream actaully lasts for quite a long time and looking up I see the thickening approach of appartment blocks, we are approaching Zelonegrad on the outskirts of Moscow.

At this point, or maybe a little earlier, the train vendors start to appear. Selling all sorts of stuff they stand at the end of the compartment and give their pitch. First up is a very enthusiastic women selling cosmetics, she is able to hold every sample in one hand while pointing them out with the other, her "piece de resistance" is a leg cream that if you were to believe her would make the lame walk, unfortunately nobody buys anything and she moves on. Next up a guy selling train time tables and maps, his selling point is that he has had his photo, copied onto the front of his merchandise, he is not an overly handsome guy and a sunset or a tree would have been more effective, but I admire his salesmanship and buy a train time table for 15 rubles. Next we have three soldiers, one plays guitar, one sings and one has one leg missing, they are collecting money for their disabled mate and for others like him, they sing a soldier's song, not bad, and so we each give 10 rubles. Next we are treated to a guy selling flashlights, every type immaginable, he has a secret weapon, an amplifier strapped to his belt and a microphone sort of starpped to the side of his head, very enterprising, we can all hear him, but alas the demand for flashlights at 9:30 in the morning on the elektrshski to Moscow is not overwhelming. Finally we have the video and DVD seller, his lack of passion for the job is stark compared to his enterprising colleagues, he needs some training, we all agree. Voice projection, postutre and some flair in displaying his products could increase his turnover by 20%. I decide to go into the train vendors consulting business, as we pull into Leningradsky Vauxhall.

From Leningradsky we get onto the Metro system, the ticket we purchesed to get the elektrishski has a bar code on it which gets you free entrance to the Metro. Finally the non- payers meet their Waterloo as they have to line up for ever to get a 40 ruble pass to the Metro. The Moscow Metro has to be the most beautiful, effective, cleanest and cheapest metro I have ever had the pleasure to travel on. Firstly it is an architectural wonder, as we walk onto the platform at Komcomolskaya the golden chandeliers cast their yellow light over white and black marble. The mahogany benches are polished to a shine and the scale makes you feel like you are in a stadium. For 26 rubles you can travel anywhere on the Moscow Metro system, when you exit, if you want to get back on you buy another ticket, but all is electronic so you can puy a ticket with 4 trips, 6 trips whatever you want, each time you use it the electroic display at the terminal tells you how many more trips you have left on your ticket.

During the day and quite late into the evening a train runs every 90 seconds, you could actually spend the best part of a day travelling on the Metro looking at the great architecture and the statues and reliefs on the stations, for instance on Partizanskaya there are huge bronze statues depicting all aspects of Soviet life, the teacher at school. the mother, the worker, the soldier all working together in joyous harmony for the good of the Motherland.

We take the red line to the center, we get off at either Lybyanka, famous for its infamous prison during Soviet times, the building is still there, or at Teatralana close to the Bolshoi and Red Square. We spend the day in Moscow, the subject of my next blog, and catch the 8:55pm back to Konakovo. The journey is uneventful, we are all tired and ready to be home. During the summer I caught the train back one evening, it was unbearably hot, the windows in the compartment were open but provided no relief; an enterprising comrade managed to find two beer bottles, giving one to me, unfortunately it was empty, he explained how at the next station we would jam the beer bottles sideways between the closing doors. This effecting some serious airflow through the compartment by jamming the compartment doors open. This we accomplished and then in a totally unselfish act he encouraged all the occupants of the comaprtment, there were about ten, to sit in the seats nearest these doors. The air, though warm, whistled through the compartment, everybody was smiling wth relief, wiping sweat from their brows and necks they positioned themselves to get the maximum benefit. Me and the guy would get up at every station grabbed the beer bottles as the doors opened and then replaced them as they clsoed. Brilliant, Russian ingenuity at its finest, these people are definitely survivors!