The JaYmes Escape

“Everyone gets a stamp except me”, I sigh, feeling rather left out. It’s about 5.30am local time and I’ve just arrived at the Latvian border. My kupey companions on Latvian Railways train number 1, the? 15 hour Latvijas Ekspresis? (Latvian Express) from Moscow to Riga are Andrei, a Russian truck driver from Moscow, and Sergei and Natasha, two US citizens who seem to speak perfect Russian. Andrei is the only one of us who needs a visa to visit Latvia, despite the fact that he was born in Riga and his parents are buried here. The Americans get? automatic stamps and I, being a citizen of the glorious European Union,? just get a perfunctory glance at my passport. There is something slightly warm and? welcoming about? this though, especially as my passport’s been stamped everywhere I’ve been for the last? 20 months.

“Riga Krasiva (Riga is Beautiful)”, says Andrei, clearly excited to? be visiting? his birthplace and childhood home. He says he doesn’t like Moscow but when I ask him why he lives there he looks like he wants to cry and says, “Russia is my country”. History in this region is recent, harsh and understandably bitter,? but I can’t help feeling sorry for the poor guy. I doubt he was the one? sending Latvians to a slow death in the gulags of Siberia.

Back on the 2nd December 2004 I wrote that “Riga almost seems like coming home now”. The place has changed; things have moved on, the cobbled streets are somehow cleaner, the shop windows shinier and everything on sale much much pricier than it used to be, but this time it? certainly is the most familiar place I’ve been in months, and of course,? this is where it all began.

“Territoria Kremlin Zakrite”, says the sign in Russian script. This means the Kremlin is unexpectedly closed on my last day in Moscow. I try to ask a couple of people why, and they look at me as if I’d just insulted their parents. This is Russia; you don’t get reasons.

“Imbecile!”, I hear you cry, “Schoolboy error! Why did you leave the Kremlin to the last day?”. Well, clearly it was a mistake, but? hindsight is a wonderful thing - who would have known? I arrived on Monday; my last day was Friday. The Kremlin is always closed on Thursday. I didn’t feel I had enough time for it after I arrived on Monday, or after I got up late on Wednesday (that was the cheap vodka), and? on Tuesday I? spent the day in? Gorky Park and the New Tretkayov gallery.

Disappointed, I catch the metro to Arbat street and browse the souvenir stalls. Moscow seems to get a tough review from a lot of tourists and? I can understand why. It isn’t a particularly easy or welcoming place to travel, there’s no tourist information, hotels and restuarants are expensive, the police might? try to extort money from you, the capital simply doesn’t have the glamour or scale of St Petersburg, and, as I’ve discovered,? major attractions can be suddenly closed without reason or notice.

Despite all this, I’ve really enjoyed myself here. Maybe? my expectations were? really low,? maybe? I’m used? to the Russian way, or maybe I just like the vodka, but the idea of having to come back one day to see inside the Kremlin doesn’t fill me with horror. I’ve seen some amazing things here.? There is the stunning, if slightly run down, metro system with it’s chandeliers and intricate plasterwork, an array of dazzling architecture like? the former state department store, GUM. Lenin was clearly Lenin and clearly dead in his mausoleum, but as corpses go he was more recognisable than Ho Chi Minh and? St Basil’s is a wonderful and absolutely unique building both inside and out. Above all, there’s the sense of presence? I get from being here; it’s Moscow, one of the most historically powerful and instantly recgnisable? cities in the world.

The beautiful gold domes are receding behind me, and the rustic wooden houses are thinning out too. I’m not sure if I’m walking in the right direction, but a dark grey concrete jungle is coming into view on the right hand side of the road. I’m trying to remember this morning; I’d transferred from a bus to a mashrutka (minibus) at the bus station I’m now looking for. I remember it being pretty ugly, but this place looks hideous and derelict.

I walk around the back and? sure enough there are some ragged old buses standing on what clearly? used to be a large expanse of tarmac, but is now a large expanse of uneven dust and potholes. Clusters of people are sitting around chatting on a couple of rotting benches. Knowing the routine, I head? for the haggard double doors to see where I can buy a ticket; there are two sets of doors to negotiate and the space between them smells strongly of urine.? More people? are sitting on dilapidated plastic? chairs inside.

“Vladimir, Sledyushya (next)”, I say to the woman at the ticket window, hoping that I won’t have too long to wait. I? hand over 30 roubles (£0.60, US$1.10) and she scrawls ‘19:00′ and ‘26′ on the ticket. It’s 18:05, so I have to hang around this hell-hole for the best part of an hour, but? at least I? will have a seat (number 26). It’ll be a haggard old local bus with the seat numbers scrawled onto the wall, but sitting is definitely better than standing for an hour, particularly as it seems to be the law in Russia that buses absolutely must be packed to the eyeballs at all times. As I have time to spare, I decide? to? visit the bus station? toilet.? This turns out to be an extremely bad idea. I can see why people might find the space between the sets of doors preferable.

I’ve just visited the beautiful town of Suzdal, a fairy-tale collection of domed cathedrals, walled monasteries and traditional homes clustered along a small river and surrounded by farmland. It really is Russia at it’s best, and although there are crowds of tourists from home and abroad, mostly? on expensive day trips in luxury coaches? from Moscow,? it’s still a world away from the yobbish hordes in Prague or Amsterdam. Along with? nearby Vladimir, where I’m staying, it will be one of the highlights of my visit. The bus station however, is Russia at it’s worst; built? sometime around? 1972 and left to rot ever since. Completely incovenient for the town, though it’s a blessing that? it’s far away enough to be out of view, and, for a? few? dozen bus services a day, completely and utterly pointless, but then this is Russia? and I’m used to that now.

Early the next morning I begin the three and a half hour ride to Moscow on train number 31, the Vyatka, originating in the city of Kirov, famous for it’s ballet. For such a short journey (by local standards)? I’ve opted for the cheaper open dormitory platskartny carriage and I’m surrounded by sleeping Russians. It’s Monday, 6.30am in Moscow and as I sit with my cup of tea watching the sun rise to the east behind the train, I ponder this vast network and vast country that I’ve just travelled across. Back in Novosibirsk it’s 9.30am and the start of the working week. Around Lake Baikal it’s 11.30 and? fishermen are cooking up the? Omul they’ve just caught for lunch.? In Vladivostok, some 9000km (5600 miles)? away,? it’s 1.30pm and the cafes and coffee bars are rammed with lunchers.

Everywhere in between, hundreds of these trains are? trundling east, west, north and south on multi-day journeys from the? Baltic coast to the Pacific, Mongolia, China, Kazahkstan, the Black Sea and the Ukraine.? Platform vendors are touting fresh produce at long stops, and travellers are drinking tea, beer and kantrabanda vodka with rye bread and instant noodles in their kupeys.? It’s a bit? like? the extreme contrasts in Suzdal;? parts of Russia are truly dysfunctional but the rail network, though? not especially? fast or luxurious,? is an impressive logistical achievement.

“Tomorrow we arrive in Europe, Tomorrow I arrive home”, I explain in my phrasebook? Russian to Nikolai,? the soldier who’s sharing my Kupe on the very well-appointed train number 25, the? Sibirsk. I’m not really arriving home, but crossing the Ural mountains and being on the right continent seems like an? important step.? Appreciating this significance,? Nikolai digs around in his bag? and extracts? a Siberian pine cone, which he tells me I? should have as a souvenir.

The train is bound for Moscow but Nikolai is headed home to his wife and seven year old son in the city of Nizhny Novgrod, some seven hours short of the capital, after visiting his parents in Novosibirsk. I’m on? a 43 hour ride? to the town of Vladimir, the? 12th century? capital of Russia, about? 200km east of the big city and? home to a dazzling array of gold-domed cathedrals and monasteries.

Somehow I instinctively manage to wake myself in time. At? about 4am in Moscow, 7am in Novosibirsk I sit up in my bunk and peer out of the window? into the darkness, knowing that we must be about there. Apparently this location is the real deal; it’s? all to do with drainage basins and watersheds. Somewhere near the marker post that says we’re 1777km from Moscow, a large white obelisk protrudes into the early morning sky beside the track.? This marks the? official spot where Asia ends and Europe begins. As the train? starts a noticeable downward gradient and? I drift back off to sleep, home somehow seems a whole lot closer.

“Sibir daragoy!”, I protest angrily. I don’t understand all of the abuse I’ve just received from the hotel receptionist but I’ve grasped the general idea: You’re foreign, I don’t want you here, go to the Hotel Sibir. The Sibir being the expensive (daragoy) monolithic concrete slab down the road.? Unsure where to try next, I linger in the lobby with my bags, desperately scanning my guide book. A passing guest, having heard the exchange, catches my eye with a look of utter sympathy and shame.

“Hello, how long do you want to stay?”, calls the other receptionist, in English. Surprised,? I shuffle my bags back over? to the desk and her? xenophobic colleague glares disapprovingly at us as she checks me in.

The phone in my room starts ringing. It’s a classic 1970s model that looks like it’s straight out of a cold war? spy film; it probably comes complete with integrated ‘listening device’.? Having negotiated the now familiar clanky lift and been greeted enthusiastically by the attendant on the sixth floor, I’m sitting in my pokey room flicking through the channels on the TV, which predictably are all in Russian, and wondering what to put in the fridge this time. There’s always a fridge. There’s also? usually a phone, and often a TV but? a bathroom, no;? the? mildly unpleasanrt? shared facilities are down the hallway. There’s a sign on the door of the showers saying that they’re closed? from 11pm to 7am and the mens’? lavatory? smells like it’s? used as an informal smoking room.

“Allo?”, I say into the handset, trying to intonate it? like the? man who’d answered his phone on the bus this morning. After a day seeing Novosibirsk, photographing the opera house and the cathedrals, and getting a personalised tour of the Siberian railway museum, entirely in Russian, the phone has just rung a second time. When I answer there is once again no-one at the other end, just? the same? bizarre tone pattern.