The JaYmes Escape

The expectant faces are all around me, jostling for position, keenly staring at the doorway ahead. Many are holding flowers; bunches, bouquets and the occasional red rose. People in this part of the world seem to be obsessed with flowers, in Riga old town you can buy them from street vendors 24 hours a day, just in case you meet someone special in a drunken stupur at 4am. Here at Vilnius airport, the stand in the arrivals hall is doing a roaring trade as we await the passengers on flight BA2886 from London. In fact I’m half certain that some of the folks around me are trying to outdo each other by having the biggest most lavish bouquet for whoever it is that’s been away.

Before you ask, the idea of buying flowers for my arrival hasn’t even crossed my mind. I try and engage with local customs when I can, but handing Tak a bunch of flowers is in a similar league to eating cockroaches in Cambodia; sometimes you just have to draw the line, and I’m sure he’d agree. Tak, for those of you that don’t know, is short for Takayesu and the name of my Japanese friend and former neighbour in London. He’s going to be joining me for the ride via Warsaw to Berlin.

I left Riga on half-deserted Latvian train number 357, bound via Vilnius for somewhere in Belarus. My old university friend, Gena, came to see me off at the station at 7.40am. Another perfunctory EU check of my passport at the border an hour later was followed by the green fields and forests of Northern Lithuania. It was here that ballsy Lithuanian resistance fighters hid during their little-known war of attrition against the Soviet government during the 1950s. Five hours down the line and I was back in Vilnius, the capital, where unarmed ordinary people stood in front of Soviet tanks to defend the TV Tower and Parliament building on January 13th 1991, an event that turned out to be a turning point for Baltic independence.

Having seen the monuments at the parliament building 2 years ago, this time I resolved myself to visit the TV tower. It’s a mighty 1970s monstrosity, taller than the Eiffel tower, that comes complete with brightly coloured revolving restaurant on the viewing level and moving memorials down below for the 14 civilians that died here under the tanks that night just 15 years ago. These monuments, like the freedom monument back in Riga, are adorned with piles of fresh flowers laid by ordinary people. The Riga monument dates from independence in 1915, and they say there that the punishment for leaving flowers at it during the communist years was deportation to the Siberian gulags.

As people start to emerge from the flight, and necks crane eagerly with flowers at the ready, I’m reminded how much this place must have changed in fifteen short years. The cobbled streets and beautiful old buildings have never been better looked after; with more renovations currently underway. People can take cheap flights to London where they can earn a small fortune by local standards, and anyone can leave flowers where they want without fear of deportation to a concentration camp. I think I understand why the flower sellers are doing as well as the airlines and the builders.

“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.