After our sumptuously fantastic day with the Coffeemania people, we embarked from Moscow around midnight, in a good mood aided by three or four beers at the hostel prior to leaving.
Aside from the generous gift of sandwiches from Coffeemania, Michael had also stopped by to visit some relatives afterwards, and had been given another bag full of food. We must have been conspicuously laden as we hauled our stuff onto the train, like German tourists in Norway.

Our coupé, a lovely blend of different laminates and hard, well-used seat beds in lively oxblood, was shared with two commuting Russians devoid of … well, anything. They went to sleep, we went to sleep, and so it went. By the time we were fully awake, they had both gotten off the train, and were replaced by a chatty Russian army man called Gregoriy, hailing from the far northeast of Russia. He had brought with him a love for slightly odd dance music, tons of stories that ran the gamut from mind numbing to exciting, as well as some very fresh, very good red caviar from his home town of Kamchatcka. Caviar makes for a great nibble, combined with some Russian black bread. At the time, we were here (GPS), heading east at the blazing speed of 60km/hr.

Gregoriy showed us photos of his home town (arctic but beautiful, filled with dormant and active volcanos) and played some of his music from his mobile phone speakers; it resonated quite well within the confined space of our coupé.

At some point early in the morning, possibly around 9-11, breakfast and lunch were served - simultaneously. Two meals per day were included in our train fare, which seemed like a boon at the time. The breakfast compared favourably to airline food, with every component neatly wrapped in cling film or other forms of plastic. The dinner, on the other hand - or nutrition set, as the plaque in the hallway of our train cart referred to the meal as - was something else entirely.

A flimsy plastic plate filled with some sort of boiled grains, a bit of boiled, sickly yellow chicken, and somewhere between 1-3 slices of cucumber and tomato. Completely devoid of any sort of spicing, including salt. This repeated itself for the 3 following “days” on the train. Needless to say, we were glad we had a metric ton of food stashed away, like some odd hamsters. The one time we tried declining food, the importance of eating was thrust down our throats repeatedly, much like the flavourless boiled chicken. In (Soviet) Russia, Nutrition Set Eats You.

We traveled past a slew of small Russian towns where dilapidated buildings stood next to relatively new ones. The older they were, the more they were tilting at an angle that seemed to defy gravity. There were a surprising amount of houses that were obviously abandoned; don’t know that the economic story behind that is.

Our Russian Army comrade left us in Kirov, bidding us farewell with a delightfully bizarre Russian dance-techno-y remix of the theme from Benny Hill. He was quite a character. Taking over for Gregoriy was an old man from somewhere, on his way to somewhere. He wasn’t nearly as talkative as Gregoriy, who I could’ve swore almost made Michael’s ears fall off. Kirov also saw the departure of a contingent of Russian army conscripts, wearing ill-fitting uniforms held together by enormous belts, many of them carrying cardboard boxes. The Russian police were far more intimidating.

The restaurant cart became an intermittent hangout throughout the trip. Our first visit was interesting: the cart itself looked like an extension of a coupé, with seating groups of four facing each other. The interior was every bit as drab as our cramped home for the trip, but with the added touch of elegance the mauve curtains and tablecloths constituted. They were cut from the same cloth, in the most literal sense of the expression, and gave a seamless effect from the table and up the wall. The menu that was on every table didn’t look like it had been updated since Stalin was but a sparkle in his mother’s eyes.

There were 5 other people in the cart as we arrived, drinking tea, sleeping, or just sitting around. It dawned on us after about half an hour that they were all employed by the railway. They were all in their 50s and 60s, and seemed like they had worked together for a long time by the way they weren’t communicating. At all. Not a word.

They had Hoegaarden, a decent Belgian wit that only ran us 100 rubles or 20kr a bottle. Considering we had no other possible way of getting a hold of beer, it seemed reasonable.

Watching the landscape almost fly by at night, it didn’t feel like we were actually in the middle of it. It felt more like a projected view of somewhere else; the light mist hanging over the fields and bogs, with the light from the not-quite black sky giving the entire picture a muted, dark blue hue, gave the entire scene a surreal dimension. The drabness of the train cart prevented any further lyrical waxing, though. That, and the occasional wafting from the toilet (…)

The entire trip was more or less defined by an increasing tendency to listen to the body whenever it started hinting about maybe, possibly, taking a nap. There was little else to do, except read, eat and stare out of the window, so we reverted to a state of fantastic slothfullness for the entire trip.

I did get to finish the book I was reading, complete another one and almost finish a third.

The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed (amazon) chronicles the experiences of an American volunteer teacher living in one of Beijings’ few remaining hutongs. Michael Meyer writes both a first-person narrative of life there, as well as a thorough historical background for urban modernization, city planning and the development of Beijing as a city, all to understand the motives behind what he ominously refers to as “The Hand”: the authority that marks houses for razing, without giving residents any say in the matter, aside from negotiating their (often paltry) resettlement fee. It’s a great read, though the more technical aspects of urban planning can become a bit too much.

How We Decide is Jonah Lehrer of (blog: The Frontal Cortex) newest book (amazon). It deals with metacognition, or “thinking about thinking”. It is almost completely devoid of the self-improvement or business leadership clichés the title seems to imply. With a large array of examples taken from scientific experiments, anecdotes and other stories, Lehrer argues a convincing notion of the balance of decision making (in everything from life-and-death to the extremely mundane) that is instructive to be aware of. Especially the concrete limitations of reason as defined by the frontal cortex.

Beijing Coma is Chinese dissident and generally disliked author Ma Jian’s latest book (amazon). It is a story of the lead-up to the June 4th, 1989 Tian’anmen Square protest and massacre, as told through the fragmented memories of a comatose student shot at the site. It is interspersed with observations of his physical state, environments and earlier memories. The book has many strong characters and gives a keen look into the machinations of the student movement(s). I don’t know enough to pass judgment on the veracity of the story, but either way, it’s a gripping read. And apparently illegal in China; better finish it before I cross the border…

Though I appreciated the near-total relaxation and rest (free from a bad conscience) this 6000km ride offered, it did get quite.. -no, very boring at the end. Michael was going off his rocker completely. At one point, he simulated snow by tussling his hair and letting the dandruff fall down from the top bunk (down to mine). Topping that, he tried using an aeropress filter to rub against his hair, checking to see how much schmutz and hair grease he could put on the filter, using my far-too-accurate dedicated coffee scale. It didn’t amount to much.

When your arse starts to hurt from sitting and lazing around too much, it’s time to get the hell off the train; luckily, those two things occurred at about the same time.

And off we got. At Irkutsk, the Paris of Siberia. More on that gross exaggeration later.

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Beijing, China