My 30 hours train journey was quite an experience. I’ve never imagined I could stay so long in a train. I was on a 2nd class where they stick 4 bed in a small compartment. I had a German couple in my compartment who are travelling for a full year !
The atmosphere was quite friendly, mainly families, some Russian music being played and a provodnik who is a Russian lady from the train company: PRD in charge of the compartment. If you want to have a pleasant ride, it’s better to keep her sweet. One way to do so is to buy the overpriced snacks she sells (50 Roubles for a Twix ??!) or smile stupidly at anything she tells you (only in Russian of course). She spends a great time hoovering the carpet and make sure everything is tidy.
There was an hot water machine in the compartment and it seems all the Russians in the carriage managed to cook noodles (and drink) from it while poor foreigners were left to survive on our biscuits purchased in Moscow or faced hefty food charges on the train restaurant.
The landscape was forest after forest intertwined with some villages. I finally arrived in Yekaterinbourg, and found my hostel not without pain, luckily a Russian woman in the street came to my rescue and explained me how to get to my destination .. in Russian. I’m really happy that I got this 600 rubles (£12) Russian SIM card in Moscow for 1Gb of data. Google Maps + GPS can be really handy when you can’t easily read the street signs. I’m quite amazed that I had to go to Russia to use for the first time 4G LTE on my Nexus 5 phone. The 4G coverage in Russia is great in the main cities. The first thing I’ve done after arriving in Yekaterinbourg was to go to the local huge Greenwich Mall and do a tour of the supermarket. The choice of food and drinks was great and I was surprised that once you pass the till, there are young students whose job is to pack the articles for you (you get anasty look from them if you try to do it yourself). Russians have a great sense of customer service, Tesco should try to emulate.
Random pictures from Yekaterinburg:
My few days stay were quite rainy. I was impressed by the difference of temperature from one day: 15°C to 28°C. Anyway, I left Yekaterinburg with some regrets to start my 50 hours journey across Siberia.