Once again the excellent organisation skills of Russia Experience saw us boarding train #10 at Moscow station at 11pm on Sunday night bound for Irkutsk/Siberia. A mere 4 days and nights due East across Western Russia and through the Ural mountains before descending into Siberia proper and crossing the Europe/Asia border
We'd booked 2 berths in a 4 berth cabin and after the night from St Pete's to Moscow, knew it would be a 96 hour squeeze. However, to our pleasant surprise, animated gestures with the Provodnitsa (carriage attendant/boss lady) revealed that we had the cabin to ourselves. Luxury! Normally you'd have to pay first class rates for this. Not sure if Russia Experience have anything to do with this - if they did, many thanks. We did have 2 Russians join us for the last night. A slight downside was that we had the end cabin which is right over the wheels/brakes, which made it a bit bumpy/noisy. We were also next to the loo but this turned out to be merely a convenience (pun intended). As it empties directly on to the track there were no malodorous side-effects from being this close.
Bryn Thomas's Trans-Siberian Handbook proved an invaluable aid to what we could see out of the windows. Every 1km there's a post giving the distance from Moscow which served as an aid to finding places of interest in the book. Here's a brief summary of what you can see: trees, disused factories, trees. The landscape is generally flat for the entire 5185km with some humps where the Urals used to be and a few lumps around Yekaterinburg which we passed at night. The route was satisfyingly covered with snow and all rivers were frozen solid. Taiga and Silver Birch seemed to be the only trees. In fact the area is known as the Taiga.
Life on the train is quite relaxing. As you spend most of the time sitting on your bunk looking out of the window, reading and chatting and because you have to adjust your watch 5 times during the journey, it all merges into one long period of indolence. It feels rather like being a Victorian traveller, the restaurant car is but a stroll away and the cabin is hoovered twice a day. Travelling is supposed to be hard work!
By this time we'd bumped into some English guys and the obligatory Aussies who seemed intent on purchasing the most disgusting "food" from the platform vendors. We contented ourselves by gloating about not having to share a compartment.
After a while we stopped looking for the marker posts, we just looked at the time. A timetable is posted in every carriage giving departure time from each stop and the time at the stop. At no time during the journey did we deviate from the timetable... at all...ever! Actually, that's not strictly true. After 4 days and nights, 5,000 odd km and nearly 40 stops, we arrived in Irkutsk at 08:03am - 1 min early! If you're from the UK, you'll appreciate how we marvelled at this.
At Irkutsk station, we were met by a guide and a decidedly grubby, tired pair were taken to Lake Baikal.
Over 600km long, up to 79km wide, 1600m deep. Lake Baikal has a surface area of 31 000 sq km and contains 23,000 cubic km of fresh water - a 5th of the World's supply. Gigantic! In Winter, they drive lorries across the ice which is up to 10m thick. How big is this lake?
Lake Baikal is frozen solid still when we arrive which is an amazing sight and just what we'd hoped for. In fact it looks totally Siberian! We spent some time up by the lake just exploring the local area. Part of the old, disused Trans-Siberian line runs through a bunch of tunnels around the edge of the lake. Apparently, it used to be a very scenic journey. When built, that section cost twice as much as the whole of the rest of the Trans-Sib. It also cost a lot of lives.
We left Irkutsk (and Russia) on Train #6 destination Mongolia...