Day 11: All Change on the Eastern Front

Friday May 16 - Beyond Ulan Ude

The scenery changed overnight. For the first three days, the view from the window was mundane: endless acres of leggy silver birch, speckled with conifers and the occasional scattering of primroses; steeped roofed wooden houses; dusty roads with sporadic Ladas; and massive, anonymous skies. At the station stops, the still heat of the Russian interior burned the skin within seconds and the silence echoed.

Then as we approached Irtkusk during the early hours, through a cloak of mist, slopes appeared, the birches succumbed to conifers and the roofs of the houses changed to a more ambitious pitch. A wider selection of cars, more brick buildings and supermarkets replaced an economy that seemed to be based on haphazard agriculture.

I had hoped to get up early to say farewell to those travellers who were getting off at Irtkusk. Joe, Ken and Pam, the Irish boys, the tour party lead by Johanna and the German father and son team, were all leaving the train, some to take the Trans-Mongolian, others to spend time by Lake Baikal. Ironically, I got up an hour too early and by the time their stop came, I was asleep again.

At eleven thirty, I finally awoke. I had used my earplugs for the first time and they had given me a very peaceful sleep. By the time I had got my arse in gear, the next major stop – Ulan Ude – was imminent. Fiz and I got off the train and it became apparent how the climate had changed with the altitude. I also suspect the absence of travel buddies added to the slight chill.

We bought some supplies: a circular, soft loaf with an off-centre, decorative flower; a tub of oily, chilli-enhanced herring pieces; some salami; pate; and a packet of plastic cheese. My heart jumped a little as I left the platform-top shop and saw a lack of milling passengers. Only the train attendants remained and I was sure that the train would soon depart. We made it but Fizle’s camera almost didn’t. Natalia saved the day and brought it to our compartment, playfully hiding it under her jacket, and flicking a smile before giving it back to the appreciative Fizle.

For the rest of the day, I bumbled about. I took a cup of hot water to the WC and bathed. I grabbed some random, abstract video shots for the film, charged up the electrical devices, and even tidied my quarter of the space. Fiz and I chatted about art, and books, and family, and partners, and music, and the Beatles and nothing in particular.

We laid out the supplies that we’d bought earlier and had a compartmental picnic, with Fiz filming my culinary assessment. She told me about a distant family member, Uncle Jim (I had at least four uncle Jims and this was a new one to me) who never ate hot food. And she meant ‘never.’ Apparently, his wife would cook the usual hot dinners on a coal-fired range and he would wait for it to go cold before dining. He used to justify his choice if challenged by saying: ‘Lions and tigers are the strongest animals in the world and they never eat hot food.’

I began to miss the people I had met on the train but I realised that it is a silly emotion. They have gone their way and we are going ours. I need to enjoy the time we had together and move on to the next adventure. I said to Fiz that the mood of the train had changed. But she, rightly, said that it was just my perception because ‘All of you play mates have gone.’ Even so, fewer people were leaning on the rail in the corridor, looking at the views, no one sat on the pull down seats reading today, and most of the compartment doors were closed all day.

The only time I saw Slavic was once in the late afternoon in smokers’ corner. He came in bleary eyed and I asked if he had been sleeping. He nodded and took a position by the opposite window. I wished I had my camera at hand to capture his silhouetted solitude. He then turned, beckoned me over and said: ‘Look, fire!’

In the near distance, a thin line of orange flames was creeping up a wooded slope. This is not uncommon and seems to be a method of forestry control. No doubt Slavic had seen it many more times than I, but he still seemed transfixed. We watched the flickering and billowing of smoke in silent unison. A few minutes later, when he had extinguished his Winston Slim, he turned and went back to his cabin without saying a word.

In the early evening, Fiz and I went to the restaurant car. She ordered her second bottle of wine of the journey. Dima, the maitre d, stored it in the fridge and, at an average of two glasses a night, this will keep her going for the rest of the trip. I fancied red wine and Dima showed me two bottles of French. Both were ‘melange’ and I politely turned them down in favour of beer which, for the first time, I received with a chunky mug.

Dima and the other three restaurant staff were happily idle when we arrived. They were sitting at two tables, enjoying the respite from the three hectic days when the English speakers had been able to understand and order from the menu. I noticed on the way through to the restaurant that the three huge bags of potatoes which had begun the journey had dwindled to a mere panful.

I asked Fiz to ask Dima if I could photograph him and the others in their natural state. They agreed but seemed to interpret this as a request to not smile rather than simply act as they were before being asked.

The man with a broken face and neatly cropped beard is called Viktor who, according to Fizle, looks like an early 20th century French dandy. He posed light-heartedly with a tin opener by his ear and then a bottle of Martini clutched to his heart and a faraway look in his eye. Oleg the chef, who walks as if he is just about to get a kick up the arse, looked straight at the camera as if he had been arrested, and, Natalia, the woman with heavy breasts, a savage haircut and a deeper voice than any man on the train, scuttled off to the kitchen.

Despite the poor light and the constant swaying of the train, I got some good shots. Later, I cropped and converted them into black and white. Somehow they captured some of the essence of their lazy, chaotic team spirit.

The photos that I really want to take are of the soldiers in smoker’s corner. I asked two of the guys in our carriage yesterday but they said, with their minimal English, that it is OK for privates to be photographed with cigarettes but not officers. They showed me their ID cards to prove their status. I never doubted it but it seemed odd given that we get along fine.

The Russian psyche, if there is such a thing, seems to be defined with initial frosty indifference followed by surprising warmth that appears out of nowhere and then remains. There are several examples – Slavic last night with the cognac, the people in the restaurant car, the two officers in smoker’s corner and, even, Natalia the carriage attendant, whose iceberg thawed a little when she returned Fiz’s camera. Even the Snowplough, the huge bumbling, moustachioed man who does to night shift as carriage attendant, raised a smile and made a joke last night when Joe asked Slavic to ask him if he could take a photograph.

That said, the Snowplough still barges past me when I sit on the pull-down seats at night in the corridor, typing my words, without even a grunt of warning or apology. He is so wide that he can almost polish both sides of the corridor with his hips.

Our resident love birds fit the pattern of indifference followed by warmth too. Whenever they sit down for food, Viktor, who had all but ignored us for the first half day, invites us to join them. We don’t chat much because of his constant erotic adherence to Olga, and the language barrier – and when we do talk, he still insists on German. But we four are very comfortable in each other’s company, even when the two of them are snogging on the top bunk while Fiz and I chat below.

I said to Fiz earlier that the whole liaison is so effortless and natural that I’m sure they’ve done it many times before. It is little things that make me think this. For example, the way that Olga’s silver-ringed toes find the door handle first time, every time, and wrap around its irregular shape, as she climbs to the upper bunk. The two of them also manage to move from two bunks to one with the grace of Bolshoi ballerinas, snog in silence and she even massages his naked back without producing the usual sounds.

And last night, they appeared to carry out an illusion that would elicit gasps of admiration from even the most sceptical of audiences. When I came to bed at about 0200, I am sure I saw Olga’s ample butt move in the bunk above Fiz. After all, it is difficult to ignore something of such curvy magnitude.

About twenty minutes later, Viktor climbed down from the bunk above me and left the compartment. Thirty minutes later, I am wondering where the hell he might be. And ten minutes after that, the two of them crept back into the compartment.

‘How did they do that?’ I thought. My eyes sprang open with involuntary bemusement. Right in my line of sight, no more than a nose and a half away, was the hem of Olga’s pink and green, towelling robe. It ended just below her modesty and I could tell by her position that she was just about to climb into her bunk. I tried desperately to close my eyes but the adventurer, the discoverer, the journalist and the man in me, forced me to keep them open. I can faithfully report that the view had low aesthetic value but, thankfully, Olga was wearing pants.