Day 6: Minsk (BY) – Moscow (RUS). “K, curly Y, Triangle, backwards R...”, I recited to Karen. If you overheard us you would have thought we were playing some weird image association game, but no, we were actually trying to navigate the Moscow Metro!Having left 'familiar' languages based on the Roman character set behind some days ago we were trying to make sense of a whole new language based on Cyrillic characters. Sure, we had a map, but the guide book had 'very kindly' translated everything into words that us Westerners could pronounce – and that is not what is displayed in the stations or on the streets!
But eventually we made it to our little hostel (aptly named the 'Trans Siberian') in the Kurskaya district of North East Moscow which would be our home for the next few days. The hostel was a simple affair, but it was clean and had everything we needed. The host, Dima, was extremely helpful and made us feels at home instantly, providing us with some great information on how to make the most of our stay in the capital of the Russian Federation.
Following the stresses of the previous days travel, the journey from Minsk was perfect in every way. Our nine hours on the train passed without incident and we got a perfect nights sleep in our little cabin of the Moscow Railways train. For this leg of the journey, the only occupants of the cabin were Karen and me which meant that we didn't even have to engage in the customary game of 'Twister' every time anybody wanted to get their toothbrush out of their luggage or scratch their right elbow!
As a bit of a closet 'geek', my personal journey highlight was witnessing the engineering solution to handling multi gauge tracks over this gargantuan railway journey: On the Belarusian border the railway gauge (the width of the track) changes from 1.4 to 1.5 meters. But rather than changing trains, the railway authorities simply hoisted the carriages lock, stock and barrel into the air and then deposited them on a new set of bogies compatible with the new railway network. And all of this happened without any of the passengers even having to leave the train. Fascinating! (Hello! Is anybody still awake?)
1 comment:
Following this with interest. Last April we found our 4 berth Tallinn to St Petersberg, ST P to Moscow trains very cramped and hot as you couldn't open a window to get any ventilation. Did you have the joy of middle of the night, extended, at least 1.5 hours to do both lots, (exit of one country, entry of other)of customs checks on the borders? i.e. get out of bottom bunks so they can check underneath etc.??
We liked the way they had a little coal fired boiler for tea etc. on a diesel train.
Moscow metro is amazing.
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