6am

6am; still awake. will walk about town, over the bridge and attempt to purchase train ticket, then head to Listvyanka where I am told there is no internet access but it is by the lake.

I must return to Irkutsk on the 1st in order to get train to Vladivostok.

if I survive the night...

0341 in Irkutsk. I have no hotel. I have been lurking in an allegedly 24ч internet cafe (although I see no evidence of cafe, so am suspicious of the 24ч-ness of it). How much longer will I remain even slightly coherent? And where can I snooze tomorrow morning?

I'd like to try to get a bit closer to the lake -- I'm still 10s of km away from it.

if I survive Russia....

then I have this to deal with.

tight

On the train, most Russians (pretty much everyone except soldiers) has comfy clothes that they change into. For women, this tend to be pretty tight, which can produce some shocking displays (both good and bad).

novosibirsk->irkutsk

The initial cabinmates for my trip from Novosibirsk to Irkutsk seemed a friendly bunch. Two worked in the building industry, developing residential tower blocks in Novosibirsk; the other was an officer in the army, Andrei - between them they produced several meals (for example, a chicken which we ripped to pieces and ate with our fingers (it had previously been killed and roasted, of course)) and copious amounts of beer drunk from tea cups supplied by the provodnik. Between them they spoke a few words of English and with much gesturing we managed to exchange basic facts about each other.

In the cabin next door were a man and three women, all of them apparently teachers. Valerin, the man, plus Galena, Luda (who spoke a teensy bit of English - "My name is Luda."), and Olga. After the three in my cabin had finished with me, they passed me onto Valerin, Galena, Luda and Olga, who repeated the same arm-waving, beer-and-food-stuff exercise.

Andrei was especially eager to drink beer. After we'd exhausted everyone's supply of beer, it was indicated that to drink more, I had to buy some - this I was happy to do as I'd been supping on others hospitality on the trains for days. At the next stop, he and I jumped off the train and pegged it over the footbridge. As we did this, I noticed that he seemed a little bit more drunk when standing up, and also that we neither of us had any idea how long the train would wait in the station. After rapidly purchasing 3 x 1.5l plastic bottles of cheap beer (150R for all three), Alexei decided there was insufficient time to run back over the foot bridge and that we must cross back directly over the tracks. The major impediment to this was our own train, as the open doors were on the far side. So under the carriages we scrabbled, getting hands covered in oil and grease, then up onto the platform on the other side.

Alexei glanced at a carriage number and started to jog the wrong way down the platform; I pointed out his mistake, he reversed and jogged in the right direction but straight past the correct carriage. It took some convincing to get him to believe wagon 8 was the right one...

Eventually back on the train, we rapidly finished off the first of the three bottles. Unfortunately, by this time Alexei was rather the worse for wear. Luda carried him into the toilet and we left him there a while. Eventually he returned and passed out on the bed. All was well it seemed.

Suddenly all of it came back out. Right onto the floor of our carriage. The provodnik was summoned, who shouted at Alexei and gave him a slop bucket. The rug from the floor was taken into the smoking section at the end of the carriage and doused with water. Alexei made poor attempts to mop the floor but eventually the ladies from the cabin next door donned rubber gloves and cleaned up the mess whilst leaving me in their cabin to drink beer and coffee.

Eventually the cabin is cleaned and we all go to sleep. By morning, Alexei is up, uniform fixed, beret upon head, looking as if nothing had happened, and gets off at his stop.

On the second day, I make some attempt to buy food for the remaining inhabitants, but this fails -- I buy 4 meat-donuts, intending to share, but the friendly old buildings man buys four too, and ends up giving one to me so I eat five for the price of four.

About an hour before the journey ends, some girls claiming to be students from university in Irkutsk come along on a fundraising mission, selling little postcards for high prices. I indicate I speak no russian and ask if they speak english. "Anya" says "ummm parlez vous francais?". I am delighted! We converse in bad french for a few minutes, me so pleased to be able to easily exchange entire paragraphs of speech with someone for the first time in days. After that, I'm more than happy to buy some little card for their fundraising.

Now Irkutsk. No where to stay yet and it is coming up for 11pm. Perhaps I should go look?

silly girls

Siberian girls walking round at 0900 in the morning with temperature 8c chomping on icecreams.

Drinking Guinness in the depths of Siberia

Yesterday had a couple of pints of Guinness (tasted lovely, not like that nasty Canadian stuff) in a fake Irish pub, "The Stone House" in Novosibirsk; also had Irish Stew which, though delicious, was just like the authentic Russian stew that I'd had the evening before in Omsk. No matter - warm and tasty and filling. Then back to hotel and slept and slept and slept and slept and still felt like crap this morning when I woke up -- because I'm dehydrated as always, I suppose.

Still no accomodation arranged in Irkutsk -- might have to actually phone some places rather than trying to use email...

lame

there is a 'sleep' button next to the arrow keys on the keyboard of this computer.

when i pressed its associated 'wake' button, it asked me for the password for the user called 'User'. it was easy to guess.

Novosibirsk

arrived in novosibirsk this morning, walked to the nearest hotel and shelled out 2000RUR to get my own room with a shower, a comfy bed, my own toilet and peace and quiet. Then voided myself and slept for 4h; now am wandering around Novosibirsk. There's a branch of the same chain of coffeeshop/cafes that had two branches in Omsk -- their coffee was good so may go back there (not as good as the place i went to in Tiumen, though)...

staying here overnight - am looking forward to avoiding the hassle of trying to find my train late at night. tomorrow morning, train to Irkutsk which gets in the next day (Sunday) quite late at night - so two daytimes on the train and one evening.

Not got anywhere arranged to stay in Irkutsk yet... hopefully will stay there a couple of days and then move onto Vladivostok just in time to get ferry to Fushiki

face control

I have in recent months often heard the phrase 'face control' used in english, but only in regard to Russia (eg. something that happens at certain night clubs)... has anyone heard it in a different context?

egg lady

I remembered this morning that I was supposed to send a Russian postcard to the German lady who I sold an egg to. Unfortunately, I have shipped her address back to the UK in my last bundle. Ooops.

train

so yesterdays train ticket from Tiumen to Omsk, overnight, was platskartny class -- thats a big shared dorm carriage, kinda like a hostel on wheels. I'd wanted to book kupe, which is four people in a cabin, but they'd not got those available for this train.

On the platform, everyone clustered in a mad crowd trying to push their way to the front to get on and get the best bunks -- a large group of girls travelling together (a team of some sort, I suppose, returning in victory maybe - there was someone with professional video equipment and a woman with a microphone running round) was getting off my carriage and I suppose as a consequence, that meant that lots of the passengers getting on at this stop were getting onto that same carriage.

Once all the girls had got off, the crowd started to clamber in any way they could into the train, throwing their bags and their children before them. Having dealt with Russian queues for a few weeks now, I pressed forwards too, getting in after about 1/2 to 2/3 of the crowd. Found myself a top bunk half way down the carriage (most people seem to prefer bottom bunks, but I quite like the top ones -- the bottom ones turn into seats so you can't go to bed whenever you want without having to throw people off -- same in kupe class).

Hid up in my top bunk until the provodnitsa came by to collect tickets and sell me bedsheets, then set alarm for the morning (the trains arrive pretty much bang ontime, and also the provodnitsa wakes you up about 10 mins before the right stop) and went to sleep. The carriage was hot and stuffy to begin with but once it got moving a draught blew in through the window, right by my head - this was a welcome supply of fresh air, but early in the morning it was making my ear a little cold so I re-arranged my pillow into a wind shield so that it did not blow quite so directly upon me).

This evening, I'm off to Novosibirsk (where I plan to have a shower for the first time since leaving Moscow) - this time in kupe class.

The experience in platskartny class was interesting enough that i might take it for my 70h ride from Irkutsk to Vladivostok (that ticket is yet to be booked, likewise for the ticket for the fabled ferry to Japan).

tech support

oh dear, providing tech support for people speaking russian at me

dual timezones

The long distance trains all run in Moscow time, so all clocks and times listed in the station building use that TZ; but outside the station building, everyone uses a more local timezone. So confusing, even to me who is used to working with people in many different timezones.

omsk

made it to omsk. this bit of lonely planet seems hopelessly out of date :-(

went to get a nice cup of coffee and check email, only to wander the cold and windy streets for a couple of hours looking hopelessly for either. upon giving up, I wandered over to a district of the city which my guidebook implied was Mostly Harmless, I discovered instead a bustling shopping street, with not one, but two delightful coffee shops *and* a busy internet cafe/bar where the attendant even spoke english, enough to say "No, I don't speak English; use the computer first and then pay afterwards."

There are some fun statues/memorials here -- an eternal flame (either for war or revolution - not sure), and a crazy modern-art iron skeleton man on horse.

food on train

'Andrei' and 'Katya' moved into my cabin on the train yesterday evening (3rd set of occupants since Moscow), and after locking themselves in to change into their train clothes (everyone except me seems to do that -- tracksuit/shorts and sandals) they insisted I come in and join them for home made food (made by Andrei's mother). Some chicken, some beef wrapped in something like pita bread, also fresh raw tomatoes with salt added right before eating. Yum. Then some cognac from (?)Ukraine.

Katya is a ballerina; Andrei used to dance (after learning it in the army?!) but now works for a company that makes costumes for ballet - both human size and doll size. He gave me a pair of tiny pink ballet shoes (perhaps a promotional item) as a present. They are cool, but rather delicate -- hopefully they will survive. Andrei speaks english and was happy to talk of travels and russia and politics a little; Katya no english, though she appeared to understand a little.

tiumen

arrived in tiumen after a 30h train ride, at 0620 localtime -- so not much open at the moment. little kiosk that sold water was open as was (after half an hour or so) an internet salon (57 roublies for 2h -- at least half the price of european russia!). So by the time this is done with, perhaps there will be a little more open to look at.

Russian Internet Cafe culture

Interesting that for many people here the primary connection to the internet is through public internet access (cafes, internet clubs, etc) - not like the bits of eg. US, Australia, Canadam UK that I have seen where its all really some shitty novely that doesn't have to work well and is just to be buzzword compliant.

(btw p.dog == бар флегматучная собака)

md5sum({beer}) == md5sum({beer}) :-(

hmm. p.dog appears to detect if you submit the same order twice or three times in a row and discard the order.

good if ordering dinner.

bad if ordering 'another beer'...

summer in the city

sweltering again today - so so hot and sweaty in Moscow today - perhaps not the best way to begin 30h on the train?

at least P.Dog e-pub has air conditioning - but also one-click beer ordering, which is also perhaps not the best way to begin 30h on the train?

This place (p.dog) is directly below the red square McDonalds (where I went the other day to eat the same shitty tasting food as in any other McDonalds in the world, with Josh and Jocelyn (who was one of the english girls mentioned here - nice girl - maybe if I am a lucky boy I will find her again in Australia or China)

novosibirsk

was not intending to stay in novosibirsk for a night, but now that I consult my Lonely Planet I am intrigued by the comment there that there is a plethora of Irish pubs. Hurrah!

train from moscow

intended to leave yesterday but slept rather than getting tickets; today decided to make it hard on myself and try to buy the tickets from a russian train ticket office rather than a tourist agency (save money, pay in difficulty). A russian speaking frenchman was kind enough to come along with me as he also needed a ticket (to petersburg) - we queued for half hour or so, then I presented the lady with my list of demands (6 trains: numbers, source/arrival stations, dates). she dicked around a bit then eventually sent us off to a cashier in a different building who was a bit more helpful. So I have 5 tickets now (the booking system did not seem to acknowledge the existence of trains beyond either the time or location of Irkutsk, so when I get spatiotemporally closer I will attempt to buy one again.

Some of the trains are 2nd class on train number 2 (which it is possible, if insane, to take all the way from Moscow to Vladivostok in one 7 day orgy of boredom); some are 3rd class on slower trains...

These are the tickets that are booked:

23rd 2122 Moscow-> 25th 0412 тюмен
25th 2234 тюмен -> 26th 0558 омск
26th 1852 омск -> 27th 0410 новосибирск
28th 0832 новосибирск -> (unknown time/date of arrival...) иркутск

no phone

no phone at the moment, neither +7 or +44 number... maybe will get it fixed tonight; otherwise still no SMS.

grrr мегафон

grrr.... got some top up cards for my Russian SIM but cannot get them to work...

sustained drinking

So much drinking, dancing, bar hopping in Moscow... yesterday 16h of continuous drinking, with my new Russian friend Maxim and some people from the hostel, Americans, French; there was also meant to be a couple of English girls but they managed to escape :-(

Today took it more easily, with just 4 bottles of beer and only water with my dinner - Max (who wants to spend all day drinking and talking English) introduced me to another friend of his, the lovely Olga, who drove us off to a park in the outskirts of the city where we walked in the sun and looked at various buildings and exhibits. So I've managed to spend my whole time in Moscow almost completely avoiding anything touristy... maybe a good think, maybe a bad think.

GRU

off to meet a bloke i met last night who is 'not' ex-KGB... hopefully free beer in exchange for practising english conversation.

phlegmatic dog

in phlegmatic dog internet cafe near red square. free internet as long as you order something, which you also do from the terminals (although the staff then scuttle over to check that you didn't click on the wrong item before serving). randomly met girl who was in SPB hostel and is now in the same hostel as myself and Josh, my short-term travelling companion. fanta, green tea and now beer!

lenin corpse

just been to see the preserved corpse of Lenin... it looks like him.

trainssib planning

trying to plan trains to get me from here to Vladivostok... so difficult to find decent timetables onlines... might have to go stand at the station and look at the timetable on the wall there (if I can find it)...

end of SPB... moscow next

my repeated attempts to have an early night have generally failed miserably. Finally last night I managed to be in bed by around midnight so am feeling a bit recovered now, which is probably good as we're planning to go to the Hungry Duck club in Moscow this evening which sounds like it will be a late night too.

two nights ago, stayed up to watch the bridges over the river Neva be opened to let big ships through - they start opening about 0130 or so, so we were forced to sit in various bars and pubs drinking until then. Ended up at the Red Lion which is a 24h fake english pub (keeping up my attempt to visit a fake english pub in each city I go to - I missed out in Bergen but got ones in Oslo and Stockholm).

My Time Will End In 7 Minutes. All Data will be Lost

apparently.

I do not think it refers to *all* data, though...

+7

swapped out my Orange SIM for one from Мегафон so I have a shiny new +7 phone number (+7 921 361 9614)...

tinkoff brewery here has franz ferdinand playing later this week (after I am far far away)... they also have 700RUR 'all you can drink' offer (too tired from dancing until 0710 this morning to do that though...)

also someone claims to have been (not) taught C programming by slang...

laundrypub

Today spent morning in bed with hangover after elsewhere documented late night, though I did take breakfast to get a bit more food in stomach.

Then in early afternoon, to Cafe Sticker, a laundry/cafe/bar to wash my clothes. 120RUR to wash one load, 30RUR for 20mins drying (person who gave me directions said the dryers were crap; I purchased 60RUR worth in the hope that I would get double the dryness, but I still ended up with a little bit soggy clothes). Free cup of coffee. Did not feel like beer at the time.

The staff were friendly enough, though there were the problems with the dryers (caused by no lint filter, I think) and also with the electricity supply -- the circuit breaker clicked off a couple of times while I was there.

I took a wrong turning on the way there - turned left at the first canal, when I should have waited for the second. However, this gave me a nice walk down some of the other streets, which was a bit of a change from Nevsky Prospect - the main road that I have walked up and down a few times so far.

Now clothes spread out in room gradually drying, on hangers and on radiator. Have had to break out the Emergency Clothes that I keep in day sack.

some спб activities

1750 myself and Josh in same room as me go to lurk by sign in hostel for Petrograd Pub Crawl

1800 Pub Crawl changed to local area one as there is much metro congestion

1810 Group has grown to 9: peter the guide, 4 aussie girls, josh[US], brian[US], alan[IE], me.

Pub 1. attempt to make this a 'cultural experience' by getting brief talk from peter about this history of the arts centre that it is located in. Then drink. Violate golden rule of pub crawl (more than one beer in same place). Wipe out small change of bar by using 500RUR note to buy two pints at 60RUR each. But now I'm set for the next day or so with small denomination notes (something like gresham's law makes people not want to accept 500RUR or larger notes...). This is the only bar that i know the name of - Fish Fabrique).

Pub 2. In the basement of a building. 50RUR for beer. Sat at long table and noisily talked to each other. Others made plans at this point to meet at Quo Vadis the next day to hang out in the evening again (time of which is approaching as I write -- wonder if anyone will remember/bother to turn up?). Exchange some phone numbers to facilitate this (hurrah for GSM roaming) - Alan and Australian Girl 1.

Pub 3. In this one, which is new and therefore empty, everyone takes loads of pictures of each other and plays with each other's digital cameras. Josh's screen is broken, so I put his CF in mine so people can look at his pictures. Australian girl 2 loses her camera, but does not realise until later. Australian girl 3 becomes ensnared in some SMS conversation with distant lands. Australian girl 4 curls up on couch.

Kebab shop. mmmmm. Australian Girl 2 gets really annoyed that camera is lost. I eat meat.

Pub 4. Much more crowded. We end up split into two groups, with people drifting between the two. Group A sits on three couches inside round a table. Group B sits on chairs outside in the street. Alan Josh Peter go home.

Walk from Pub 4 back to Nevsky prospect, where the girls will turn left and Brian and I will turn right.

Brian and I turn right.

After a few minutes, a police van, like a little VW camper, pulls up obviously next to us... I tell Brian to keep walking and ignore them... they chase after and grab onto Brian (who looks slightly more foreign than I, perhaps?)... demand passport and visas... I have mine, Brian has left his in the hostel. Oh dear. The policeman inspecting mine keeps looking through, but doesn't seem to care that key documents and stamps are missing from it (they are elsewhere). Also he does not seem to notice the wads of large denomination bills in the passport holder. When he sees my passport is UK, he says "Manchester United!". I seize on this, replying "da da Manchester United" (ginger danny would be pleased)

The policemen pat us down, and one takes my wallet to rummage through. He does not notice the wads of large denomination bills in the zip pocket in back of wallet, finding only the small denomination bills which appear to not interest him. The search (at least for me) turns into something of a show and tell - for every object i remove from jacket or trouser pockets, they say out loud the name of it "camera" "telefon" "memorystick".

I write down their badge numbers in my notebook.

They decide that Brian must be arrested for walking round without a passport and lock him into a cage in the back of the little police van. They tell me I should go back to the hostel. (all this talking is in a mix of Russian and English, they have only a few works of english, i have only a few words of russian). I insist that I must stay with Brian as we are droogs (god bless kubrick). They say that is no good. I do not leave and they do not either.

Eventually I decide that I will contact American Authorities for him, back at the hostel, and so insist that i must talk to Brian (cut off from the world in his little cage) and start to write down his details.

At this point, the police appear to get fed up, take my note book, surprisingly gently and carefully tear out the page that i had written their numbers on, unlock the cage, tell us to take a taxi back to the hostel rather than walking and drive off.

I stand in the road and wave my arm as instructed in Lonely Planet. A black car stops and rides us back for 100RUR (too tired to haggle over price after this), and shortly we are back in hostel, at 0200h, retelling the story.

Hopefully this will not happen every time I go out drinking here.

BuzzTroll would love this

A long time ago, when I was preparing to go to the Netherlands, I was given a graphic description by a dutchman of how toilets there consisted of a platform on which one laid ones dump, out of water, ready for inspection by visual and olfactory means, before flushing it away. Upon arrival at my accomodation, I was sorely disappointed to discover that the lavatories were just like the ones in the Green Pastures of England.

Finally, however, I have had the opportunity to use such a pot. Hurrah!

internet club

have successfully negotiated the purchase of 1 hour of internet time at internet club near where I am staying, with non english speaking cashier -- held up one finger to indicate 1 hour and hoped that it was not a rude gesture...

gmail comes up in russian initially too...

elk

Went to meet Thomas at KTH again yesterday, to upload the latest batch of photos. Then elk for dinner and some beers. Back at hostel one of the men in the dorm was bitching about how one of the others snored in the night. I did not point out that he was almost as bad. A Puerto Rican was interested in how I got my Russian visa, so I was able to give out Useful Traveller Knowledge about that. Because I had been out to dinner with Thomas, I did not get to finish off my Special Cheese that has been fermenting in rucksack.

@stockholm arlanda airport

Left knife in daysack. The security people found it. oops. So they do pay attention after all.

Also I have no onward ticket from Russia (instead it was from Tokyo) and the lady at checkin did not know whether she was allowed to let me on or not. She decidedto eventually.

There is free red wine on tap in the SAS lounge! and some shitty internet terminals.

Google autodetects that I am in Denmark.

Russian schedule

12..18 May Leningrad
18..23 May Moscow
23May .. 6June Transsib

best sign in stockholm

"Data is supplied continuously to this obelisk by Stockholm Environment and Health Protection Administration."

Россия

Off to Россия tomorrow!

noises in the night

oh dear. last night, I discovered that all 3 of the others in my dorm snore very loudly and in great variety, to the point of going beyond bad to being funny. Possibly even worse than the time I stayed in HI Santa Monica in 1998, my very first day in California, when the entire dorm had to evacuate and sleep in the corridor as one person's snoring was so bad.

they scanned my calif. drivers license

hmm. used my CA drivers license as ID with my visa card here, and they scanned the barcode on the back with their barcode reader... wonder if it contained anything useful? never seen anyone do that before, even in CA.

back on the boat

staying back on 'af Chapman', the floating hostel. Discovered 7-11 has much cheaper internet (20SEK/h rather than 60 as other places seem to be). Yesterday walked all round Djurgården, and round the Vasamuseet which is a big old recovered flagship in a concrete sarcophagus. Like the Mary Rose, but much better... (this looks like a ship rather than a bunch of rotting wood).

feeling better

feeling better today. also it has stopped raining and is sunny again. I set out on a long walk round Djurgården this morning; 20 minutes in I realised that I did not need so many layers, and I'm now encumbered with a mass of clothing to hump round all day. Though on the horizon I see dark clouds so maybe they'll be useful later on.

cold

appear to have a runny nose. spent the evening in hostel\hotel drinking just a couple of pints (600ml here - bonus 40ml from UK) then went to kebab shop for traditional travelling kebab... this one put lots of chilli and hummus on, which I was pleased with.

lots of english people here, all dressed up... i think there is a wedding or some party for some other reason.

Glenfiddich Warehouse

Last night went to Glenfiddich Warehouse on Gamla Stan (recommended by one of Cherie's friends)... in addition to a ridiculously large selection of whiskeys on the shelves they also had some swedish microbrews... I started off with glasses of two different very strong stouts, which pretty much knocked me out... mmmm.

I am 13! (x2)

Bad you if you forgot my birthday (even though I do not really care, perhaps you will send me beer money to compensate anyway?)

suckers

seem to have blocked gmail on this internet cafe (or maybe its just broken today?) but they don't stop me downloading and running PuTTY...

oh dear

once the tin of fish was opened, the people who previously had said it was a delicacy changed their mind and decided it was rotten after all...

lunch

a tin of fish (described by some as rotten, by others as a fermented local delicacy) is being waved at me...

some photos

I've uploaded my first batch of photos - Norway and the first few days in Sweden. Haven't done much in Sweden yet - went to Tech Noir on Saturday night (am now a member for all of 2005... does that mean I have to come back?) and spent most of Sunday sleeping off all the redbull. Get my very own room at Olle's house, where I am staying now.