ZZZ Några Ord on THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY

The Yaroslavsky station building is an unassuming wooden shack on the outskirts of an endless row of tracks. I’m looking for platform 4. From where, the Trans-Siberian Railway departs. About forty Westerners who have already gathered there are the only ones waiting for the train, which arrives about half an hour before departure. It is Chinese of an older model and remarkably long. The Chinese train attendants stand straight and military-like at the entrances to their respective carriage while the passengers photograph and film each other, capturing the moment before the adventure of the world’s longest train journey begins. At the exact scheduled time, 21:35, the train leaves Moscow bound for Siberia, Mongolia, and finally Beijing.

The origin of the name Siberia is disputed. Whether it stems from Turkish and means ”the sleeping land,” or comes from a Chinese people called Sibe, or derives from the Proto-Slavic word for north, nobody really knows.

It was in the mid-19th century that the idea of a railway to unite vast Russia began to take shape among the country’s ruling class. However, it wasn’t until 1891 that Tsar Nicholas II decided to link Moscow with Vladivostok on the Pacific coast, 9 259 kilometers to the east.

It took twenty-five years of incredibly hard work before the two cities were finally connected by rail. By then, Nicholas was no longer ruling the country and thus was not allowed to accompany the inaugural journey. Instead, he took a shorter and more unpleasant trip on the new railway. Arrested by the Bolsheviks, he and his family traveled from Moscow to Yekaterinburg, where they were eventually brutally executed in a dark and dirty cellar.

Today, the railway consists of three main routes: the original from Moscow to Vladivostok, the one between Moscow and Beijing through Manchuria, or the Trans-Mongolian, which passes through three countries and connects Moscow, Ulaanbaatar, and Beijing.

As in Karin Boye’s poem, riding the Trans-Siberian isn’t just about reaching the destination; it’s about the journey, experiencing the movement, sitting on the train day after day, and seeing how people and nature outside the window constantly change. That’s what matters.

The experience also lies in the people you meet and share your days on the train with. Fellow passengers included young and middle-aged Germans, French, English, Canadians, and New Zealanders.

From Russia, only restaurant managers were aboard; all the train attendants were from China, and there were no Mongolians on board.

The transition between continents happens gradually. Landscapes and peoples change outside the window like a movie unfolding during the seven travel days of the Trans-Mongolian route.

The train’s clock is always set to Moscow time, even as the train passes through time zone after time zone across Siberia (five or seven depending on the route). As the journey progresses, the body and the clock gradually fall out of sync. Eventually, I sleep when I’m tired and am awake when I’m alert.

I only glance at the clock to see when the next stop will be. At some stations, we stop for half an hour, at others, just a few minutes. The train attendants stand guard at the entrance to the car they’re responsible for, and it’s important to keep an eye on them.

The train follows closely to the timetable and always departs on schedule regardless of whether passengers are on board or not. The monotonous clanking of the rails and sleepers lulls one to sleep. As the journey progresses, I gain immense respect for the vastness of Russia. It’s the body that first realizes that you’re traversing the world’s largest country when the train rolls incessantly day and night. One of the highlights is the train’s fantastic serpentine descent from the mountain toward Lake Baikal early in the morning of the fifth day. The lake is as large as a minor    sea, and the train circumnavigates its southern part for a few hours before eventually arriving at the border village of Nausjki, the last stop on Russian soil.

A dozen harsh and sturdy ladies, along with some thin smiling loppy men in gray uniforms, step onto the train and collect everyone’s passports without giving any explanations. We’re allowed to wander around the unpretentious village with dusty streets and worn-out houses while Russian bureaucracy ensures that we haven’t exceeded our visa limits before stamping each passport with exit marks.

Four hours later, the bureaucracy is done, and the train finally leaves Russian soil, only to be stopped barely a kilometer later by Mongolian passport control. Here, the bureaucracy takes half the time compared to Russia, but unfortunately,

we’re not allowed to disembark the train which is surrounded by soldiers stationed regularly along the carriages. In total, the passport procedures take over six hours,and it’s late evening before the train finally leaves the border and rolls into the realm of Genghis Khan. When we wake up the next morning, the landscape has changed radically. The mountainous scenery is gone, and the train rolls through a green undulating infinity. The views invite silent contemplation by the window, watching nature glide past mile after mile in a kind of meditation. It’s incredibly beautiful when the sun casts cloud shadows over the green meadows, clearly inviting humans to ride off into the vast open landscape on horseback.

In the distance, round white yurts can be seen, and occasionally, there’s livestock. The few cities or villages the train passes through or stops at gives the impression that people still struggle to settle down and become sedentary. The architecture is simple and conveys a sense of being unfinished. The streets are wide, lacking asphalt and trees. They’re open so that wind and sand can blow through. Often, there’s a round yurt next to the houses, serving as a reminder of their origins.

Mongolia is a transit point crossed in a day. The train arrives at midday in Ulan Bator, the country’s capital. The city appears suddenly out of nowhere, and the train stops at

a gray concrete station that serves as the destination for many Westerners who plan to stay in the country for a while.

After half an hour, the train departs again, and the city disappears just as suddenly into the green infinity as it appeared. Mongolia starts off green and damp but ends up yellow and dry. A few hours after Ulan Bator, the trains roll through the scorching and dusty Gobi Desert. Yurts disappear, villages are few and reminiscent of the Wild West, albeit an extravagant one, where sometimes riders have changed horses for camels.

In the evening, we reach the border and endure anew a few hours of passport bureaucracy before slowly rolling into the neon-lit and colorful Chinese train station of Erlian. There, we wait for about three hours, not due to bureaucracy but because the train changes undercarriage to adapt to the Chinese track gauge. The journey through China speeds up, and the train suddenly rolls silently. The enormous housing complexes being built along the way are impressive. The track winds through mountainous terrain, and the train passes through countless tunnels, bridges, and breathtaking scenery. Occasionally, near Beijing, glimpses of the Great Wall of China can be seen snaking above the mountain peaks.

On the afternoon of the seventh day of travel, the train arrives at Beijing’s ultra-modern train station. And I wonder, truly surprised, are we already here?