Sunday, 9 May 2010
Minsk, Belarus
Warsaw Wschodnia station is grim. Very grim. Very communist era. It’s the departure station for the overnight express to Moscow. For ‘express’ read ‘trundle’.
Cabin is small. Thankful it’s just me as I only just fit in. A small wash hand basin is hidden under a table in the corner of the cabin. The toilet is down the corridor. It’s disgusting. I shall be holding it in.
Depart 1300hrs. Moscow here we come.
Time to settle in. There’s not going to be a whole lot to do for 20hrs. Crack open my provisions bought at Carrefour yesterday evening.
Lunch is stale bread. Warm cheese. Sweaty salami. Olives. Peanuts (not exactly jungle fresh).
Watch the scenery go by.
Trees.
Trees.
More trees.
Thankful we’re in First Class. Economy is grotty. Six to a cabin on bunkbeds.
One of our number is a real train buff who gives talks about rail signalling to the Royal Trainspotters Society. Or some such thing. I’ll gradually introduce you to the cast of characters in the rest of the group, dear reader. We’ll call him Signal John. Rail signalling is his thing. What he doesn’t know about rail signalling.
Eventually arrive at the Polish/Belarus border. Customs and immigration officials jump on board. Not to be messed with. All are armed and we’ve also got armed guards on the platform. Instructed to sit down in my cabin by border guard. Duly comply. Passport checked. Depart Poland and cross into Belarus about five miles up the line.
Barbed wire is the new Iron Curtain. Armed guard in a sentry box overlooking the river forming the border. Pass under a large sign which denotes entry to Belarus and the train immediately stops in the middle of nowhere. Belarus Gestapo get on. Not to be messed with either. Even more authoritative than the Polish. Cabins checked. Passports taken away for processing whilst we fill in an immigration card. A female customs official walks down the corridor demanding to see each cabin. Bleach blonde hair, black leather jacket and stilettos. Rocking that communist look. She shouts at me and points at my rucksack. “I’m English”, I say. And with a scornful sneer moves on. Taurean charm you see.
Passports and visas stamped, train trundles into Brest station a couple of minutes away and pulls up at the platform. Load of local women suddenly appear at the windows flogging food and drink. We’ll get used to this as the weeks progress.
Then they board the train and go from cabin to cabin. Beer and chicken seems to be the day’s speciality. Although there seems to be something else on offer when one of the women quietly enters the cabin of a lone male traveller further up the carriage and the curtains are quickly shut. I’ll leave you to work that one out, dear reader.
Now that we’re in the former Soviet Union the train’s bogies need to be changed from the 4ft 8½ inch European gauge to the 5ft Russian gauge. Fascinating watching the process which I was allowed to video. See video below.
The train set with nine carriages enters a large sidings shed with overhead gantry cranes. Carriages uncoupled from each other and the bogies disconnected from the carriage before the entire carriage is jacked up about 6ft on massive screw jacks. Mechanics swarm all over the bogies disconnecting hoses and couplings. The disconnected European bogies are then rolled out and replaced with Russian gauge bogies and the whole process is reversed. Takes about an hour.
With the Russian bogies fixed the train returns to Brest railway station, a nice building with a Communist feel, where it waits the forty minutes until its scheduled departure time.
Clocks have moved forward one hour and will move forward another hour as we enter Russia in the early hours of tomorrow morning.
So what to do for another 14hrs. In my cabin. Well. There’s dinner to look forward to.
Like lunch, dinner is stale bread. Warm cheese. Sweaty salami. Olives. Peanuts (not exactly jungle fresh).
Unlike lunch there’s a bottle of Jacobs Creek Shiraz Cabernet to moisten the mouth. Why on earth they don’t have screw tops in this neck of the woods I don’t know. Use the free corkscrew which came with the bottle. A corkscrew which will be much used over the next two months, dear reader.
Pacing myself with the red wine as I’m not intending drinking a whole bottle tonight.
But.
As the cork snapped in half when opening.
You know where this is going.
Hic.
Roasting hot in the cabin and nothing I can do to turn the heat off. Having the window open is too noisy. With the occasional whiff of diesel fumes.
Arrive Minsk 0100hrs. Damp, foggy and quite cold. Enjoy the cold fresh air whilst we wait in Minsk. Security guards with their large peaked caps patrol the platform. Other side of the train are troops waiting for a train to some unknown destination.
I next came to Minsk on my Cape to Cape trip three years later. You can read about my few days in Minsk which starts here: https://touringtaurean.com/2018/07/24/disinfection-is-made/
Struggle for sleep in the hot, noisy, bouncy cabin.
Having enjoyed the wine, need a pee in the middle of the night.
Do I…
A) walk down the corridor to a grotty toilet…
or…
B) use the small washhand basin in the corner of the cabin…
Decisions. Decisions.
