Day 21 – Thursday 15th September 2011
I made it on board the train with just 10 minutes to go before the 8am departure, this was going to be the shortest trip I had made so far just a mere 24 hours until the train rolled into Berlin. All the way from Beijing to Moscow I had had the same style compartment, a bunk bed on either side with a small gap in the middle, this one was different only one side had a bed, well 3 beds, and it was much smaller. I had been given the middle bunk, when I got to the room there was a middle aged guy already in there saying goodbye to his lady, if the tears in his eyes were anything to go by it was emotional.
After she had gone he started talking to me in Russians I made the same apologetic face I had made all the way through the trip and said “sorry I’m English”.
He then said “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
“Nein”
“Oh” that was the last we spoke he fell asleep and I got my iPod out and listened to some Rolling Stones as I alternately read or watched the Russian countryside roll by.
The next big stop on the trip was Minsk, which since the collapse of the Soviet Union had been the capital of Belarus. I was expecting us to be coming to the border at any point and while there to follow the same procedures of stopping for hours, surrendering our passports to surly customs people and sitting where they tell us to. This time though the train just kept on going and going, it reached the point we were due to arrive in Minsk and we had still not been through any sort of customs but we were slowing down as a city became visible on the horizon. The man in my room saw me looking puzzled out of the window and said “Minsk” so I guess they just chose to not bother with customs on this train.
A friend of mine in Korea had told me that I couldn’t count a country as “been to” if I just went through it on the train and didn’t get off. Apparently getting off the train and standing on the platform was accessible, so as the train was scheduled to stop at Minsk for 27 minutes I decided to make Belarus country number 5 of the trip.
Belarus - country number 5
After I had a little wander down the platform and “soaked up the local culture” I got back on board and discovered that the 3rdbed was now occupied. He started talking to me in Russian but my friend from Moscow told him before I could that he was wasting his breath, so the new guy switched to English and asked where I was from. His name was Eugen (I think) and he spoke really good English and my 24 hours of solitude and silence just took a twist. It turns out that he was Russian but he had lived in Germany long enough to have a passport for both countries and he apparently was a pretty big wheel in the German – Russian bread trade. He had been in Minsk meeting some Belarusian bread businessmen and was on his way home to see his wife and kid in Germany. The businessmen had given him a couple of parting gifts, the biggest slab of bread I’d ever seen before and some Belarusian vodka, it was brown apparently from all the herbs that they used to flavour it.
Belarusian treats
It wasn’t long before the vodka was opened and we all started to eat, the train had left too early from Moscow for me to be able to get any food but I figured that it was only 24 hours I could get food from the restaurant car to tide me over, the two guys noticed that I wasn’t eating and asked me if I had any food I told them no but I was ok I’ll just get what food I need when I was hungry, they told me that was not acceptable so once again I was taken pity on and given food from the supplies they had bought for themselves. The food was very similar to what I had experienced all through Russia, bread, cheese, sausage and lots of salad such as tomatoes and cucumber. Whilst eating I found out that the guy who got on in Moscow was called Oleg and he was a Ukrainian. I never did find out why he was going to Berlin though or who the woman was he was having such a hard time saying goodbye to at the station.
One thing I did find out was that there is normally no border control between Russia and Belarus; the relations are so good that trains are free to go between them, much like countries in the EU. As good as this is as a British citizen I unfortunately needed separate visas for both which had come at a hefty price.
Around 6pm, 10 hours after leaving Moscow we approached the Belarus – Polish border. I had been told that this was going to be a long wait as not only was it the entrance point into the EU but they also had to change the wheels of the trains as the tracks in Russia were a different width as the ones used inside the EU. The Belarusian side took some time, as it was here that they did the wheel changing, while we were waiting at the platform for our turn to go in to the workshop some local women got on board the train, eager to sell their wares. They had all sorts of food salad stuff (all grown themselves in their allotment patches), cheese and beer.
It turned out that Eugen was the type of person who liked to get his news “through word of mouth” he didn’t trust the news that TV showed and instead liked to talk to as many people as possible. This being so he invited the women to stand in the doorway of our room and trade gossip in the hope that it may lead us to buy some of their wares. As there was around 5-6 of them and they were all working independently to feed their families they were all soon crowding around to show us that their produce was better than the rest. Eugen soon got the vodka out and it was passed around to the women, they were telling us about the massive inflation that was happening in Belarus right now and how it was becoming harder and harder to make enough money just to buy food but the news was just not being reported on. I admit I had no idea that this problem existed but then I thought about how little you do hear about Belarus in the news.
Finally after around 3 hours of waiting around the women got the word from the conductor to get off the train as we would soon be leaving Belarus and getting into Poland. Once over the border the train again stopped and allowed the customs people to get on armed with sniffer dogs, I gave up my passport, for what should be the last time, the wait here was very short and we were on our way just after 9.30. It was now pitch black outside and any hopes I had of seeing parts of Poland were going to have to wait till the morning. As I had discovered on all the other train trips I had taken people sleep very early and this one was no exception, once the excitement of the border crossing was behind us we all got our beds ready and called it a night.
Day 22 Friday 16th September 2011
Not sure when it was that I awoke but the first place I became aware of was Frankfurt (Oder) not the big city where the sausages come from but just a town on the Polish – German border and the first stop in Germany. It was only going to be around 30 minutes from here until we approached the outskirts of Germanys capital.
As a parting gift I Eugen gave me what was left of the vodka and the bread, which we hadn’t touched, I was very flattered but tried to refuse as I didn’t think I had done anything to deserve them and also because I really had no room for a slab of bread that was longer and wider than my head. Along the trip I had tried to pick up presents for my family from the different places I had visited, the only problem with that was now every time I moved from one place to the next my bags were getting heavier and heavier, but I managed to just fit the bread inside the bag and the vodka would be fine with the neck sticking out the top of the bag.
I was now back in the EU and even though I had never even been to Germany it felt a little bit like I was home.
stustraintrip 