From 串儿 to цацки

1.5M ratings
277k ratings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna

Days 5, 6, and 7: the long haul to irkutsk.

image

hey, jasmine here. after khabarovsk and the mishap of missing our train, we scratched ulan-ude from our plans so we could keep on track with getting to irkutsk on time. that meant three straight days on the train. alex and i took over a thousand pictures all told… as you might expect, this warrants a ton of photos. if the blog isn’t letting you see them in their full-sized glory, i’ll post them all to flickr later.

image
crossing the amur river. khabarovsk is on the left, china is just behind on the right.

image
lunch on-board the train! alex slices cucumbers for some sandwiches.
image
the samovar, keeping the hot water ready

we prepared by hitting up the supermarket and buying some supplies like bottles of water, a loaf of bread, cheese to put on the bread, yogourt, and various snacks to complement our stash of cucumbers and apples. and of course, copious amounts of chocolate. russian brand chocolate isn’t too bad, maybe a little much sugar for my tastes. i’ll post later about russian junk food, seeing as junk food shopping is one of my favourite tourist activities.

russian steppe, just outside of birobidzhan, heading toward chita:

image

image

image

image

image

image

image
kilometre marker 8196… we still have a long way to go to get to km 1!

image

so far, it’s been amazingly, indescribably beautiful. i’m hoping some of these photos can do it justice. many of the vast stretches of trees and steppe and rolling hills make me think of the drive between ottawa and toronto, one i’ve done frequently in my life, and yet at times it’s nothing like back home. matchstick forests of birch trees slide by in the afternoon shade. long grassy plains are lined by green hills, and marked by trees burned and felled not by humans, but by lightning. after the wreckage of china’s polluted air and toxic rivers, all this unspoiled wilderness makes me very, very happy. the skies are huge, filled with clouds that range from fluffy and sweet to dark and menacing. there are cows and horses nibbling freely at the blue-green grass in the fields. it’s been nice to have this stretch of time to rest, relax, and do a little studying and reading. that’s the best part about taking the train - having the time in between hectic adventures to relax and collect yourself.

image
ladies selling salted dried fish to us while we take a ten-minute outside break

image
woman walking past a lumber yard

image
power station

image
villages

image

sleeping on the train has been wonderful and comfortable, whether on a firmenny train or a regular kupe train. we’ve been doing most of our trip in second class, where there are only four bunks to a room, and the compartment has a door that closes and locks from the inside. we booked bottom bunks as well, which means we get to spread out on the little table. we’ve been lucky over the course of these few days to have few if any people staying in our compartment - usually they show up late at night, fall immediately to sleep, and then leave again early in the morning.

image
our second day was a rainy one.
image

image

one morning, we did attempt to chat with a sergei and an alex who worked as train conductors and were about to hop off and begin their shift. they seemed to be in their early or mid-twenties, bright blue eyes burning with curiosity. with the little russian that i’ve learned we managed to communicate - sergei asked me if canada looked similar and i smiled and said yes, it’s not too different. alex seemed puzzled about why we’d travel across russia, and sergei, with a sweeping motion of his hand toward the landscapes outside, seemed to answer him. it’s just gorgeous out there. makes me hope that i can do a similar trip across canada when i get home! image

image

image

image

image

image

image

there have been tiny, colourful cemeteries dotting the hillsides, with plots circumscribed by bright blue iron fences and memorials decorated in heaps of colourful plastic flowers and ribbons. i’m not sure whether these cemeteries are a european russian tradition, or if they belong to one of the asian russian ethnic groups of the region. in either case, they’re really sweet.

image

image
with a view this nice, who cares if your house is imitating pisa?
image

image
more shacks posing as viable domiciles…

image

image

the domicile of choice appears to be listing wooden shacks, which makes me wonder how they can survive winter without suffering a drafty death; then again, china’s northern countryside is dotted with similar houses [albeit with some concrete reinforcement] that have external furnaces that stick into part of the house [炕 kang] to heat it up in winter. who knows what ingenious methods the eastern russians employ. at least they paint them nice colours - bright blues and greens and yellows abound.

image
cows roaming to eat by the tracks. i think we might have actually had the train stop for ten minutes waiting for a cow to get off the tracks.
image

image
a horse nibbling on grass
image
dusty brushland
image
old cars everywhere
image

i think it’s worth noting that as we write this, the two of us have spent three full days on the train, in the same compartment no less, without a disagreement or tiff of any sort. alex and i are good friends specifically because we can read each other so well. we became the best of friends in shenyang because there’s nothing that one of us wouldn’t do for the other, but we know how to give each other space too.

image
inside the car
image
outside the window
image

image

image

image
a man and his cow. oddest thing i saw was a shepherd in the middle of a field, surrounded by goats… on his cell phone.
image
reflections
image
crumbly industrial remains

however, we have faced a few difficulties as we finish our three-day stretch on the train. we’ve been having trouble getting adequate drinking water, as the water on-board is boiling hot from a samovar and will melt our bottles, or lukewarm and yellow in colour from the spout next to the carriage-minding provodnika’s room. it’s been hard keeping our electronics charged, as there are two 220-volt outlets in our car and they are often switched off or occupied by others [i write this from a little room the provodnika kindly let us use to charge up!]; my little battery pack hasn’t worked with alex’s ipod charger but between knitting/reading/studying russian or chinese/blog updates/staring out the window we’ve got enough to keep us occupied.

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image
the moon and the mountains
image

image

for those of you who may someday do this trip, i’ll list some of the practical items you’ll need on-board the train:
- cutlery, particularly a serrated knife for cutting your fruit, bread and cheese, or spoons for your yogourts
- little garbage bags for the things you need to pitch
- wet wipes - they provide you with hand towels and bedding, but there aren’t real showers unless you’re in first class. wipes are great.
- extensions cables and power adapters and/or power banks. keeping things charged so we can read or write updates has been maddening at times, as noted above
- one thing i’ve wished i had was a mug for drinks on the train. each train comes equipped with a samovar, which is a giant kettle of constantly boiling water. since the “drinkable water” next to the provodnika’s bunk has been anything but, it would have been nice to enjoy some tea. most russians have a train-specific glass that inserts into an ornate metal holder with a handle on the side. i want one of those too, but they’re expensive!

image

image

image
goats and cows
image
mountains flanking lake baikal
image
jasmine in what we like to call “train chic”

the biggest problem is buying food, as both my chinese bank card and my canadian visa card have been getting rejected at the bankomats/ATMs at the stations. each stop at the stations along the way averages about 15-20 minutes, which is barely enough time to get wifi to ask people for the bank numbers, try the cards at the ATM with no luck, and then scramble back on-board. so, on this last day, we’re down to no cash, some peanuts, margarine, half a cucumber, and a few kopeks’ worth of bread… i’m really starting to feel like a character out of dostoevsky. hopefully we can report back with better news once we hit irkutsk. for now, we hope you enjoy the photos we took.

image

image

image

image

lake baikal is a sight to behold - i’ve never seen water so still or so clear! image

image

image

russia transsib trans-siberian transsiberian irkutsk train ulan-ude lake baikal travel

Day 4: Khabarovsk

We hadn’t seen much of Khabarovsk the day we arrived - in fact we had just seen the train station, the hostel and the pizza restaurant next to it. We had a train to get at 1.30 pm so we decided to get up early and see as much as we could. Khabarovsk is beautiful. The architecture, the Amur River… everything.

image

Historic Muravyeva-Amurskogo Street… try saying that five times fast!

image

We walked down beautifully-preserved Muravyeva-Amurskogo Street [the main street that runs parallel to Lenin Street] towards the river. I got an ice cream on the way from one of the many vendor stalls that dot the street. There were many colourful old buildings (which we have seen in most places so far). As we walked a little further we saw one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen - The Khabarovsk Dormition Cathedral [on Trip Advisor it’s listed as ‘Grado-Khabarovsk Cathedral of the Assumption of the Mother of God’], which kind of looks like Cinderella’s palace at Disneyland. In the square there was also a war memorial statue, not much different from the other Soviet war memorials we’ve seen. We went inside the Cathedral, put some scarves on our heads and had a look around. There was a service happening inside, it was pretty busy and just gorgeous. The choir was singing in the balcony above us and the artwork on the walls was shining in gold and handmade beadwork. Almost shed a tear it was that wonderful.

image

The Dormition Cathedral

image


image


Afterwards, we walked down to the Amur River, as seen on the back of the 5000 Ruble note. From where we were standing, if you looked out across the see you could see China so we had a look at that for a bit. It’s funny to think of the things shared between China and Russia all the way out east.

image

We can see China! Only 30 km away from Khabarovsk.

We then had walked to the Transformation Cathedral which was also beautiful and very imposing, but not close to the Dormition Cathedral. We went inside, again putting scarves on our heads. As we arrived there was an aggressive looking lady, mid-20s, wearing a tracksuit and a scowl that would turn milk sour. As we walked around, I felt her watching us. We stayed for a few minutes then buggered off back to the hostel to pick up our things and a few supplies, and head to the train station.

image

Transformation Cathedral at the bottom of Lenin Street

image

Truly imposing!
image

The Monastery next to the Transformation Cathedral

This is when things started to go wrong. We were waiting for a bus to the station and after 10 minutes or so we realised we were waiting at the wrong stop, so we walked to the correct stop and got on the bus. When we arrived at the station, I stayed with the bags and Jasmine queued up for the tickets. There was a pretty massive queue with no shortage of cranky old babushkas. When there was 10 minutes until our train left I went to Jasmine to see what we should do. I took my backpack and hers and walked to the train platform. The platform was outside up three flights of stairs, across a bridge then down the other side. I pleaded with the train peeps to wait just a few minutes because my friend was on her way. To no avail, when I ran up to the corridor to see if Jasmine was almost here, the train left. [i had a terrible time getting one of the babushkas to let me jump the queue! i kept telling her, i have ten minutes, nay, five minutes until my train leaves, but she just kept talking to the cashier, and the cashier will deal with every single one of your questions until you’re done asking, so i was truly out of luck. - jasmine]

One of the train guards took pity on us. He walked back with us to the station and helped us transfer the tickets to the day after. Because we are only spending a few hours or one or two days in each city, we don’t really have time for these kind of fuck ups. We were going to get the train to Ulan-Ude, stay there for a few hours then get the train to Irkutsk. Because we’d missed the train we now had to go straight to Irkutsk. The security guards were great and most of the people we pushed in front of were great too. On our phone translator we figured out how to say 'I’m sorry’. The phone said it aloud, then I said it, which they found pretty amusing at least.

After several spasiba’s (thank yous) to the security guards, we headed off. I was in desperate need of a pint. As we were heading to a cafe a couple of Russian students had heard us talking and wanted to practice their English so they started talking to us. We all went to the cafe to have a beer and use the wifi to figure out what we were going to do. We decided to stay in the hostel we stayed in the night before and we organised to meet up with our new friends Ayal and Tamara later that evening.

We headed back to our hostel, said we wanted to stay there another night, I had a nap, woke up, got dressed then Jasmine and I went out for dinner.

We went to a cracking restaurant on Lenin street called Ciao Cacao [чао какао] and had some pasta for dinner. We had spent most of our cash during the day so Jasmine paid for the meal on her Chinese card. Ayal and Tamara came to meet us and they took us to the secret gay club. It wasn’t very busy when we first got there so I went for a quick beer in the bar next door. The owner spoke English and thought I was writing a review so he took me in, sorted me out with a drink and introduced me to an English speaking guy. Stayed there for about half an hour then went back to the gay club trying to ensure that nobody saw me walking in.

image

Girls partying

image

Me and the girl who didn’t wait for me to become gay… not even an hour

When I got in I found a glass of champagne, a shot of vodka and a glass of coke waiting for me on our table. Jasmine doesn’t drink so I had hers too. Someone left their’s…so I had that too. We had a great time. The atmosphere was great, the people were friendly. Turns out that Jasmine and I are a massive hit with the Russian ladies.One of them said she would wait for me- I saw her necking a girl an hour or so later…so fickle! Anyway, Jasmine is going to talk more about the underground gay scene in Russia so I’ll leave the rest to her. Was a great night. Got back to the hostel around 5am and had a nice long sleep.

image

Some guys dancing around in their underwear
image

alex doesn’t need an excuse to have a good time!

//

Khabarovsk Fabarovsk!

jasmine here with the analysis of the day section. this time, russia and its LGBT scene, as seen through the eyes of our newfound 20-something friends in khabarovsk. while it was terrible luck that made us miss our train, we were repaid with a good night out in khabarovsk that made up for it.

as many readers may know, moscow and st. petersburg seem intent on squashing all expressions of homosexual expression, like banning the pride parades and curbing public displays of affection. to me, this has seemed like a strengthened russia tilting at the west, but i should probably read more on the subject before i jump to any conclusions. i think alex and i were pretty lucky that we stumbled across a chance to ask some questions about how it really is in russia, or at least in russia’s east.

we met up with our friends in the evening and went to the “white party” at the city’s newest gay club [named after a very popular black-and-white graphic novel and movie]. the place had nice couches, a stage and a bar, but still felt a little like a high school rec-centre dance, which is probably appropriate considering the majority of the attendees were young university students. alex’s attempt to leave and check out another bar sparked an argument with the friend who invited us, because he was worried that 1) russia is not exactly the safest place for women, particularly not ones that can’t speak russian, and 2) that there could be some danger of pointing out where the club was and bringing undesirable elements to its front door. as alex left, i decided to hang back and ask him some questions.

still, for khabarovsk, the gay scene seemed to be thriving. this new gay club had recently replaced another gay club in the city. khabarovsk is home to many yakuts and buryats from other areas of north-eastern russia; one of them told me that there was even a gay club in sparsely-populated yakutsk, which is at least a day’s travel north-east of khabarovsk, close to the arctic-siberian treeline. that definitely took me by surprise!

image

lots of ladies, not many guys on the dance floor!

it appears that gay clubs and bars seem to be set up on the down-low, with the community being strict with newcomers who haven’t been introduced beforehand. many clubs in russia seem to have entry fees and bouncers set up regardless, which is a pretty big difference to northern china, where club entry is free and the bouncers just stand there when people are causing trouble.

our friends seem to have imported a lot of american gay culture and mannerisms, as well as affectations from korean culture. they profess a love of tv shows like 'glee’ and k-pop music… it’s pretty strange to be sitting in a bar in northern russia, halfway across the world from my home country, talking to people in english about korean groups like super junior, 2NE1 and f(x). pardon a trite expression, but it really is a small world, getting smaller all the time.

all in all, there didn’t seem to be as much danger as he let on, and we had a great time dancing and singing along with the music. i’ll be keeping my gaydar ready to pick up on any other opportunities to see what it’s really like over here.

khabarovsk russia trans-siberian travel train LGBT culture siberia transsib transsiberian LGBT

Day 3: Birobidzhan

It’s Alex here,

Highlight of the train journey was the view we could see from our window, the rest was pretty standard. We managed to have the first couple of hours with the compartment to ourselves which was nice; we put our bags on the top bunks assuming they were going to be free all night. Not the case - a Russian couple came in at the next stop and appeared to be less than impressed with the way we had spread our stuff around. It was pretty late when they had got in so I went to sleep shortly afterwards. I’m not sure how most people would find the beds in second class Trans-Siberian, but like I said, they’re more comfortable than our beds in China, so I slept pretty well.

image

Khabarovsk train station

We arrived at Khabarovsk at around 8:20 am. We went into the station and Jasmine sorted out our tickets for Birobidzhan whilst I found out where we could leave our bags in the station all day. Both went pretty smoothly. We dropped our bags off and got straight on the train for Birobidzhan at 8:50 am. The train took about two hours, and we had half a cucumber each for breakfast. I spent half an hour revising the Russian alphabet so I could read stuffs round and about and the rest of the journey I slept - surprise surprise!

image

Jasmine with her delicious cucumber breakfast

image

Me and my delicious cucumber breakfast

image

Me studying Russian on the train. I think by this point I’d just about mastered the Cyrillic alphabet and was starting on numbers 1-10

So first thing to say is that it was chucking it down raining the entire time we were in Birobidzhan. ‘That fine rain that soaks you through’. We wanted to use wifi to find out where to go so we went to the first restaurant we saw - which turns out to be the only restaurant on Trip Adviser for that city. The wifi didn’t work so we ate then went to the cinema across the road and sorted stuff out there.

image

Birobidzhan train station, in Russian and Yiddish

image

the bloody rain

image

someone get lenin an umbrella.

We saw the war memorial, statue of Lenin; a couple of weddings were going on. Felt bit bad for them because the weather was dreadful. We went into a synagogue which had a very nice rabbi who showed us around and tried to explain stuff to us, but there was the small problem of a language barrier. We also went into a small library where the staff were very friendly and helpful. Jasmine wanted to read some Yiddish books. She had a grand time. My Yiddish isn’t that cracking, to be honest with you, so I read some things on my phone instead.

image


image

The arts and culture theatre - it was closed

image

A monument to celebrate the partnership between China and Russia
image

Jasmine reading Yiddish books

We then went into the Local Lore Museum which was a tad bizarre. There was a room of taxidermy, a room with a model war scene, another with religious paraphernalia. T'was enjoyable though. After we went into a church. The churches in Russia are ridiculously beautiful. I enjoy going in them.

image


We headed back to Khabarovsk at 6.15 pm and arrived at 8.30 pm. Picked up our stuff and got in a taxi. We were pleasantly surprised because it sounded like we were only being charged 50 rubles, when we arrived at out hostel (Corona) we realised he was actually charging us 500 rubles. We were angry, upset and bartered the best we could. He locked our bags in the boot [canadians: in the trunk] until we paid him. We managed to get him down to 400 instead of 500 but it was still a bit of a blow.

Our hostel was interesting. Very informal. When we arrived, there were a couple of guys sat behind the desk - we had booked in but they didn’t seem to be aware of our reservation and were astounded that we spoke English and not Russian. We had to take our shoes off as we went in as well, so there were lots of shoes by the door. There are no showers on the trains so I got in the shower as soon as I arrived then Jasmine and I headed out for dinner. I ended up having pizza… again. Jasmine had a Greek salad. Pizza seems to be the official food of Russia - there are pizzerias everywhere. Anyway, the pizza was very nice, we were going to have a bit of a walk but we had been walking in the rain all day so we just chilled in the hostel for a bit before we went to bed. There were a few guys there who came into our room - one of them could speak English. They had lots of questions for us and seemed to be greatly amused by our answers and everything we said in fact. They were amusing. It was fun having a 'sort of’ conversation with them for a bit. The rest of the evening was spent just chilling, chatting and reading.

image

Our new friends who were working/living/undressing at our hostel


//

jasmine here, for today’s analysis section.

Birobidzhan: or, the city that had some Jews there, once upon a time.

image

the menorah-looking fountain in front of the train station

inevitably, some of you readers are going to plan your own trip along the trans-siberian railway. in fact, i hope you do, because so far it’s been pretty great and exceptionally scenic. yet, hopefully for my fellow jewish [and non-jewish] readers, i can give a little insight as to whether it’s worth stopping in birobidzhan or not.

first, a little background: birobidzhan is the capital of the switzerland-sized jewish autonomous oblast. the jewish autonomous oblast was created by the soviet union in 1920 as a region for jews to “preserve their nationality” nice and far away from moscow, and as a way of stalling japanese advancement in their 1930s imperialist era. the area was swampy and rocky steppe, and wasn’t particularly well suited for farming or establishing a city, but they gave it a good shot. in the 1930s there were schools, theatres, arts and culture, and while most people weren’t big fans, there were plenty who became devoted to it. stalin had purged most of the jewish leadership involved with building the place [“damn trotskyites,” he grumbled as he drew up his list] by 1938, and many had moved to harbin in northern china. the second world war saw the jewish population at its all-time high as many tried to escape the holocaust, or were shipped out there as the soviets annexed swaths of eastern europe. by the time the 1950s rolled around, israel had been established as a nation-state and the soviets were doing their damnedest to suppress “jewish counter-revolutionaries” and dismantle previous programs to encourage jewish settlement, so most of the jewish population emigrated. stalin did not like the jews, and figured it was better not to have them around, thus encouraging their moves out-of-state. there have been intermittent attempts to revive and preserve the jewish character of birobidzhan, but generally none have been particularly successful. khrushchev considered the place a failure because “jews don’t like farm work” [i’m paraphrasing], but i think this nails it: “However, viewed in the context of Soviet Jewish reality, the immediate cause of its failure was undoubtedly the fact that twice, in 1936-37 and in 1948-49, the Stalinist purges put a brutal end to the short periods of developing a Jewish autonomous life and culture in Birobidzhan.” check this article in the encyclopedia judaica 1971 for more history on the region.

image

telephone accessory store at 10 sholem aleichem street with a plaque commemorating 70 years on the pedestrian walking street

when it comes to birobidzhan today… it’s a tiny little town with one or two main roads, lots of trees, and a handful of russians going about their daily lives. there have been attempts to preserve the historical culture and revive some of its community, but i don’t believe that they teach yiddish in school to non-jews as they did until the 1970s. i was surprised that, aside from the railway station, none of the street signs had any yiddish, as promised in the wikitravel.org article. but of course, that would have required actual street signs to observe properly. [side note: another thing i’ve noticed about russia that falls surprisingly short of china is the lack of road signs. i wish someone would tell local tourism boards worldwide that STREET SIGNS are a particularly important part of helping people get around town!]

image

there were a few old signs and plaques around town for tourists, in russian, yiddish and english. the town map was only in russian, and maddeningly sun-bleached.

after a satisfying lunch of italian food [yet again] at cafe felicita, we wandered around in the rain for a good while as i cursed myself for checking my umbrella back in khabarovsk for the day, oy vey. we saw the abandoned-looking birobidzhan cultural centre. seems as though when the jews left, they took most of the arts and culture with them. as alex and i walked around in the rain, we got the impression that birobidzhan is fairly clean and green, if not home to a number of dilapidated storefronts. the cinema where we got out of the rain for a bit seemed to be the central hub of town.

image

off-topic, but godzilla looks way cooler in russian.

image

judaica souveneirs

after a bit of frustration from getting turned around in the rain, we stopped in a souvenir store, and i worked up the courage to ask for directions to the synagogue. the saleswoman seemed surprised [you want to go where?], but took time to carefully instruct me how to get there. one thing we’ve both noticed about russians - they look pretty intimidating from the outside, but as soon as you ask for help, they’re very kind, even if you’re only communicating by google translate. i have a feeling that if my russian was better i’d be in on more of the jokes that they make when we’re around.

image

the synagogue

image

the office for the synagogue - sorry the photos aren’t great, it was really pouring down

the synagogue was quaint and fairly tiny, though well-lit and well-maintained. we entered nervously and proclaimed in russian that we were tourists to the rabbi who watched us walk in. he nodded and showed us into the main room.

image


image


image

what a tiny torah!

“redst-du yiddish?” i asked him hopefully. he shook his head. still, while both of us stood there looking embarrassed, he took a moment to pull out a small torah and tell me some things mostly in russian [with a little hebrew tossed in for good measure]. he let us take photos as well, which was very kind of him. on our way out, he pointed to cozy photos of the head rabbi and children in the community.

image

a whole wall of yiddish books!

the highlight of the trip for me was the birobidzhan library. after some confusion about whether we wanted to use the computers for the internet, i was led to the “ivrit knigi” [as i so eloquently mashed languages together to ask for “hebrew books”], protected by a russian woman happy to pull her favourites off the shelf and show them to me.

image

copies of farpost and birobidzhan life - two of the birobidzhan yiddish periodicals

image
keep 'em coming!

image
birobidzhan: a cut, a far [distance] and a close friend? oy, i need to study more…

image
victor hugo’s toilers of the sea in yiddish

image
the jewish life!

image
sholem aleichem stuff [with analysis] from the 1920s!

being able to sit with dozens of old, impossible-to-find yiddish copies of stories and poems by sholem aleichem [after whom the main street in birobidzhan is named], isaac bashevis singer, and copies of the birobidzhan quarterlies “farpost” and “birdobidzhan life” was particularly exciting. i could just see my yiddish professor, anna shternshis, making a mildly impressed face. my only regret is that my yiddish is not up to the level where it was a few years ago - i could pronounce most of the words, but have definitely forgotten what most of them mean. yiddish is closer to german and english than russian though, so it was easier to guess at what i didn’t know.

image

quite the menagerie
image


image

poor bird
image

siberian tiger and a really adorable lynx-type thing

as we learned at our next stop, in the museum of local lore, 1) taxidermy can be quite convincingly done and 2) the jewish settlement had a very vibrant arts and culture scene. there were playwrights and musicians and a variety of shows despite the meagre population. there was also a sizeable military effort by the community during the wars. moreover, it seemed as though the local russian and yakutian populations got along fairly well together in this period of time.

we weren’t able to find the museum of jewish contemporary art, but it was terribly wet and we didn’t much feel like exploring the rest of the city. toward the end of our time in birobidzhan, we sat and enjoyed a few cheap snacks in cafe simcha, located next door to the synagogue, as they prepared for shabbat.

image

cafe simcha!

image


image


on the whole, if you’re doing a trans-siberian trip and have an interest in jewish and yiddish culture, i’d say birdobidzhan is worth a few hours. luckily, you can stop there along the trans-siberian route, or you can take a local train to [no. 7025] and from [no. 7026] khabarovsk, as we did. however, i was slightly disappointed that a place with so much interesting history had swept most of it into dusty museum cases or dispensed with it entirely. i also think a lot of the living culture of modern birobidzhan was inaccessible to us because we don’t speak russian. for anyone who wants to peek into russian yiddish literature [me and the handful of other yiddish nerds out there], this is a real goldmine.

the one strangest outcome of the day trip to birobidzhan is that now my default language to switch to when trying to speak russian is not chinese, and not french, but yiddish. the mind is a funny place. should take a course in psycho-linguistics when i get the chance.

i was happy to get back to khabarovsk where the weather was nicer and the socks were drier. we’ll update soon about our adventures here.

image

bacon chips, anyone? hah!
russia transsib trans-siberian train travel birobidzhan khabarovsk jewish yiddish

Day 2: Vladivostok

It’s Alex…

image


Slept like a baby in the hostel, woke up around 9.30 am and headed out. There was this cool looking cafe called Café Presto that we had seen the day before that was in the theatre. The interior looked great and they were playing some great jazz tunes. If I lived in Vladivostok I reckon I would be a frequent customer. I had ham, eggs and black and white toast. Russians are very proud of their different varieties of bread. Jasmine had an apple bliny and a latte.

image


We then had the rest of the day to try and see everything that we hadn’t seen yesterday. We walked down towards the pier (I always prefer to walk along the sea, if at all possible), and saw a few people on the beach in their swimsuits. Now, the day before I could’ve understood - it was a glorious day. However, today I was wearing my jeans, boots and leather jacket and I felt like I was at a comfortable temperature. I thought these Russians were a bit cray cray.

image


image


image


Much like the day before, we spent a while wandering around trying to find certain places and either stumbling across something else or it popping up later when we’d almost thought ‘meh, sod it’.

image

pirate coffee made us realize that there’s quite a market for starbucks ripoffs in russia…

We saw a nice church and saw loads of great graffiti all around the city. We had a train to take later that day so we called at a market and bought some strawberries, cherries and cucumbers. They have cool little fruit stalls in the walls which I haven’t really seen before. And in Vladivostok there’s sailors…so many sailors in their lovely sailor suits. I tried to take a picture of every group of sailors that went by but they walk bloody fast.

image

gotta love those jaunty uniforms!

image

fruit and veg vendor stall

image

fish anyone?

image

soviet memorabilia on the cheap - magnets have been jasmine’s souvenir of choice

image

So many beautiful flowers in Vladivostok

image

The market

What I really wanted to see in Vladivostok was the Tokarevskaya Koshka lighthouse; the pictures had looked beautiful and it was a fair way out of the city. We put the destination up on Google maps and set off walking. Think it took us just over an hour to get there. We almost gave up after we saw a light house pretender at the bus station terminus, thinking we’d walked all this way for this grimy thing. Luckily, we persevered and it was well worth the time and effort as you will see in the pictures.

image

The view on the way to the lighthouse

image

The pathway to the lighthouse

image

Tokarevskaya lighthouse

We got the bus back to town and went for some foods. We went into a Chinese restaurant, which was nice because we could speak to the waiter in Chinese - however it was far too expensive [especially when you’re used to paying a fraction of the price back in shenyang! - jas], so we had to leave. We ended up going back to the same restaurant that we’d eaten at the evening before.

image

vladivostok vokzal! [vladivostok train station]

We were cutting it fine, ate dinner as quickly as we could - narrowly avoiding indigestion, went to the hostel to pick up our bags then walked to the train station to pick up our tickets and start our adventure on the Trans-Siberian…!

image


image


image


…and we’re off! more updates from khabarovsk shortly!
russia transsib trans-siberian train travel vladivostok

Day 1 - Beijing and Vladivostok!

Hey, it’s Alex,

So I am currently sat on the Trans-Siberian train going from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk, watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. Kind of just sinking in that I am two days in to doing this trip of a life time. We have brownies, squashed strawberries and some water on board so think that should set us up for the 11-hour journey ahead.

image

The view of the Pacific Ocean from the Trans-Siberian train

Got a bit ahead of myself so going to pretend that I’m writing one of those novels where it starts in the present then goes back to tell the story so far…(imagine chime bells here).

image

Catholic Church of the Most Holy Mother of God

image

On the way down to the pier

On Tues 3rd I met Jasmine at Shenyang train station, all went pretty smoothly. Collected tickets went on the 5 hour train to Beijing. I slept through most of it, Jasmine had a bit more difficulty due a rather excitable little Chinese girl but we arrived in one piece. Seeing as though this is quite a long trip and you’ll be getting the perspective from both of us - I’m not going to go overboard on every little detail. We got the underground to see my friend Di who I have met up with every time I’ve been to Beijing - had some food, some drinks, bit of dancing. Then a giddy Jasmine and I got a taxi to the airport and a plane to Vladivostok. I slept from Beijing to Vladivostok so nothing to say there.

When we arrived in Vladivostok, we were both pretty beat. I had a 3 hour kip on the plane but not enough for me. First thing was to try to get to the hostel. We had this Russian guy following us around trying to get us to pay 1500 rubles for a taxi (absolutely not), we missed the train - next one was in an hour, so best thing to do was wait 45 minutes for the bus. We could get on straight away- went to back seat, laid down and fell asleep again. There was a nice Russian guy on the bus who translated for us and made sure we got to our destination ok. Our hostel (Optimum, Ulitsa Aleutskaya 17) was nice, we had a room to ourselves and the beds were super (sleeping in our beds in China is like sleeping on your dining room table, so hostel beds are verging on luxurious). Hate to say it, but when we checked in we slept for another couple of hours. Neither Jasmine or I are very good morning people or good without much sleep, so napping is a good idea for travelling harmony.

image

The pier in Vladivostok

image

Jasmine and I in front of Nikolai’s Triumphal Arch

image

Walking on the tracks inbetween trains coming along

image


image


We had a gander around, saw some statues, the harbour, some churches. We walked along the pier and saw lots of people rollerblading and some people chilling and playing music. We walked along the train tracks (when the trains weren’t going down them) and across a rickety bridge. We got told off by a couple of people, not sure what they were saying but it seemed they were offended by where we were sitting or something. When anyone talks to me in Russian and they seemed to be annoyed I just say ‘I’m English’ with a blank face, then they leave me be. I’m aware that this is a vague paragraph about what we did but the pictures will do a better job than words and I’ll make sure to write the names of places underneath…

image

The Monument to Soviet Fighters at Central Square

We had a great meal in the evening at 'Bella Bazar’, I had fish. It was cracking. We then went for drinks. It’s really weird. All the windows are blacked out, the lights appear to be off, and you can’t hear any music, so you only know the place is open when you open the door and walk in. We found somewhere that was a little retro, wasn’t very busy but it was a Wednesday night. On the walk home we passed a few guys sat on a bench doing a cover or Nirvana’s 'Rape me’ - I considered joining in but thought a girl walking down the street with her female friend, in Russia, after midnight shouting 'Rape Me’ might not be the best idea I’ve ever had. Although I’m sure I would have been spectacularly tuneful.

image

Our yummy dinner

We got back to the hostel, sent messages home and to loved ones, then went to sleep…again.


//

image

misty vladivostok from the air as we prepare to land… apologies if my photos are less than stellar, i’m an amateur!

jasmine here!

i’m going to do the same thing as alex and just reiterate how surreal it is to be sitting on the night train vladivostok to khabarovsk. my hands are stained with cherries and i’m sitting cross-legged on the bench that folds under what will soon be my bed. we’re second class (kupe) in a nice quality firmenny train, excited for the adventure ahead. for years i read about vladivostok in books and online, but never dreamed of the day i would actually visit. i saved my dollars and yuan, and despite all my adventures and misadventures in china, i made this happen.

image

goodbye shenyang skylines full of identical apartment buildings…

i have lots to write about, mostly from the perspective of letting this trans-siberian trip be the dénouement to a tumultuous year-and-a-half as an english teacher in shenyang [the city formerly known as manchuria], china. alex is going to do the bulk of summarizing our days, and i’ll do more analysis on particular parts, as i tend to do. for the first post, i’m taking a moment to reflect on cultural differences.

on our first day, june 03, alex and i met up at the shenyang north train station and i bid farewell to the city. it’s a strange feeling to leave a city where you’ve established so much; in shenyang i had a band in a burgeoning music scene, several teaching jobs [hah], language clubs, social groups, and loads of good friends and acquaintances. it was tough to say goodbye, but i’m going home to ottawa, canada to attend law school in september. i won’t have a chance to return to shenyang until next summer, so i’ll be away for eons in expat years. at least going to beijing at the beginning of the trip softened the blow.

beijing was, as always, a bit of a mixed bag. the train trip to the city felt like boring prerequisite to the real train trip that would soon begin. it’s a massive city with multitudes of people, and although there are moments of calm that can be found, it’s never really been my kind of place. i felt a little nostalgic in the swell and rush of arriving at beijing train station that afternoon; i had arrived here in the freezing cold of january 2013 after a 16-hour flight with two massive suitcases, my backpack and my violin, and tried to find my way to the right train to shenyang. at least i can laugh about it now!

raucous, rowdy and over-priced, beijing’s high-end/expat bar district sanlitun yielded my last mainland meal of fried chinese eggplant and rice [烧茄子 shao qiezi for those in the know]. even in the airport, i began to try and ennumerate the things i would miss about china, but they were too many to consider. i think the biggest one is seeing chinese characters everywhere - i’m really going to miss the passive learning experience.

image

although to be honest, sanlitun could be anywhere. not much chinese to be seen here.

the flight was a short one, thanks to skipping a few time zones. vladivostok gives me the impression of a few towns i’ve visited, but most strongly of kingston ontario. like kingston, vladivostok is a port town, but it is central to much eastern asian trade. it’s not a terribly big place; the population is only around 542 000. it was a little sleepy, but like alex said, we arrived on a wednesday and left on a thursday, not exactly the most exciting nights of the week.

image

the main square and memorial to the fighters for the soviet power in the far east. i’ve been a little surprised at how much soviet-era stuff is still lying around, from street names to building facades to monuments.

image

on svetlanskaya, facing back toward the main square

image

one of the big, pretty bank buildings. many houses and buildings are nicely painted, even if they’re not nicely maintained.

we managed to walk most of vladivostok in the time we were there, which is pretty cool. of the of two main streets, we stayed on ulitsa aleutskaya and dined on ulitsa svetlankaya, so we were truly at the heart of things, and yet not too far from the ocean. my favourite russian food so far has been bliny, which i suppose is the same as a blintz, so like a crêpe with delicious sweet or savoury fillings. i was overjoyed to be back in a land where i could get cheese, bread and butter that tasted like home, and for reasonable prices. there are lots of pizza places and cafes [that are also bars or also restaurants], but i didn’t see a single mcdonald’s, KFC or starbucks in the entire area we walked. and we walked at least 10 km in every direction!

image

bliny is fast becoming one of my favourite russian foods!
image

the big bridge down by the pier

the most noticeable differences about russia and china are that people i’m not constantly hearing “laowai! waiguoren!” [“foreigner”] as i go about my daily life, although people seem to be mildly aware of the fact that we’re foreigners here [even before we open our mouths]. russia strikes me as an interesting mid-way between east and west already, or maybe neither. there are lots of unusual things that i see here that aren’t asian, nor are they western. doors are heavier; all the stores appear to have their lights off and curtains drawn, so you don’t know if they’re open until you try to go in; almost nobody smokes or spits; cars stop for you if you want to cross the street [!!!]; and most of all, people are amazingly helpful and try their best to speak english if you need something. it’s weird to be reduced to this kind of pointing and sputtering and shrugging when i was so fluent back in china. this is the first time i’ve gone to a country without speaking the language of the land before going, and i think it’ll provide a really interesting learning experience. i’m a real classroom learner. working up the courage to talk to people is going to be very different.

image

image

there’s also tons of really cool graffiti art around vladivostok.

now that i’m back in a place with western-style toilets [albeit ones made in china, with paper towel for toilet paper], western-style food and western-style customs [a whole lot more people holding doors and saying thank-you], i wonder how much i’ll miss china once this trip is done. one thing’s for sure… i’m already craving a big hot bowl of 麻辣烫 malatang.

china shenyang beijing russia vladivostok transsiberian trans-siberian transsib trains travel

welcome//THE ITINERARY!

hi! it’s jasmine! i’m gonna write a quick introduction to this blog and then post the itinerary for our trip.

so, my dear friend alex and i have gotten to know each other over the last year and a half of living in shenyang, china. outside of being english teachers, we’ve been making community happen here around music events [she organizes and promotes events; i play in them and do the tech stuff], and become really strong friends along the way. so, when i mentioned my interest in taking the trans-siberian express across russia toward europe this summer, alex was super excited and made plans to come along. [shout-out to our awesome friend veronica who couldn’t make it with us because of her teaching contract dates!] the blog name //be the passenger// comes from the iggy pop song i posted below.

imagehere is some chuanr. it is delicious. i am going to miss shenyang’s night markets.

months later, here we are! about to depart from our land of 串儿 chuanr [pronounced chu'aaarrrr] into the great russian north! i figured a blog was the best way to keep in touch with everyone, upload our photos and stop our moms from worrying ;-)

without further ado, here’s our ITINERARY, at least so far. time zones included so you know when we’re sleeping, or just use http://everytimezone.com/ to help you figure it out:

June 03 [BST, UTC+8]
12:27 - depart for 北京 beijing from 沈阳 shenyang train station
17:23 - arrive in 北京

June 04 [BST, UTC+8; VLAT, UTC+11]
02:30 - fly from 北京 to vladivostok влдивосток [*no i’m not going to keep up writing in russian but i am learning it]
08:20 - arrive in vladivostok
stay in vladivostok.

June 05-06 [VLAT, UTC+11]
21:15 night train to khabarovsk, arrive 08:15

June 06 [VLAT, UTC+11]
08:50 go to birobidzhan, capital city of the jewish autonomous oblast, and return to khabarovsk around 20:30
stay in khabarovsk.

June 07-09 [VLAT, UTC+11; YAKT, UTC+10; IRKT, UTC+9]
13:47 - take the two-day train from khabarovsk to ulan-ude, arriving at 16:53 june 9th.

June 10 [IRKT, UTC+9]
02:38 take another night train to irkutsk, arriving at 10:37.
stay in irkutsk for the night.

June 11 [IRKT, UTC+9]
08:00 - go to olkhon, the big island in lake baikal, and stay overnight. it’s about six hours by bus to get there, but it’s a damn beautiful place.

June 12 [IRKT, UTC+9]
12:00 return to irkutsk in the evening
19:05 - get a night train to krasnoyarsk.

June 13 [KRAT, UTC+8] phew, finally back on china time!
12:26 - arrive in krasnoyarsk
22:00 - depart krasnoyarsk for novosibirsk, taking the night train

June 14 [NOVT, UTC+7]
09:00 - arrive in novosibirsk

June 15 [NOVT, UTC+7]
05:17 - depart novosibirsk
13:49 - arrive in omsk, stay for the night. after all that time on the train, we’ll need a good rest in a bed!

June 16 [OMST, UTC+7]
18:23 - depart omsk on another overnight train to yekaterinburg.

June 17 [YEKT, UTC+6]
05:21 - arrive in yekaterinburg and stay for the night.
[the hostel is called omnomnom. can’t wait ;D]

June 19 [YEKT, UTC+6]
01:41 - depart yekaterinburg to perm. this is only five and a half hours, so it might be a rough night.
07:10 - arrive in perm.
20:56 - depart perm for nizhny novgorod. skip one time zone; do not pass GO, do not collect 100 rubles.

June 20 [MSK, UTC+4]
09:38 - arrive in nizhny novgorod.
stay in nizhny for the night.

June 21 [MSK, UTC+4]
09:45 - depart for vladimir, only two hours on the train!
11:55 - arrive in vladimir
vladimir to moscow is only two hours on the train, so we’ve decided to play it by ear when we get there. we’ll probably stay in vladimir this night because it’ll be cheaper than staying an extra night in moscow.

June 22 [MSK, UTC+4]
early train to moscow! spend two nights here.

June 24 [MSK, UTC+4]
23:55 - night train to st. petersburg! there are ultra-fast trains, but it saves us a night in a hostel if we can take a sleeper train.

June 25 [MSK, UTC+4]
07:55 - arrive in st. petersburg, spend two nights there

June 27 [MSK, UTC+4]
09:10 - our flight departs st. petersburg airport LED…
09:30 - …and arrives twenty minutes later at berlin SXF. hooray for time zones!

June 30 [MSK, UTC+4; CEST, UTC+2]
17:35 - depart hamburg
18:25 - arrive in manchester!


i’ll update the itinerary as we make further plans in the UK, but for alex, she’s going to be in the UK until july 14th when she flies back to shenyang from london. for me, i’ll be spending some time after that in france, maybe head back to germany to see a friend in munich, then back to shenyang to pick up my violin and my luggage, and head home to canada via san francisco and NYC!

wish us luck!

itinerary welcome trans-siberian transsib china shenyang

Iggy Pop - The Passenger

image

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0nlygb1Qfw

I am the passenger and I ride and I ride
I ride through the city’s backsides
I see the stars come out of the sky
Yeah, the bright and hollow sky
You know it looks so good tonight

I am the passenger
I stay under glass
I look through my window so bright
I see the stars come out tonight
I see the bright and hollow sky
Over the city’s ripped backsides
And everything looks good tonight
Singing la la la la la.. lala la la, la la la la.. lala la la etc

Get into the car
We’ll be the passenger
We’ll ride through the city tonight
We’ll see the city’s ripped backsides
We’ll see the bright and hollow sky
We’ll see the stars that shine so bright
Stars made for us tonight

Oh, the passenger
How, how he rides
Oh, the passenger
He rides and he rides
He looks through his window
What does he see?
He sees the sign and hollow sky
He sees the stars come out tonight
He sees the city’s ripped backsides
He sees the winding ocean drive
And everything was made for you and me
All of it was made for you and me
‘Cause it just belongs to you and me
So let’s take a ride and see what’s mine
Singing la la la la.. lala la la [x3]

Oh the passenger
He rides and he rides
He sees things from under glass
He looks through his window side
He sees the things that he knows are his
He sees the bright and hollow sky
He sees the city sleep at night
He sees the stars are out tonight
And all of it is yours and mine
And all of it is yours and mine
So let’s ride and ride and ride and ride
Oh, oh, Singing la la la la lalalala

hello world