Home » Russia Mongolia » Travel to St. Petersburg and Mongolia (part II)

The train from Moscow to Byisk takes 63 hours and costs $40.My friend Vladislav D. and I prefer hard sleeper without separate rooms (platskartnii vagon). Our closest neighbor, a 16 year old girl fed us with food carefully supplied for her journey by her parents and told us a bunch of stories about her tough life. From Byisk we took a bus to a remote corner of Altay, village Yst-Koksa. The bus ride was 10 hours long and cost $8. After initial fight for seats the atmosphere in the bus became peaceful and friendly. Especially touching was the care which the entire bus took care of a straw hat of a young lady from the old believer village Mylta.

Travel to St. Petersburg and Mongolia (part II)

Alex Mumzhiu
2006-03-22 18:19:28

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least. Well, this is how Russian authorities create problems for themselves.

The next day I went to another place memorable for me, to mountaineering camp Ak-Try. I was there in 1963. The road to Ak Try is very long and bad, the first part was by car, the second by horse. This time a big horse carried me and the horse owner. When we reached Ak-Try it was sleeting there. I was allowed to stay in abandoned building. But not for free, for $3. Commercialism is flourishing there. After Russia lost Caucasus, Karpati and Pamirs mountains, after the USSR broke up, the Altay is left as the only mountain area in Russian territory. There are a lot of developments there, and they are very commercialized, well, Russian style.

I reached Novosibirsk in a couple days and bought kupeinii (separate room) ticket to Vladivostok for $120. This time I was not so lucky with my cabin mates. It was a (jlob) redneck couple with a 4 year old boy. They were non-stop disciplining their boy by shouting at him and kicking him. Between themselves they also communicated mostly by shouting. Trip took 4 days and 5 nights. So I was very glad when the train eventually reach Vladivostok.

VLADIVOSTOK

Vladivostok looks nice and the people, especially the women look nice. It continues until you hear how they talk. Most of them speak with heavy malorossiiskim (redneck) accent. They "kushaut,", "lojut" (some examples), and every second word they use is a four letter word (mat). I understand now why Russian writers talking about Siberia like to emphasize if a person is "potomstvennii", or generational Siberian. Most of the people here are first or second generation and came here through "Orgnabor" (government sponsored relocation program) which explain their accent as well as beauty of women. Orgnabor heavily recruit people from Ukraine. I purchased a folding bike here because I cannot be without a bike. Its frame broke on the second day. ...