Sleeper Cars, Sailing Ships, Dragons and Mermaids
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Moscow-Chisinau Train Number 47, Wagon 11, Seat 25
The mist is just beginning to burn off of the pumpkin fields outside of the window of our 8:38AM train from Kiev, Ukraine to Chisinau, Moldova. Collin is waylaid in his bunk with a hangover you could drape Christmas tinsel on and I am staring at the chickens, cabbages and woodcutters that lace the fall forests we pass through. Babushkas pass our open compartment door selling playing cards, scarlet grapes in wrinkled plastic bags and twisted homemade bread.
Our train is going around northern Moldova, through western Ukraine to avoid the restive, breakaway region on the far side of the Nistru River, Transdniestr. And then down into Moldova proper, through small hamlets with houses made of course limestone blocks painted red, blackening tin roofs and lace in the windows. Stonewalls, primeval aqueducts, hand-tilled plots waiting for the winter crops and more of these beautiful trees changing yellow, orange and red. There are small sections of laden corn, drying on the stalk, along the rail siding. Women tend shaggy goats with curly-willow switches. More curly-willow is woven into fences to hold empty-eyed brown cows. Grape vines loop over rebar trellis. If it were not for the eye-watering reek of vegetable soup coming off a person we are sharing our car with then this morning would be without fault. The boy must have eaten a singular diet or worked in a bullion factory.
We crossed the Nistru River into Moldova around noon. There was some trepidation as the guidebook describes it as “the poorest nation in Europe and one of the most corrupt countries in the world.” In preparation I had folded one-hundred Ukrainian Hryvnia into my front pocket (and far away from the rest of money) in the event that the wheels of government required some lubrication. But, we were quickly passed through customs by an efficient young woman with a chirping laptop and another of these large, governmental hats. I would not be too surprised to see people goose-stepping past the cabin door for as much as the uniforms remind me of Russian movies. Her laptop was the only whiff of modernity on the train with its cast metal, prison-grade light fixtures, sun weary pink curtains and flower covered tea kettle swinging wildly from a hook above the toilet. I elected to forgo the hot drink service.
These observations may be painting the trip as uncomfortable or rough. The opposite is true. While you do get what you pay for with a $35 train ticket, the whole of the day has been pleasant. And now the sun is setting over round and swollen hills, pink clouds fringe the horizon and there are just a few more hours before we begin the increasingly familiar labor of finding a hotel in the middle of the night in a place where no one speaks English and the taxi drivers are creative in their pricing upon hearing a foreign accent.
I am sending along some pictures from Kiev. The sun had come out and we were at the point furthest away from home. This made leaving that city of golden churches and plunging hills bittersweet. Home soon but, Moldova before. Take care.
Original post: http://www.lemonsandbeans.com/?p=261
Tags: 2008, Eastern Europe, Moldova, Train Travel, Travel, Ukraine
