QUITE A SHOW!
Saturday, April 18th, 2009by Rach
Train 5 (day 1), from Mongolia to Russia
Were they looking for salamis or what? Three times they unscrewed and removed the ceiling outside our compartment to check the revealed space, which would have been lucky to conceal the strings the salamis hang by, let alone a whole sausage, or more miraculously, a boxful.
They checked the heater grill, shining torches in meticulously. Any bangers frying? They lifted the carpet and raised a trapdoor in the floor twice. They evacuated our compartment, lifted beds and rearranged the luggage compartment.
No, they obviously were not looking for salami – our two were hanging in full view and received not even a passing glance.
This is Russian border control. In a word, thorough. Even the customs declaration is completed in duplicate, each copy receiving no less than six official stamps. Not that we had anything of interest to declare; no radioactive material, no drugs or psychotropic substances, no ammunition or explosives, no cultural values. Just eight children and ten pieces of luggage, eleven if you count the bumbag, and they do.
At least they let the children sleep, being after midnight-n-all. More than can be said for the Mongolian crew. But why the crossing should have taken as long as the last one when there was no bogie-exchanging, escapes me. Must be something to do with officialdom in smart suits with shiny buttons and white gloves and serious hats. Don’t ya think?
And so we are in Russia. Rob comments it seems just the same as Mongolia. I find it to be immediately quite different – let’s see if I can manage a blogpost faithful to everyone’s experience.
The ground is still brown here, but it is not barren – in fact, all day long there will be trees in view. Many are still deciduous skeletons emerging from winter still surrounded by icy patches trapping new life. Many more are green, evergreen.
The homes are different too. Plain gers become yurts with fancy teepee-like pinnacles on top. Wooden houses have intricate carvings and brightly painted carved shutters. Fences are straight. And upright. Apartment blocks appear to be well-maintained. It all just looks tidy. Initially, that is. Later we will see residential areas with just as much litter as Mongolia.
The mountains are different too. These ones are majestically covered in snow!
Mongolia was dry, with many riverbeds not even sporting a trickle. Russia is running with rivers. Most of the ones we see today are filled with iceberg-like chunks of greying ice and great sheets of ice still blocking the flow of water. Then there’s Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world. We skirt its southern shore, marvelling at the expanse of solid white. Still completely frozen, it calls many a man this Saturday morning to cut hole and settle down on a small stool to wait for fish.
Two weeks may be too short to form a valid opinion, but it was long enough to make an observation; very few Mongolian families grow food for themselves. Evidence of the exact opposite is strewn across most Russian backyards so far – raised beds, tilled soil, glass-covered seedling-raising contraptions, irrigation systems, tools. Perhaps the black soil instead of Mongolian sand is the reason behind this domestic industry.
We see more roads. More Ladas too.
Of course, the language changes as well. Gone is the gutteral and in its place a hauntingly recognizable, but not quite familiar tongue resounds. We’re about to find out just how similar Russian and Polish are.
The most obvious difference that strikes the children is the people:
“They’re white!”
”They’re tall!”
”The ladies all have brown hair dyed red or orange or blonde!”
”Some of them are really big!” (The ladies, that is).
The power of geographical and political borders to isolate a gene pool really is phenomenal.
Just a matter of a few miles, but through my eyes, the two places look quite different.
Donning my empathetic hat, I try to see things through Rob’s glasses.
The grass is still brown.
The homes are still felt tents or small wooden buildings. Outhouses, identical everywhere, are still sprinkle liberally through back yards. There are no futuristic highrises, no Central Business Districts, nothing modern. Just Ladas on poor roads.
Although nothing green is growing anywhere yet, there *are* mountains – just like Mongolia. And just like Mongolian rivers, the rivers here are filled with ice, something totally different to rivers we’ve seen near the equator or even the streams that trickle through our own city.
Yes, I can see how it still looks like Mongolia. Depends what you look at.
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rayres