#vodkatrain

I’m writing these lines in the restaurant carriage of our train, which will be my home for the next 3 days, and I have already 24 hours behind me. This will most probably be the longest nonstop train ride I will ever experience: over 5400 km, and this is just one part of the journey, within one country. Russia is huuuuge. 

Although the official route starts from Moscow, I didn’t want to miss out St. Petersburg and it was the right decision. The city is stunningly beautiful. No wonder it’s a UNESCO world heritage. I didn’t spot one new or tall building in the city centre; only super well-kept beautiful older houses.  And don’t get me started on the metro, which is a piece of art. I felt like the metro was driving through palaces with chandeliers and striking ornaments covered in gold and columns with carved glass. Not a single graffiti in sight. Distances are huge, what appeared to be a nice little walk in the centre on the map, turned out to be a 4 hour marathon. 

Oh god, I have to interrupt, cause just as you would expect, a random Russian passenger, huge guy with more golden teeth than real ones, just took a seat next to me and started to talk in Russian of course, and he was crazy drunk, drunk in that way that his eyes wouldn’t move anymore synchronically. And he not only talked absolute nonsense but also came super close to me and started touching me and my hair. That guy was twice as big as me and oh no here he comes again…

Okay I survived attack number two. This time he had food in his mouth and continued talking. Blaaah that smell of food and alcohol still sticks in my nose. Now he’s eating with his buddy who is even more drunk than my new friend. Do NOT maintain eye contact.

Back to St. Petersburg. The world is a village indeed. I bumped into a friend who lives in Singapore. Okay I had a little help from the well-known yellow app (most of you can guess which one ;) ) Nevertheless a very nice coincidence and so we spent 2 days together, partying and sightseeing. Including two boat tours, for which I even managed to negotiate a skidka (discount). The tour was of course in Russian. We couldn’t see the lady but hear her and she seemed to be bored to death. Sometimes the line would cut off and it sounded as if she dozed off and dropped her microphone. We had a blast back there imagining her, sitting in a little cabin somewhere below deck, cigarette in her mouth, cheap wig, leaning over to her mic, narrating the city’s story for the 1000th time and eventually falling asleep during her glorious speech.

Another cool thing was that the main boulevard was closed for cars due to paving, so people were walking along the 8-lane wide avenue, street artists and musicians were entertaining the public and it was simply wonderful. Also I rediscovered my most favourite fruit of all times ever: yellow cherries. I simply love them. I should start a business in Switzerland, import and sell them for ridiculous prices. You cannot get yellow cherries there and neither fresh sour cherries (had those in Moscow). ***Homer-tongue-sideways-out-of-mouth-face***

Oh god, the drunk guy just puked next to the table. How am I supposed to write a decent text in this context? Oh well, I guess I have an excuse now if it’s turning (or already has turned) out bad. 

Then after 3 days of serious St. Petersburg exploring it was time to meet the group I was destined to travel with for the next 3 weeks. There was Rose (I called her later Rose Emily Dewitt Tupperware Blake), 26, from Oxford, quit her job at a charity organisation, to start her second studies in maths in 2 months’ time so the Transmongolian train was the one adventure before diving into 4 years of studies again. Then we had Stu or Irish Stu (or Jewish Stu for no reason), 35, quit his job at a carbon fibre factory in Scotland and is pretty much doing the same thing as me. Loves beer, tea with milk and 60-70ies rock music (of course he got a heart attack and a seizure at the same time when he saw my music collection). Next was Pete our little pet in the group, 22, also a Scotsman, studied law and decided to go on a yearlong trip in order to figure out what he wants to do in his life. His backpack is twice his size, including an original kilt and those vacuum plastic bags you see on every infomercial channel and a skin coloured security waist bag. Speaks English with full Scottish accent in double speed to anyone and everyone, so even Stu hardly understands him. This year will definitely do him good. Last in our group were two married Kiwis, very quiet. They were living in the UK for a year and a bit and didn’t get their visas extended so pretty much had to leave the island. They’ve been travelling for some two months and will eventually relocate back to New Zealand. What’s cool is that they will visit North Korea after the Transmongolian tour. How awesome is that? 

Having spent some days with them I must say I had expected a slightly crazier group. After all the bloody tour is called “Vodkatrain”. I mean that raises expectations, doesn’t it? Actually we had a lot of vodka so far, but it all went down just really civilized. I am used to “different” vodka evenings though. Or maybe I have very unchristian and barbaric friends back in Switzerland? Note to self: Reassess friendships once I am home. Naaaaaah, I am kidding. I LOVE my friends back home. Every now and then I have flashbacks of crazy stories or situations with my close friends and a warm really comforting feeling embraces me. Enough sentimentality for today!

After 5 wonderful days in St. Petersburg, it was time to embark on the overnight train to Moscow, Wi-Fi included! The 3 days in the capital were unspectacular, wasn’t really impressed by the city. Red square? Yeah nice. Lenin thomb? Rather Marie Tussaud’s with one single waxwork figure, you’re allowed to look at for 10 seconds. Our honcho? Disinterested, bored and spoiled 22 year old girl who hates the city and her job. Metro? Overcrowded. Pretty though but no comparison to the one in St. Petersburg. Kreml? Lots of churches. While we were there we saw a lady, well advanced in her age, tragically trying to preserve her long lost youth with way too much Botox, escorted by couple of orthodox priests with proper grey beards and in full black clothing. They were showing her around, but one of those priests seemed not to be particularly interested and he was constantly on his iPhone. Modern times, eh?

The space museum was actually quite good but we only have been there cause I really wanted to do some go karting and it was on the way. The karting racetrack was in a park with some amusement rides and several pavilions each representing one country of the former USSR. There were speakers hanging everywhere playing some cheesy Russian tunes. But then out of nowhere “The Loving Kind” from Girls Aloud starting playing. Yay! I really love their music. Yeah yeah, go ahead, call it shitty pop trash. But it just made my day then! 

Also we didn’t go out to party as we made the horrible mistake to watch “The Big Lebowski” and downed a vodka shot each time someone said the word “DUDE” in the movie. It was only next day when we checked how many times “dude” was mentioned: 161. As said, horrible, horrible mistake. 

Also we discovered a new type of cab scam. So our honcho ordered a cab to the railway station and it didn’t arrive. She then phoned the driver who said that the hostel has cancelled it. The taxi showed up 20min later and the driver asked for extra charge as he had to come back again. Why the hell would our hostel cancel a random cab that they even hadn’t called? I was really angry and started arguing with the cab driver in Bulgarian (couldn’t be bothered) while he was throwing some serious Russian swearing at me. In the end he was ready to call the police, also we were about to miss our train. So here you go Russian cab devil. Take the 200 extra Roubles and choke on them. I will quote another cab driver who once said the following words to me in Bulgaria: “You shall die hungry!”

The fire flickers, the fire burns, and the world keeps on turning.

She meets you on the Vodkatrain. It’s simple, it’s sweet. Dark nights through Russian countryside and rickety carriages, sneakily walking through lantern-lit corridors with the hum of metal wheels on metal tracks filling the air and the euphoria of sneaking on a train in the dead of night.

It’s almost storybook, and she steals your cigarettes and hides them under cushions, seats, bookshelves and suitcases in order to steal a second of your time and attention. Chases you through every city stopped at along the way, from St Petersburg to Ulaanbaatar. Hectic, fast, childish.

Beijing, China. End of the tracks. You split at a stall that sells the most horrid of delicacies. You glance at a tray of spider legs and grimace, distracted for only a second, and she becomes lost in the crowd. Engulfed, hidden, and gone. Only when home, too many hours later and almost crying from Jetlag, do you spot the sticky note attached to the empty packet of cigarettes. It’s vague, incomprehensible, was she drunk when she wrote this?

You meet her again in Georgia. It’s raining; she’s wearing a sundress despite it all and cockily twirling a packet of your favourite cigarettes as though she’s been waiting by the lamppost for the past year without a care in the world. A sweet kiss in the rain. A fumble in a motel room. Vegas awaits, you win on a machine and once again she’s lost in the congratulatory crowd that surrounds you.

Elven, France, is next. You spot her standing on the top of the octagon keep. You’d swear she was stalking you, but you don’t even know each other’s names. Your cigarette’s hit you in the chest as you make your way up to her, and only distractedly do you notice she’s wearing your scarf.

You’d lost that in Vegas.

You lose her again in a crowd of tourists.

The routine stays the same, every meeting either swift or long and always a fiery whirlwind of emotions. Heidelberg is next, followed by Shimonoseki, Prague, Cairo, Puerto Rico, Jerusalem, Athens, Lindos, and finally back in the St Petersburg train station where you caught your first glimpse.

You make her your bride.

She finds out why you travel so much. She breaks, sobs and shakes so violently her back aches and her ribs crack from the strength of hugging herself together. She rants, she rages, she hates, she kicks and screams and curses all deities known. Haunted eyes bore into your own, and you know you’ve made a mistake.

Whether that mistake is telling her, or whether it’s marrying her before telling her, you’re not sure, but now she’s looking at you like a dead man walking. You begin to hate her for that look, because that’s exactly what you are.

Three years later, and the sickness really kicks in. You’ve weeks left, and she knows it. She wears the brightest smiles if only to make your lips tilt upwards just a millimetre, wears your favourite sundress and snug jeans, and sweeps into the hospital at every opportunity with a grin that makes you ache in sadness.

It’s not just you who is dying. She is too. She is dying from pain at watching you suffer, and from the knowledge that once your heart stops beating her world will lose all colour and she’ll be only a void. You fill her up with food, drink, even alcohol on your last days, but the void is growing and it won’t be filled.

At your funeral, she doesn’t cry. Can’t cry, really. She’s numb, drags herself out of a cold bed on a morning, never notices if the shower is warm or cold, walks to work like a zombie and simply stares into a glass of alcohol whenever she’s dragged from the house by concerned friends.

She does, however, shiver. Not from cold, but from heat. The fire that eradicates you from the earth crawls along her skin and burns, burns, burns, and the shining light behind her eyes is burnt to a crisp. Time has stopped for her the moment she scatters your ashes, but the world keeps turning.

Days fade into weeks, weeks into months and months into years, a gradual steady blur of the same routine. There’s no feeling, no spark, no colour to the world and the brightest thing to enter her day is when she sits in the chair by the fireplace and imagines you sitting across from her with a ridiculous fact to tell her that she never really needs to know, but misses all the same. She goes through all the stages of grief, and finally, at acceptance, she seems too far gone to ever be saved. Suicide is not in her repertoire, you know this, but her friends stay on the watch nonetheless. They clearly don’t know her like you did.

You plant the idea in her head. Venice.

She walks alongside the waterways, marvels at the Carnivale, and at the masked parade she bumps into him. He drops his cigarettes, removes his mask in order to bend down to pick them up, and she’s enraptured. She smiles for the first time in ten summers. A genuine, blinding smile. The Void becomes filled.

She meets him in Venice.