Tomsk to Krasnoyarsk: The Trans-Siberian Railway

To continue my travelling spree of late, I embarked on an expedition to Krasnoyarsk, the capital of Russia’s biggest region, with 13 international companions. Described by the guidebook as ‘bustling, affluent and backed by attractively jagged foothills’, my expectations of Krasnoyarsk were high. A large part of the appeal was the mighty River Yenisei, which dissects the city on its 3487km journey from the Mongolian highlands to the Arctic Circle. But before all of this, we first had to negotiate our way there from Tomsk.

I had travelled across Russia on the legendary Trans-Siberian Express three years earlier on an expedition from Beijing to Moscow. This time, however, I would only have a brief taste of the train’s unparalleled eccentricities. Somehow, Izzi and I had been roped into organising this trip, eventually managing to book 14 beds on the train and two apartments in Krasnoyarsk. After the hassle of planning, I was somewhat relieved to find myself in a swarming mass of people, all aiming to board the train from Tomsk to Taiga. Despite being one of Siberia’s oldest and culturally richest cities, Tomsk infamously lost out to Novosibirsk when the railway was introduced, meaning that to join the Trans-Siberian, one has to first head south on a bog-standard train. Our excitement to be on our way was tangible; the 2-hour train journey was punctuated by singing in various languages and a rather peculiar conversation with a lovely man named Mikhail, during which we discussed various topics, ranging from the extraordinary beauty of Russian women to the “interesting” differences in retirement ages around the world.

One of many group shots

As Taiga isn’t a major station, the train only stops there for 2 minutes. Half of us succeeded in finding the right carriage as the train pulled in, but the other half had to sprint down the platform, egged on by my panicky shouts, which were perhaps intensified by the ticket collector continuously screaming “WHERE ARE THEY” in my ear. Thankfully, we made it onto the train and were greeted with a temperature of 26 degrees and a simply phenomenal stench of body odour. Now, I remember being introduced to deodorant by my form teacher in year 8, when he announced to the class that it might be time for us to start spraying our underarms and changing our shirts more than once a week. In Russia, this life lesson seems to have passed them by. In the Western world, most people feel slightly self-conscious when the reek of body odour exudes from their pores, but many Russians feel no such shame, and that, quite simply, has to be admired. I was sleeping above two babushkas, with whom I spent about half an hour chatting, exchanging stories, mainly about the length of their journey, which had involved driving from Kiev to Moscow, before three days on the train.

I’m not sure what woke me in the morning, whether it was the sunlight, the bustle of people or the fact that my feet were sticking off the end of the bed at the average male head-height, perfect for butting. It may have also been the smell. No, it was definitely the smell. I hate to be vulgar, but I can’t find another way to describe the rather horrifying deterioration in smell from the night before. Before opening my eyes, I genuinely believed that someone had opened a bag of faeces. As a result, I chose to keep my eyes closed, in case the pungent air was strong enough to burn through my cornea. Needless to say, our arrival in Krasnoyarsk was most welcome. There was no sign of the bustling, affluent lifestyle that the book had promised, rather the odd architectural gem hiding among the glum facades. Perhaps in the summer it’s a different story, but the streets were rather empty. Fortunately, the River Yenisei exceeded expectations: a vast body of water carving its way through snow-capped peaks. Krasnoyarsk’s most photographed landmark, its main bridge, which also features on the 10-rouble note, took 20 minutes to walk across and was certainly a tasteful work of craftsmanship.

Krasnoyarsk Bridge on the 10-rouble note and again in the background

The highlight of the trip was our expedition to the Stolby Nature Reserve. Stolby (столбы) translates as ‘pillars’ or ‘columns’. A forty minute bus journey and several hours walking uphill leads to a series of rock formations that stick out of the ground like giant pillars, or perhaps human fingers. At the summit, snow began to fall, creating a surreal, Christmas feel to the whole place. Wandering through the forest and climbing the rocks was the perfect reward after a long day walking and I’m sure the views would have been even more remarkable had snow not been filling the skies. Alas, our ecstasy was short-lived as night began to fall. Five of us managed to get slightly lost among the darkening trees without telephone signal or water, occasionally bumping into groups of Russian who had also fallen afoul of the rapid sunset. Fortunately, we eventually worked our way out of the forest, well aware that bears and wolves could be lurking just metres away.

Me, on top of the world. 

The rest of our long weekend was spent roaming the streets, popping into churches, cafes and billiards clubs, soaking in the Krasnoyarsk life. In an attempt to indisputably confirm our tourist-status, we gleefully played in the snow as if we had never seen it before and dined in classy establishments such as KFC. To be fair, finding somewhere for 14 people is rather difficult. We did locate an ‘English Café’ that offered a free 5 minute phone call to anywhere in the world. The phone, of course, broke almost immediately, but we were in a marvellously English environment: red brick walls were draped with tapestries as we sat at a round table, in an underground dungeon, which I explained was a highly accurate representation of our country and that we all live in buildings just like this. Unfortunately, the service was beyond abysmal. Russia does a very peculiar thing of bringing whatever is ready, whenever it is ready, meaning that you all tend to be eating at different times. I confirmed with our international companions, with nationalities ranging from Swiss and French to Brazilian and Mexican that this form of service is both unusual and ridiculous. For the first 10 minutes, we had one glass of orange juice to share between us, before coffees and salads started arriving in dribs and drabs.

I wanted to spend my final day with one last hurrah, aiming to enjoy a boat trip on the Yenisei. However, the magnificently unhelpful woman at the ticket office, thwarted me:

“Excuse me, when does the next boat leave for Divnogorsk?”

“Next year.”

What a stupendously unhelpful response. Things do seem to close for the winter months, but I’m hopeful that the world of the more ridiculous Russian past times will open up, preferably involving snow, ice and limited items of clothing.