5 June
We had a leisurely breakfast as Tomsk came to life after the weekend. Another sunny, blue sky day. Our expedition to the supermarket however, was not too successful. The fresh bread, rolls and other comestibles are not ready until 11am. By which time we were due to be picked up by Igor, and taken to the station to catch the ‘Tomich’ to Yekaterinburg, departing at 12:12. So we pottered and packed and were duly delivered to the station just after 11am.
Had a quick squiz at the station, verified our train was to leave from platform 1, and waited. I bought a hammer & sickle souvenir stick pin for 50 roubles. At noon, a train arrived at the platform closest to the station, which we’d assumed to be platform 1, but is was disgorging lots of passengers, which did not seem right for a train originating from Tomsk. The provenitsa of coach 8 verified that this was not our train, just as another train pulled in to the 2nd platform from the station, behind the first train. How to get to the train? There are no underpasses, or overpasses at the station. Eventually we worked out that we had to walk all the way back to the engine, cross the tracks and drag our bags back up the train to coach No 8. Fortunately, it was a 20 minute stop, but we arrived at our 1st Class compartment a bit puffed and flustered. Settled in for the long ride.
Outside the train window, we were greeted with the sight of pine and birch forests once more. Our route retraced our steps yet again via Taiga and Yurga, before heading westward into new territory. The journey to Yekaterinburg takes 27 hours, and 1841 km long.
We had a long stop of almost an hour at Novosibirsk, one of the largest cities in Siberia. I went into the station to buy breakfast sweet buns (and decided an ice cream was also called for) during the stop. The tracks cross the wide Ob River after departing Novosibirsk. The ride in this train seems noticeably more unstable and turbulent that the ‘Rossiya’. We had not paid for meal or services on this train, so ate a prepared compartment camping meal of supermarket salad, with gado gado, made with hard boiled eggs, cucumber and potato (using more of the bumbu pecel brought from home).
The hours were spent reading (I completed ‘A Taste of Honey’, which was very good), and continued listening to ‘Foreigner’. As the sun set (after 10pm), it was lights out, and try to sleep as the ‘Tomich’ continued to rock and roll its sedate way westward.
6 June
Woke around 5am, had fried egg and dry sweet bun (not great), for breakfast. The sky is more cloudy than we have seen for a few days, and there are rain showers falling in the distance. The scene outside the window is barely changed, although towns are larger and more frequent.
I read a couple more stories for Hugo Award voting, and finished up ‘Foreigner’ before arriving at our destination. There was a lot of construction at the station, so the path to the exit wheeling our bags presented some challenges.
We had a leisurely breakfast as Tomsk came to life after the weekend. Another sunny, blue sky day. Our expedition to the supermarket however, was not too successful. The fresh bread, rolls and other comestibles are not ready until 11am. By which time we were due to be picked up by Igor, and taken to the station to catch the ‘Tomich’ to Yekaterinburg, departing at 12:12. So we pottered and packed and were duly delivered to the station just after 11am.
Had a quick squiz at the station, verified our train was to leave from platform 1, and waited. I bought a hammer & sickle souvenir stick pin for 50 roubles. At noon, a train arrived at the platform closest to the station, which we’d assumed to be platform 1, but is was disgorging lots of passengers, which did not seem right for a train originating from Tomsk. The provenitsa of coach 8 verified that this was not our train, just as another train pulled in to the 2nd platform from the station, behind the first train. How to get to the train? There are no underpasses, or overpasses at the station. Eventually we worked out that we had to walk all the way back to the engine, cross the tracks and drag our bags back up the train to coach No 8. Fortunately, it was a 20 minute stop, but we arrived at our 1st Class compartment a bit puffed and flustered. Settled in for the long ride.
Outside the train window, we were greeted with the sight of pine and birch forests once more. Our route retraced our steps yet again via Taiga and Yurga, before heading westward into new territory. The journey to Yekaterinburg takes 27 hours, and 1841 km long.
We had a long stop of almost an hour at Novosibirsk, one of the largest cities in Siberia. I went into the station to buy breakfast sweet buns (and decided an ice cream was also called for) during the stop. The tracks cross the wide Ob River after departing Novosibirsk. The ride in this train seems noticeably more unstable and turbulent that the ‘Rossiya’. We had not paid for meal or services on this train, so ate a prepared compartment camping meal of supermarket salad, with gado gado, made with hard boiled eggs, cucumber and potato (using more of the bumbu pecel brought from home).
The hours were spent reading (I completed ‘A Taste of Honey’, which was very good), and continued listening to ‘Foreigner’. As the sun set (after 10pm), it was lights out, and try to sleep as the ‘Tomich’ continued to rock and roll its sedate way westward.
6 June
Woke around 5am, had fried egg and dry sweet bun (not great), for breakfast. The sky is more cloudy than we have seen for a few days, and there are rain showers falling in the distance. The scene outside the window is barely changed, although towns are larger and more frequent.
I read a couple more stories for Hugo Award voting, and finished up ‘Foreigner’ before arriving at our destination. There was a lot of construction at the station, so the path to the exit wheeling our bags presented some challenges.