Riding the Russian rails

By Sara Wheeler

The samovar at the end of the carriage hissed in a friendly way and a bouffant-haired stewardess—our provodnitsa—patrolled the corridor issuing instructions about bedding. On the platform, a platoon of young Russian soldiers, green plastic sandals swinging from packs, said goodbye to their mothers and girlfriends in shafts of pale summer sun. The 658AA St Petersburg-Petrozavodsk express was about to begin its daily nine-hour journey to Karelia, Russia’s swampy north-western republic.

As we pulled out of the suburbs the provodnitsa yelled that facilities were temporarily closing, and set about her cleaning duties. She unhooked the rail from a net curtain in the corridor and—thankfully first slipping off the net—used it to plunge the lavatory. Then we were off again into the birch forest, cocooned in the world of the Russian vagon.