The adventures of Miss Lopez

From Moscow, we took the overnight train to Kazan, a 12 hours ride. We had booked the rossiya no. 2 premium firmeny so it was luxurious. Althought, I had taken the Kupe (4 berth) one lower for my mom and the upper for myself. We shared it with a lawyer. As it was a night train and she didn’t speak English, we didn’t communicate that much. All went smoothly.

After 3 days in Kazan, it was time to head to the train station for our departure to Irkutsk. It arrives in the middle of the night. No luck as there wasn’t any lower beds available. We got the last two upper beds available in the same cabin. Nobody is there when we board at 2h05 so we are slowly able to prepare our beds and store our backpack and suitcase. My mom is struggling to hop on her bed, but finally manages it. It’s 3h00 when we go to bed.

At around 7 am we are awoken by our fellow passengers that will be sharing our cabin for the next 65 hours!! A Tatar couple from Kazan and like the vast majority here they don’t speak any English, this will be an interesting train ride.

We spend most the morning sleeping and eating. Our schedule is a bit mixed up. Since we don’t have any lower bed, we kinda have to seat in one of their beds especially when we want to eat. We had previously went to the supermarket to stock on food. There is a restaurant in the train which happens to be the next carriage, but we prefer to eat our own food. The couple is also very generous and gives us some of theirs. He is 56 and a farmer, while she is 55 and a pharmacy manager. They are both retired and said they receive the equivalent of 150 US per month as pension. That doesn’t seem like much even if Kazan is cheaper than Moscow.

I guess, since they live on a farm, they are able to get food and maybe even sell it. He gave us potatoes and tomatoes from his garden. They have so much food and given us different kind of nuts, home-made apple pie and some eggs. As I ate eggs up to 3 times a day in Tadjikistan, i kindly declined their offer even if it’s from their farm. I promised myself, I wouldn’t eat any eggs in the next few months.

Another uneventful night although my mom says the man drinks at night. Woke up quite late around 9am. Not much else to do anyways. Most people just read or watch something on their phone.

We enjoyed our 3 days in the train and it actually went by quickly. We are looking forward to taking a long-awaited shower, but definitively miss the train ride.