Third Day of (now) Trans-Siberian Train

A train station in Russia when we can hop off the train for a quick walk.

The train station in Taiga, Russia.

Lake Baikal.

June 10, 2011—10:40 am Siberia, Russia
Leaving Mongolia last night was relatively easy, only had to fill out two customs forms. One when we entered and one when we left; they were identical. Once the customs and immigration officers left the train, we slowly made our way in the dark towards the Russian border area where our train stopped at around 10:45 pm. We laughed to ourselves about the hats these Mongolians wore that sat turned up in the front making them appear 7-8 inches taller than they were.
The next two hours were something out of a James Bond movie in the 1980s. The train was the only one stopped in a well lit stretch with gravel below us and dark trees just beyond a fence that was designed to be difficult if not impossible to climb. We waited there for about 25 minutes as Russian customs officers in uniforms and berets inspected under the train cars with flashlights. They opened compartments under the train looking for contraband or stowaways. We rolled on to the next stop, the immigration check point which also was dark and intimidating beyond our train that was under bright lights from tall posts on either side of us. Other than the immigration officers there was no sign of any other people or town. The train squeaked to a halt, it was late at night, dark and eerily quiet when they boarded. We had our door open and waited for our turn listening to the officers speaking Russian. We were seated, I on the lower bunk and Lisa in the chair at the table holding our passports and immigration papers we had just filled out. The 6 foot tall blonde, blue eyed, uniformed 23 year old walks to our door and asks for the passports, I hand them to him and without making a gesture, he says, with a Russian accent of course, “One at a time.” I gave him mine. After flipping through the pages he says, “Stand up and look at me.” I comply and he studies my face as his eyes shoot back and forth between the clean shaven photo in my passport from 2003 and my tired and unshaven face of 2011. Is this the same person? “Please stand outside the compartment.” I move outside. Lisa’s turn. “Liza?” She stands up and is scrutinized like I was. “Please stand outside the compartment.” When we are both outside our compartment, he motions for the 5’ 9”, bleach blond woman with a shot putter’s build to go in and search our area. She is wearing black pants, a dark long sleeved shirt, and some sort of utility vest, also black. There is no sense of humor in either of these two. She climbs up to the top bunk in her tight pants and tight black gloves to peer into our luggage storage area above the hallway. All good. He stuffs our passports in his leather case and the young man and his contraband searching beefcake go on to the next compartment and begin to question the French couple next to us.
We waited. About 20 minutes later a different immigration officer walked down the hall peeking in the cabins, a few minutes after that another officer walked by with a dog, presumably sniffing for things that shouldn’t be on the train. Ten minutes go by, we made our beds, brushed our teeth, the dog and man go by the other way. Another 20 minutes or so and a large dark haired lady with bright lipstick stops by our door and looking at a clipboard, she looks up at Lisa and asks, “Liza Gott-a-fri?” Lisa responds, “Yes.” She then looks at me, “Edvard…” I smile, “Yes.” Then she leaves. A few minutes go by, it is after midnight and we are lying down. A group of 4 different immigration officers walk down our hallway speaking to each other. The dog goes by again. Eventually, sometime close to 12:45 am our blue eyed, humorless Russian appears at our door. “Liza…Gott-a-fri,” he hands Lisa her passport. Looking at me, “Edvard,” he hands me mine. Standing nearly motionless with a slight half smirk and the first sign of any emotion, he clearly and slowly says, “Velcome to Russia.”

I am writing this, while facing backwards, at our little table with Lake Baikal to my left only about 30 feet from the train tracks. It is crystal clear and stretches north east as far as I can see. Some of the shoreline of the lake is as clear and blue as the Caribbean Sea. The deepest lake in the world that holds something like 1/3 of the world’s fresh water is a sight to behold. To my right out the other window are paper white birch trees, green ferns and grasses and snow capped mountains in the near background. Yellow and orange wild flowers, wooden houses with steep metal roofs, plenty of chimneys, stacks of firewood and wooden fences that surround and protect beautifully tilled soil for wonderful vegetable gardens. Clean, dry air, few people, clear icy cold streams and rivers that feed the lake from the snowmelt. We are moving along at about 52 degrees north latitude and heading northwest.