Russian hospitality
The trip from Helsinki to Moscow went alright. The Tolstoi train 31 was even on right on time. I had never travelled from Finland to Russia on a night train (or within Finland for that matter, strange right?) so this was also a first time experience. The train was rather empty in my opinion as many of the cabins had no passengers. I got my own as well. There was a complimentary bottle of water and a “gift” bag on the table (which included some cookies, yogurt, chocolate and such). The carriage attendant (or provodnitsa in Russian) showed me to my seat and took my ticket and passport. Naturally not speaking any English with some words of Finnish thrown in. Well nevermind, I’m here now. Being the Finn that I am, I almost instantly asked about the restaurant in horrible Russian. She fluently said “vaunu numero 15”. So I took my copy of Foreign Affairs and went to get a beer to kick off this holiday of some sort. After I got back, almost instanly an older Russian guy enters my cabin. He hopped in from Lappeenranta. Luckily he’s a business man of some sort, traveling quite a lot so he speaks English. We chatted for a while and started doing our own things. After a while, I realised that it is quite late so should get some sleep. Couldn’t sleep that well, guess I’ll have to get used to the sounds of the train moving and shaking seeing as this 13h ride is only the beginning of my train rides for the few following weeks.
Upon arriving to Moscow it was freezing cold! Luckily a friend of mine, Mira came to meet me at the station, otherwise I’d have been totally lost. She also mentione that it was -23 degrees, so a bit chilly. We took a few metros (again, totally lost) and went strraight to her place to drop off my stuff. I also met her mom who cooked me some breakfast! Nice. She was one of those cool moms that you meet! Then we headed off to see some sights in the freezing cold weather. Saw some nice parks and fairy tale castles in “christmas towns”. After a while we met up with Mira’s German friend who was in town and also his friend. We went for a lunch at one Chinese place called Lucky Noodles. Had some delicious egg noodles with pork and vegetables and some green tea and only roughly for 4 euros. In the evening it was time for a new year’s party, Moscow style! I was invited to spend the New Year’s with Mira and a small group of her friends (Marat, Jane, Altana Masia), of which all of them spoke English. In Russia they have a tradition to just eat and eat loads of food and drink champagne while doing that. Then just before midnight Putin gives out a speech and after that they write a New Year’s wish on a piece of paper, light it on fire and drop it in the champagne, then drink it. Naturally you won’t tell what you wished for. Kind of like the new year’s resolution I usually do. The reason for all the food is of course that they love food but also that they think they will have plenty of it next year as well. Sounds logical (I can be corrected if I’m wrong in any of these! We also played some games and had loads of fun.
I was Sherlock Holmes, though I wasn’t able to guess it…
Some point after midnight it was time to go outside and see how other people party. We went to the Red Square but it was actually closed up by the time we got there. A lot of police and miliisi around too. We played a game of who can spot a Santa the fastest (as there were a lot of people in Santa hats but not the whole costume), naturally I won so I made the others dance Usher in the middle of the street. Don’t ask me why. Took a taxi home, chilled and danced and then went to bed. It was amazing to spend this new year’s with the people I just met as it was easy to get to know them because we were only six people. They also made me feel like a part of their family which was awesome. On the day after new year’s everybody were a bit tired and were sleeping till late.
We were up with Jane quite early and watched some shows without a thought about dogs and kittens, in Russian hahahaha. She started preparing some lunch which consisted of some japanese fish, a few different salads and bread. When the food was almost ready everybody else found their way into the kitchen, I guess the scent of food must’ve enticed them hahahahah. We ate slowly and just chilled. After lunch we got ready to go out for some sightseeing. Took a metro (still lost) to the center and saw the Red Square, the Kremlin among others. The square was filled with people, tourists and locals alike. Hell on earth I might add.
The new year’s marked the start of holidays for Russian people as they celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January so many have a few weeks of holidays. After sightseeing we ended up in a bar for some food and drinks. We stayed there for hours as some friends Marat joined as well. We started off with four people and in the end we were eight. It was nice to meet some more Russian people and I got some nice tips regarding the train rides, Irkutsk and Lake Baikal. I had so much fun that I even considered jus skipping the train and stay with these people for a few more days hahahah. Unfortunately I have already bought tickets for trains so it would’ve been a bad decision financially. Anyway, Jane and Mira prepared an awesome bag of food for me (supposedly it’s Russian tradition to bring along cooked chicken and some boiled eggs to that’s what I got among other food hahahahah). I also got a surprise gift from them which they had bought for me before they had even met me. A map of the world of which you can scratch all the places you have been on this trip, cool!
So then it’s off to the train station to send me off. Five people came to say bye to me and danced a bit on the platform as I was alresdy inside the train. Crazy Russians! It was a nice way to send me off and sadly I had to say goodbye. Though I kind of promised to go back soon in the summer when it’s a bit better weather. We’ll see ;).
Basic scenery along the ride.
