Russia & Mongolia Recap

Last time I wrote I professed how amazing Russia was. After traveling east through the rest of Russia, I am opting to modify (how about update?) my original opinion.

First, some background on how we’ve been traveling. We decided to take 3rd class (called Platskartny) for the majority of our trip (3 of the 4 legs, the 4th leg only has 1st and 2nd). Platskartny trains are essentially 9 groups of 6 beds in an open plan - a 4 bed “berth” and 2 beds along the side of the train - there are no doors so this is essentially a 54 bed dorm on wheels. This is a pretty in-depth description of the entire journey and this is a layout of the platskartny carriages.

Moscow > Yekaterinburg

Train: 3rd class, ~28 hours
Beds: Upper side beds
Cost: ~$140 USD

We were pretty nervous/excited about our first train journey – we had read a lot about what to expect, but that doesn’t help as much as experience. We had the upper side beds, meaning that the only “seats” we could sit in were the seats below us which were someone else’s bed. Within 2 hours of leaving Moscow, the two babushkas below us had transformed our “seats” into their beds. Luckily the 4-bed berth next to us had some open seats so we sat there…until an entire Russian family came on at the next stop; we were booted. Since we had nowhere else to go, we crawled into bed…at 5:00 pm. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful and we arrived in Yekaterinburg, managed to get ourselves on the sketchiest local bus of all time, and walk to our hostel. The “hostel” was more like an apartment with 8 beds, but it was clean and the staff was friendly. We met a really nice British/Kiwi couple in our hostel and went to the zoo (of course) with them for a day and walked around the city the other day. Yekaterinburg is nice (the nicest city we were in outside of Moscow) and it’s one of the host cities for the 2018 World Cup.

By the time we left Yekaterinburg we were in high spirits, excited for our next train journey, and more than excited for the World Cup final (Deutschland über alles)

Yekaterinburg > Novosibirsk

Train: 3rd class, ~25 hours
Beds: Bottom (non-side) beds
Cost: ~$140 USD

The train journey was complete luxury – we both had bottom beds in the 4-berth compartment which meant we could sit whenever we wanted, sleep whenever we wanted, and had full access to a little table and the window. Cue arrival to Novosibirsk and the beginning of travel hell: it’s 5:00 am, the metro doesn’t start running until 6:00 am, there are mosquitos EVERYWHERE, and we are hungry. We make it to our hostel which is the worst hostel I have stayed at in my entire life – and I’ve stayed in some pretty horrible ones. There are no fans or aircon and it is 38 degrees out, there are 3-4 entire Russian families LIVING at the hostel, reception speaks barely enough English to check us in, the kitchen is filthy and both fridges are full of spoiled food, we are the only two English speakers, the bathrooms are covered in water, and the entire place smells.

Here is where I speak about my personal impression (and other’s impressions) of Russians (specifically men). I know I am broadstroaking a very large nationality, but go with it. They smell, don’t take care of their health, smoke constantly, are fairly rude to those who don’t speak Russian, and are quite dirty. I can’t explain the smell – it’s not quite fully BO, not quite Indian/Sri Lankan, but its own brand. Most of the men are 30-40 pounds overweight, don’t take care of their bodies whatsoever (no one works out here!), and smoke constantly and disgustingly – their average life expectancy is ~60. More on my impression of Russians later…

We head out to “see” Novosibirsk but it’s so hot out we just go home, take ice cold showers, and lay around the hostel to try to stay cool. Spending that additional time at the hostel just exacerbated our distaste for the Russians at our hostel. The next day we get out to see the city and realize it is complete shit – the city is ugly, there is nothing to do, and the parks are full of trash (come to find out, all of the parks outside of Moscow that we saw were disgusting). At this point we hate Russia, hate Novosibirsk, hate Russians, hate trains, and hate everything else. We set our sights on Irkutsk, Lake Baikal, and getting the fuck out of Novosibirsk. There are VERY few places in the world that I would tell people not to go, because everyone likes places for their own reason, but there is literally no reason to ever go to Novosibirsk, ever.

Side story – we watched Germany win the World Cup at a bar in Novosibirsk (at 2:00 am) and met some young Russians who treated us like celebrities because we were Westerners. They were perplexed as to why any German or American would travel to Russia, let alone Novosibirsk. They bought us drinks, took multiple selfies with us, and one nice guy even took us to the train station at 5:00 am so he could translate if we needed it.

Novosibirsk > Irkutsk

Train: 3rd class, ~24 hours
Beds: bottom side
Cost: ~$120 USD

The train journey was a borderline nightmare – there were about 10 kids under the age of 10 on the train and they took the entire carriage to be there personal playground: running up and down the aisles screaming, hanging off of the beds, and generally being loud and obnoxious. I was woken up in the morning by a kid crawling on top of me to see out the window. That same child proceeded to commandeer my iPad a couple of hours later and when I took it back from him he threw a screaming tantrum. I think everyone knows my stance on children. Simon also was asked to move beds to a top bunk by a lady with a knee brace who couldn’t get up to the top bed – usually I would have sympathy but considering that when you book your ticket you book the exact bed, and she chose the top one, I have none. Simon was angered, to say the least. As all things do, the train ride eventually ended.

We had heard great things about Lake Baikal and Irkutsk is called the “Paris of Siberia” (come to find out it’s not, at all), so we were pumped to hit our last Russian city. Our hostel was nice and the lady working there spoke Russian, English, and German so Simon and I were both able to chat in our own languages with her. We asked her about “the island” on the lake (Olkhorn Island) and she agreed that it was a great place to visit – so we booked a bus to/from the island and 2 nights at a babushkas house. We were more than ready for a 2-day “vacation from our vacation” on the island after the hell that was Novosibirsk, but we had no idea what we got ourselves into.

Bus – the bus was supposed to take 5-6 hours and we were told that it was “okay, but not super nice”. Whatever, I’m fine with that, I’ve done a lot of long bus trips in Thailand and Laos and they never bothered me. The “bus” turns out to be a minivan that they shoved 14 people + bags into, the drive takes 10 hours, and half of the journey is poorly-maintained dirt roads. No one speaks English, not even a little.

The guesthouse – we had inquired if the place had Wifi before we left and knew it didn’t, but we didn’t think we needed to inquire if the place had showers, a toilet, or running water. It didn’t have any of it. Since we were going immediately from the island to the train station for a ~36 hour train to Mongolia, we planned on getting nice and clean on the island before we got on the train. Ha. There was literally no running water and the “toilet” was a hole in the ground. I’m generally not picky – I’ve been to multi-day music festivals, long treks, and other things that require the lack of a shower for a while – but at least with those I knew what I was getting into…not this time. Needless to say we took a couple of baby wipe showers, urinated in a hole, and felt generally dirty the entire time.

The island – lots of Russians travel to Olkhorn on vacation so I was expecting a lovely island with cute shops, food stands, and a nice beach or two. What it actually was was a city made entirely of old wooden buildings, dirty streets, cows everywhere, disgusting beaches, no food, and Russians. The city literally looked like an old abandoned settlement. The beach literally had multiple old rusted boats laying around, feral dogs chasing birds, and trash everywhere. People were laying between the trash piles. People go there, willingly, on vacation. I have no idea why. There were a few “cafes” that had menus which had food on them, but everything you ordered they were out of – literally entire pages of the menu were unavailable. The one grocery store in town didn’t sell any fresh meat or produce, just canned fish meats and candy and other shit that the Russians apparently eat (again, they are unhealthy people).

Overall our experience on Olkhorn was shit, the food was shit, the people were shit (except the babushka – she spoke Russian and German, so Simon translated), the beaches were shit, the city was shit. It was all shit. At this point Simon and I are ready to get the fuck out of Russia and never come back. So we got on our train and left for Mongolia!

Irkutsk > Ulaanbataar (Mongolia)

Train: 2nd class, ~36 hours
Beds: bottom and top
Cost: ~$90 USD

The train ride was great – we shared our 4-berth compartment with a nice American lady (the first one I had seen in over 3 weeks!) and a drunk Russian guy. The American spoke Russian since she had been living in Moscow for 3 years and the Russian guy immediately drilled her about Obama vs. Putin, sigh. The American lady was almost 50 and left the states when she was 21 to travel and live abroad, and hasn’t been back since! It was inspiration that I really can live out here on the road if I put my mind to it.

Other Thoughts…

Traveling Russia is so fucking hard, exhausting, uncomfortable, and a growing experience. Nothing is in English, I have no idea what I am doing…ever, the road rules are different, everything is dirty, I’m tired of unpacking and repacking every day, the food sucks, I’m always hungry, there are no fellow travelers, everything smells, I haven’t felt AC in weeks, and all I can do is fantasize about Thailand, green curry, and ice cold Chang.

I miss my friends and their life changes – since I’ve left I’ve had a friend fall in love, a friend get married, a friend have a baby, and friends get engaged – among all the other normal day to day milestones that people achieve.

I miss bass music – it’s the heart of festival season and I’m not there to go to any of them. I miss really loud bass music. I miss watching kids experience festival love for the first time. I miss Red Rocks. I miss Bassnectar. I miss Excision. I miss Knife Party. I miss Summer Camp, Electric Forest, Global Dance, Global Dub, Lolla. I miss my festival buddies Kyle, Meghan, Lundy, an Ethan.

In the most positive way, I am getting really tired of friends telling me how jealous they are of my travels. I’m really really really trying not to be that annoying person who says “anyone can do it!” but to an extent it’s true. If you’re sick of the rat race, hate your job, hate your significant other, hate your apartment, hate your binge drinking habits, etc. – then do something about it. Maybe travel isn’t the answer to everyone’s problems, but at least do SOMETHING to make your life better. Oh you say it’s too hard and you don’t know where your next paycheck is coming from? Boo hoo. Do you know how much money many other parts of the world live off of? You’re afraid to break away from normalcy? Well you’re obviously not unhappy enough to do something about it. Either stop complaining or start fixing.

I’M GOING BACK TO THAILAND IN 11 DAYS. Green curry. Fried rice with chicken. Pad Thai. Deep fried bananas. Mango sticky rice. Chang. Singha. Leo. Koh Phi Phi. OTHER TRAVELLERS. Koh Phi Phi. Slinky Bar.

What’s next?

We are now in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia and leave in the morning for an 8 day tour through the Gobi desert, rural towns, nomadic families, mountains, etc. to do some camping, yurt-living, camel riding, horseback riding, and mutton eating. Wish us luck as we don’t have toilets, showers, beds, running water, or electricity!