About 1am this morning I got up and watched our train run through various settlements alongside the rail line. As I watched we came across some solar powered lights over a mud road. Not a muddy tar road; an actual mud track for cars and it got me thinking about the country that we are travelling through.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks started the revolution exactly 100 years ago with the idea of giving the land back to the peasants, the factories back to the workers and to get rid of the tsar and the inequality between the rich and the poor in the country. Not much has changed. It seems after talking to a number of people that the very rich few in the country seem to lord it over the majority, with driving fines being able to be paid off Nothing seems to have changed much here, and it simply reinforces that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Talking with Dmitri, Eugene and Damian, one gets a different perspective than the one presented externally; it is plainly obvious that there are very conservative elements running through the general population, with the same necessary need for security that we saw with Lily back in China. The building of island bases or annexation of the Crimea are seen as necessary steps against the US. And yet at the same time they have the same feelings as WA; one of neglect from the central government. Or I could simply need a coffee!
John and I got up and went for a walk off the train somewhere between 6 and 8am. Not sure which as my phone hadn’t changed to Moscow time. We walked up and down the platform taking several photos when I thought that I would get one last one of the Station name. I took the photo, turned around and came face-to-face with a police officer. “Passport!” I stated that I had left it on board and pointed at the carriage. “No photograph!” No panic, no pressure, I indicated that I would delete the photos if he wanted. He didn’t, just turned and walked away. I had a quick look around in case Putin or some secret military vehicle had arrived and I hadn’t noticed. Nope. Just didn’t like me taking a photo of the Station name. Odd.
The rest of the day was one of watching the Urals drift by, and notice the number of discarded factories and buildings that dotted the landscape. I did manage to finish another book, and spent several hours simply listening to The Belgariad while watching Russia go by.
We did go to the dining car for dinner, as we had a free meal included with our ticket, but the waitresses didn’t understand any English and didn’t really want to associate with us. Here’s your meal, eat it and leave. Bit of a let-down after Maria and “Russian vodka, good!” Oh well.