18th April 1984 - Trans-Siberian Railway for real

WEDNESDAY EIGHTEENTH APRIL 1984  I woke up at about 8.00 and went to breakfast at 8.30 and sat with, I think, certainly with the Dickinsons and also maybe the Mullins. It was with the Mullins, but dinner last night wasn’t. Dinner last night was with another couple who were I-can’t-remember. To eat we had pancakes with a bit of pale runny honey and some jam. Bread, of course, and the good old cherry juice.

The statue of Khabarov, by Intour-Khabarovsk

   After breakfast we went up to pack and then, and then at ten, we trundled off in our two buses to the (Ab)original Khabarovsk Museum [The N.I. Grodekov Khabarovsk Regional Lore Museum, The Far East Museum?] which was built in 1896 or some such year. It has interesting staircases within. The first spiel that Larissa gave us was about the civil war, 1917-1922, and some of the local heroes. Up a spiral staircase was a panorama of the Battle of Vladivostok, which was the last battle in the war, apparently. [‘The taking of the city by Ieronim Uborevich’s Red Army on October 25, 1922 marked the end of the Russian Civil War,’ according to Mr Wiki.]

   Then Larissa took us downstairs to an anthropology section, explaining to us the history of the original inhabitants and settlers of the region. Then into a room full of stuffed animals, preserved frogs, aboriginal clothes (a coat made of feathers), instruments for the capture of fish. There were five stuffed tigers (two cubs), stuffed bears, stuffed boars, stuffed birds, stuffed stoats, stuffed museum attendants, stuffed visitors, stuffed etcetera.

A stuffed tiger at the museum

   Oh, and there was a display of houses and housing methods – intricately carved eaves and things which I presumed they did during the winter months when there wasn’t much else to do.

  The highest point, besides the tallest building in Khabarovsk, was just outside the museum. Well, it’s the highest point in Khabarovsk to view the Amur River, even if it was windy and chilly.

Aerial view of Khabarovsk and the Amur River, by Intour-Khabarovsk

   We then returned to the hotel and had lunch where I was surrounded by New Zealanders – the Harrisons and Wayne and Debbie. We had to leave for the station at 1.00, but Sandy and I had time to go back to the department store and I bought an exercise book for 18 kopeks. We got back to the hotel just on 1.00 and everybody was waiting for us. Off to the station where we waited for a while back in the Intourist Hall.

   We trundled down along the subway and upstairs to the unplatform where our luggage was waiting for us. Along the tracks it came, two locomotives followed by fourteen carriages (two were added later at some other place I think)(I mean I don’t know where they were added)(or when)(or why). The bulk of us occupy the thirteenth car, and fourteen in the eleventh.

  This was of course the Tans-Siberian Express, which is shabbier than the train from Nahodka to Khabarovsk. The compartments had, I think, been used recently but had been cleaned out. The beds weren’t made because the dwarf-like guard lady hadn’t distributed the linen yet. The linen, two sheets, a pillowcase (for the large cushions called pillows) and a towel, were all made like the stuff ordinary tea towels are made of.

  Sharing with Greg, Robert and David Taylor.

  We left Khabarovsk at two o’clock and we derailed at three. After this setback we got on another train for Alaska. Never mind…

   Being a train trip and being just over a day out of date writing this dreadful abomination of Australian Government ink, it is very hard to remember what actually has happened at what time and when and with whom and why and wherefore art thou, Memory?

   Everybody has bursts of watching scenery out of the windows, which were cleaned from the outside by some at two of the early stops. They also play 500, euchre, backgammon or Scrabble, or jibber-jabber (as Robert calls talk). Write letters or postcards.

   There are still patches of snow, the hills are covered with mostly silver birches – naked ones – and some black poplars and a few fir trees here and there. Joyce Soler said that there are pussy willows which are just budding.

   All watercourses are covered with ice, but there are some iceless patches where the cold ochre brown water flows. Very few animals are in evidence – one or two cows now and then in some settlements, a field with some horses, and a couple of deer; a flock of crows sitting or perching right on the very top of birch trees.

  We pass quite a few settlements, towns or villages, with their wooden houses, poorly brick-laid buildings etc. At some of the longer stops we are able to get out and go for walkies – Robert goes out in his shorts and T-shirt in the cold. The Russians must think he’s mad. We do.

   The little old ladies rugged up against the cold selling food from perambulators; they don’t like their pictures taken.

   Also on the station platforms are little booths where postcards and small souvenirs are sold (e.g. little badges). (There was such a booth near the supermarket in Khabarovsk.) The postcards are not just postcards – they’re more like Christmas/greeting cards, and the price varies from station to station (1R each, 6 for 15 kopeks or 4 for 15k, etc).