Novosibirskaya Oblast’

I am Teemu. I am a bear. This is my story.

Day 3 on the train. The train is no longer my prisoner. Siberia is my prison now.

As we slept overnight, we crossed the Urals, and entered Siberia. The difference between European and Asian Russia, is not necessarily stark, but it is there. European Russia you'll recognise from the trees. There are trees everywhere. Tall ones, short ones, green ones, brown ones and they all seemingly conspire, to obstruct any decent view of the Russia landscape that you might get to see.

Asian Russia, you'll know from the swampy, boggy, more sparsely forested landscape. The one constant is the thick reed-like grass that only seems to grow in cold swampy, or peaty soil. In fact, if they weren't making vodka out of potates in Siberia, they could be making some wonderful peaty, Islay-style, single-malt, whisky.

The day started pretty normally for Jamie. He woke up at a reasonable hour, after a reasonable night's sleep, feeling as refreshed as one can, without having had a shower for three days. Courtney did not start the day as well. She had slept for only a few hours, and was not feeling particulaly human, as a result. I could have slept better, if it hadn't been for the fact that Courtney was trying to smother me with her pillow.

On the third day of the train journey, we had settled into a routine of sorts, already. Breakfast was taken in the cabin, with our cabin mates. Today our companion was Neills, one of the Dutch contingent on the train. After breakfast, it was time to mix, and socialise with some of the new passengers that had joined the night before.

Today Courtney and Jamie spoke to a couple from Birmingham, who got on during the night in Ekaterinberg. They are travelling to Irkutsk too, and from there on to Beijing via Ulan Battar. Before Jamie and Courtney left the UK, it was such a unique thing to do, but now they are on the train through Siberia, it seems that everyone is doing it. They were also able to help Courtney with some Night Nursre to help put Courtney to sleep tonight. I imgaine that pure exhaustion will do the trick, but something extra, certainly won't stop her from falling asleep.

Now that we are in SIberia, things are startng to get colder, and at our first, get off the train for a walk, stop of the day, it was 0 C. It was a good stop to pick up some food for lunch though, and Jamie was able to get some pizza bread stuff, some cheese, and a bottle of water to make up lunch. It was then Courtney's turn to teach us how to play a card game called 500, a game she said her Grandparents taught her how to play at a young age. As a bear I'm not very good at cards as it's difficult to hold them with my paws, so I watched from afar while Courtney went on to explain the game to puzzled faces.

As the train ploughed on, through the cold Siberian autumn, it started to snow, prompting a flurrry of photographs through the now rather dirty windows of the train. The snow fell harder, and the ground became whiter, and many travellers on the train cringed at the fact they had minimal clothing for weather of this magnitiude. Fortunately, as time wore on, the falling snow thinned, and the snow on the ground turned to mush. By the time we made it to our next stop at Barabinsk, it was till snowing, but only lightly, and we took the opportunity, along with all our travelling companions, to get off the train and enjoy the relatively open space.

As a bear, I didn't last long. Not because it was cold, but because every station in Russia has its own station dog, and they are not fond of bears. Most other people didn't last long on the station platform as it was still 0 C, and still snowing, albeit very lightly. Jamie decided that this was the best place to have a Russian ice cream, and though it was tasty, it was a bit hard. As the ice cream was in a freezer, outside, in an already frozen landscape, it was many, many degress below zero. Gauthier, our French travelling companion, could not comprehend that the best time to enjoy an ice cream is in colder weatherr, if for no other reason, than the fact that it won't melt. Courtney spent her time running up and down the platform, giggling like a schoolgirl like she had just been let out of a cage.

After reboarding the train, it was time to have some dinner, which was reasonably tasty, and eventful for that fact that as the train move through the pitch black landscape, a deep red hue appeared towards the horizon. At first it seemed like orange sodium lights, reflecting off low clouds, but it very quicly became apparent that it was something on fire in the distance. None of the staff on the train were in the least bit worried, so none of the travellers were either. The volume of alcohol consumed may have had something to do with the blase attitude.

This scene of burning continued intermitently for many kilometres, and looked like a scene from a war movie. Somewhere over the horizon, some battle was raging, for control of SIberia's natural resources. In all likelihood though, it was farmers burning off chaff on their fields, to fertilise the soil for the following year. That, or some of Siberia's plentiful natural gas supply was being burnt in the open, for protection against the cold of the coming winter.Read more