Ulan-Ude

Rossia train (no.2) Moscow to Ulan Ude.

Weather: -3 - +15°C, but only really above freezing today. Coldest in the middle, warmest in the East (and the buds on the trees suggest a general trend rather than freak weather today. But Russians are *really* good at snow clearing. In populous areas paths are not just snow free but completely dry. Elsewhere snow and ice are gritted thoroughly to make them non-slip.

Fauna: no. Possibly because all the water is frozen. Around the towns there were pigeons, a few corvids, and some sparrows. Away from towns the only thing I saw was 1 possible owl in a tree (could have been a lump of snow in approximately the shape of an owl). Oh, and a small fly in the train. Platform dogs in a couple of places.

Flora: pines. The only green things are pines and, towards the eastern end, cedars. This may be why so many houses are painted shades of bright green, because in the winter you won't see that colour on anything living. Grass is under feet of snow, dead, or both. Silver birches are plentiful, but leafless they are mixed with pine at both ends of the journey, largely alone on the middle. There is an umbelliferous plant (giant hogweed?) that is absolutely enormous. The seed heads stand through the winter and play havoc with scale and perspective. Graves are brightly decorated with plastic flowers and painted fences.

People: this is a much less touristy and sociable train that train 4 (the Trans Mongolian). Just the 1 first class carriage, and until Yekaterinburg 2 each of second and plaskartni. The rest of the train is luggage, ppst and a reatarant car. Five more passenger carriages added at Yekaterinberg. Most people kept their doors (if they had them) closed the whole way. The only exceptions were Axel and Henrika in our carriage - from the Black Forest - who kept us supplied with excellent conversation until they left the train at Irkutsk, and a couple of fairly social Americans who have retired and sold up at home to travel the world. They also left at Irkutsk. The Brits in the compartment next to ours didn't say so much as hello the whole trip, and the US tour group in the carriage behind kept themselves to themselves. Olga and Pavel - our carriage attendants - spoke only slightly more English than we speak Russian, but were cheerful and friendly. And ice cream dealers.

The train: the guidebooks all said 'don't worry about travelling winter, the train is well heated'. I thought they meant 'OK with just 1 jumper'. They don't - they mean 22-27°C. Good thing someone comes along selling ice creams a couple of times a day. Beds are hard, and narrow - to turn over you have to wake up. Sleeping on top of the folded duvet helps soften them a bit, but it still takes a while to getbyour spine moving in the morning.Pillows are good. Loos are about half the size of the train 4 ones, so no chance of strip wash, but in 1st class you can use the shower compartment for 150 roubles.Læs mere