Monique and Sander to Russia, September 2019

Monique in front of the statue of Dmitri Hvorostovsky in Krasnoyarsk. Monique and Pasha looking out on Krasnoyarsk. We boarded our train in Novosibirsk at 9 pm for Krasnoyarsk.  This meant another night on the very uneven and rather unpleasant shaking train.  It is not a steady click-click one would like to hear on the train.  The track is obviously very old and very out of line.  The result is that the train gets up to a maximum of 80km or 50 miles per hour. Every now and then, the whole train seems to hesitate and lurch forward.  We are in first-class which means we have two lower bunks and do not share the cabin with others.  But the bunks are hard and narrow and frankly not comfortable to lie in.  Having colds makes it all the less enjoyable. Without saying so aloud, both of us are starting to question why we were going through this voluntarily.  Between the rock and rolling train ride and the schlep of getting our bags throu...

Statue of a mouse in Novosibirsk Science park representing the contribution of mice to Science. We arrived in Novosibirsk the morning from our overnight trip out of Kazan.  Our hotel rooms were not available so our new guide Natalia scooped us up and we set off to visit the large outdoor railroad museum and the Novosibirsk Science City which are both about 30 km out of town.  We got into a lovely traffic jam which delayed our arrivals but we had a loose schedule. Pictures of Novosibirsk can be seen at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/xESh2siGW9xnXHCy6 The outdoor railroad museum is huge and has some 200 cars and engines on display.  We visited various cars including the car used by the Tsar when he traveled.  Not really that impressive except that it was fully bulletproof.  But it did drive home how important the railway is and was in the development of Russia. The Novosibirsk outdoors train museum Inside the Tsar's rail car. The Novo...

We arrived in Kazan at 8 am after the night on the train. We found the ride rather rough as the tracks are certainly not well aligned. The result is that the train sways constantly and rather roughly from side to side. We had a first-class cabin which means we had a normal cabin with only two lower bunks. We found our table set with water and some snacks. Later, we were served a light meal and we then had our first night on board. We will be sleeping one night on a train and one night in a hotel for most of the trip. This means that we get off the train,  then go to a hotel for the night, the next day we see a town and re-board a train for the night. It will take a while to get used to sleeping on the noisy and shaky trains. Nadiye, our Tartar guide in Kazan. The walls of the fort of Kazan. The mosque in the Kazan Citadel, or Kreml. The layout of the city of Kazan. Inside the new Mosque of Kazan. Monique trying her hand at making Tartar samozas. ...

Before I get too far, I need to record that part of my last chapter on St Petersburg was cut off somewhere in the system. I have added back the picture links but I have refrained from trying to reproduce the missing text which talked about Catherine's palace and the Hermitage. Just for records. We arrived by fast train from St Petersburg in 4 hours and were met on the platform by a burly, heavyset man who said his name was Michael. He took the smallest bag and left me to haul our 2 large suitcases from the train to the car.  He did not say a word all the way to the hotel where he dropped us. Probably ex-KGB. We checked into the hotel and were met by 4 of my cousins who had invited us out to dinner.  3 of the cousins were Russians whom we recently discovered.  They were the grandchildren of a Great Uncle of mine (Alfred Keyserlingk) who had 2 daughters out of wedlock.  2 years ago one of the daughters met in Moscow with my cousin Karl Eckstein, a Swiss la...