Exploring Russia diary :: 17 November, Taiga

"Ice creams! Ice creams! Come and get your ice creams!"

It was -10C and the wind was piercing my nostrils. But at the train station in Taiga, 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometres) from Moscow, a young lad with a big fur hat and a huge tray of ice creams round his neck was running up and down the platform peddling lollies.

Our trans-Siberian train had stopped here for 20 minutes. Ice cream man had been waiting for it all day.

Map of Steve's planned route Your questions answered

Mind you, there's nothing much else you can do in Taiga - a town where telephone numbers only have four digits.

I didn't want an ice cream - a steaming hot cup of coffee, maybe, but not an ice cream.

"Why on earth are you selling ice creams when it's so cold?" I asked naively.

"We like ice creams in Russia, any time of year - try one".

I got back on the train without an ice cream. Marina, our new carriage conductor was looking worried. "Oy!" said Marina, which is Russian for "oh". "I thought we were going to have to leave without you."

Stranded

As the train pulled away from Taiga, Marina told me the story of how once she really did mislay one of her foreign passengers.

He'd gone walkabout at some Siberian station and the train had chugged off without him. Marina had gone spare, eventually though the runaway passenger managed to catch up in a taxi.

The conductors sang about their love for Russia

Marina has been a carriage conductor for nearly 30 years. She is a real pro.

She can bring you a cup of tea without spilling a drop, even when the train is lurching from side to side and you're guaranteed service with a smile.

I was about to discover though that there's much more to a Russian carriage conductor than meets the eye. Marina scurried off down the train. Something was going on.

Ten minutes later a different conductor poked her head round our compartment door.

We get off and see what kinds of food you can get - what the babushkas are selling Elizabeth, passenger

"Ready for the show," she smiled. We were ushered down the train to another carriage and there was Marina packed into a compartment with five of her fellow conductors and they were about to sing us a song.

It was a lovely song, full of emotion and all about Russia. About how big and beautiful this country is, about how it's suffered but always won through. It nearly brought tears to my eyes.

I'm sure there were tears in Marina's eyes - maybe that's because she was hemmed into the corner of the carriage with someone else's knee poking into her tummy.

By now, you couldn't actually see how big and beautiful Russia was, it was pitch black out of the window.

Russian pride

In our carriage we bumped into an American family - Eric and Elizabeth, brother and sister - they were on their way to Beijing.

"There's a lot of excitement when the train makes a stop," Elizabeth told me. "We get off and see what kinds of food you can get - what the babushkas are selling. It's a great way to amuse yourself."

Kostya believes Russia will be great again

Further down the train we found a group of Russian conscripts on their way to a military base.

One soldier, called Kostya, told me that every time he looked out of the window (in the daytime) at the forests and the snow, he felt enormous pride. He was sure, he said, that Russia would once again become a great country.

Stalin menu

By now I was feeling a little peckish. So I popped into the restaurant car. The waiter seemed surprised to see me. Maybe it's because I was the only customer.

Nothing on the 1951 menu was available

He recovered his composure and brought me the menu - I almost fell of my chair when I read it.

The menu had been printed in... 1951! That's when Joseph Stalin was still running the country.

It was in Russian, German and a kind of English. It was packed full of exotic sounding dishes like "beluga belly flesh" and "back of sturgeon".

Unfortunately, the waiter informed me, they didn't have any of that. So I ordered chicken and chips.

That date, 1951, had me worried. I had visions of a Stalin-era freezer covered in cobwebs and the waiter forcing it open to get out a 50 year-old chicken fillet.

But when the meal came, it was delicious and it filled me up in preparation for our next major stop - eastern Siberia, home of the Russian lumberjacks.

Your commnets:

I have been to parts of the former Soviet Union, but never Russia. Your writings provide further inspiration for me to pack my bag and plan a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway. I would love witness how parts of Russia, excluding Moscow, are faring compared with the rest of the former Soviet Union. Thank you BBC and Steve Rosenberg. This is something I would never see in the American media.
Bryan Esterly, USA

As a student of Russian politics in university, I find this series very helpful. It adds a human dimension to the statistics and dry facts that we cover in class. You are doing a doing a good job of capturing the unquantifiable aspects of Russian political culture. I look forward to the rest of your pieces!
Kyra, Canada

The comments that Mr Rosenberg has made so far remind me of my two years of living in Russia. A beautiful country with extremely bright and capable people. I greatly enjoyed my time in Russia no matter what area I was in. Keep up the good reporting so the world has a realistic picture of the true Russia and her people.
Kostas Matthaiopoulos, USA

1. Leave Moscow: 9 November 2. Yekaterinburg: 10 November 3. Omsk: 11-13 November 4. Novosibirsk: 14-15 November 5. Krasnoyarsk: 16 November 6. Irkutsk: 16-19 November 7. Vladivostok: 20-24 November