By Hanna Kay

What do Americans think about Russia? This is a question I often get asked, and is somewhat difficult to answer. Most of our knowledge stems from the Cold War, and very few Americans actually visit Russia. If they do, almost all stick to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Tourists love the imperial architecture and feel of St. Petersburg, while Moscow seems to represent modern Russia. The rest of Russia is unknown, except for an idea of the vast, snowy wasteland that is Siberia. For the very adventurous tourist, there is the Trans-Siberian Railroad. It almost seems to come from myth; a train ride spanning seven days and two continents, from Moscow to the Pacific. Having been to Moscow and St. Petersburg, I decided to travel the Trans-Siberian. Along the way, I learned a lot about Russia. I got a feel for how big Russia really is. Seeing Russia in January let me see Russia in the dead of winter, which is not so very dead but is very beautiful. Traveling so long on the train taught me a lot about train life, especially about the importance of good companions. From my Trans-Siberian adventure, I learned to appreciate the beauty of this vast country and found that the winter is not only bearable but also quite nice when you have good friends to share it with.

Russia is the largest country in the world. If you look at a map, it looks very big. However, that does not mean that your brain can truly understand the size of Russia without actually experiencing it. To my American mind, seven days straight on a train is unfathomable. It is even harder to believe that you can do that without crossing a single border. However, after watching the landscapes change, crossing numerous time zones, and finding myself finally on the edge of a continent, I started to understand how big Russia really is. The truth started to hit me when I saw a sign in Vladivostok with distances to major cities. Los Angeles, which seems a world away from Russia in terms of climate and state of mind, is actually closer to Vladivostok than Moscow is. That was startling. The vastness of Russia was solidified in my mind, however, when we flew back to Moscow. A few weeks before, I had spent eight hours and forty-five minutes on a plane from Chicago, Illinois to Moscow. I had crossed half of America, the Atlantic Ocean, and most of Europe in that long, long plane ride. However, my trip from Vladivostok to Moscow was actually even longer, nine and a half hours, but I did not even reach the other end of the country. Now I understand how vast Russia really is.

While Russia looks big on a map, I think more of how cold it must be. When I think of Siberia, I imagine frozen tundra, a place where it is always unbearably cold. However, on my journey, I learned that Russia is not just a frozen wasteland with a few livable cities, but that the winter is bearable. It was cold, but as long as I bundle up, I can survive the cold. The cold also made me appreciate the joy of warm tea and the steam from a banya, or, when a banya is not around, a sauna. It also has a certain beauty to it that I had never associated with winter before. Old, rundown houses take on a romantic quality when blanketed with snow. I loved watching mile after mile of snowy landscape pass by on the train. When the landscape changed from plains to mountains, I had to take picture after picture of scenes I had previously only seen on postcards. Traveling across Siberia in January revealed both that the cold is not so horrible but that the landscape in winter is beautiful.

The Trans-Siberian railroad is a vacation that is more about the journey than the destination. Thus, I knew that enjoying the train was key to enjoying my trip. On my first train, from Moscow to Tyumen, I was traveling with a friend, but also met a very nice couple, who made the trip much more enjoyable. We spent the two days talking and sharing like old friends. What I will remember most, however, is when the woman made me tea. I was sick and could not sleep. It was 2 a.m., and she could not sleep either. Since I started coughing, she got out of her bunk and made me tea with lemon. I am not sure my mother would do that for me, let alone a stranger. I was quite sad to say goodbye when we arrived in Tyumen, but it gave me hope for the rest of the trip. However, not all my traveling companions were so delightful. On one train, people kept harassing and trying to talk to my friends and me, even when we made it clear that we did not want to talk. I was very happy to get off that train. In general, my remembrances of the train rides depend a lot upon the people we shared the train with. Good companions made for a good train ride. Bad companions made for an uncomfortable ride.

Wanting to see parts of Russia that few Americans ever see, I spent most of January on trains from Moscow to Vladivostok. While I enjoyed visiting the cities, the train travel was a great experience in and of itself. The days and days of travel taught me how big Russia truly is, a fact which the plane ride back cemented in my head. Taking this journey in winter dispelled my ideas about Siberia being uninhabitable and depressing. I learned that winter in Russia is actually quite beautiful. Spending days on a train away from most of the distractions of my life also reminded me of the importance of people, since they were the most unpredictable but also most important fact in my travels, and probably in life in general.

(Печатается с согласия автора)

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