Got a few hours of sleep the hotel got us a Uber taxi 200 roubles compared to the 600 I paid to get to the hotel. At the station had to go through security, bags on the conveyor belt and we through the scanner. I wonder why Britain do not do this prior to boarding trains? There were 10 trains due at Yekaterinburg station in the next 2 hours in both directions. The notification board is in Russian and English and our train was the Express Moscow to Vladivostok sounds more impressive than the one we took from St Petersburg. Because the trains are so long you don’t know where your carriage will stop at, ours was #3 and luckily it stopped where we were standing on the platform in – 16 C temperature. A bunch of people got off the carriage and Penny got on to find out compartment and drop off the ruck sacks and our bag of food. She came back to say the compartment was in a bloody mess and the lady attendant was cleaning it. Twenty minutes later we had access to our compartment. Again, much nicer than the train from St Petersburg to Perm which we travelled first class.
Could get our 2 big bags under our bunk with our bag of food. Penny bought a bottle of vodka from the supermarket was on special at £5 and she had to try a sip to launch this train journey and said it was the best she had ever tasted. I wonder what the £10 bottle tasted like? Then she fell asleep. Three hours later I had a rendition of the chainsaw symphony.
Day light at 08:30 and there is more snowing lying here looks so picturesque all the trees are shaded in white. We have a time zone change at 17:00 and another one tomorrow afternoon sure stuffs up the sleeping pattern.
A stewardess came into our compartment and asked when we would like dinner tonight and offered chicken and potatoes or stroganoff. Place gave us some chocolate and bottles of water and this is included in the ticket. So, after our last first-class experience, we bought food and water and we did not need it.
This train is the fastest we have been on and when one has to flush the loo the waste paper has to be placed in the waste bin. When you have to flush it goes onto the tracks and with the speed we are going at,the noise it makes is a very high-pitched screech.
Maurice's Travel 