Hello and welcome to this 12th episode of Sleepless in Singapore. My name is Julian. Today is Sunday the 7th of April, and today I'm going to take you on a trip with the Trans-Siberian from Moscow to probably Mongolia. So please make yourself comfortable, lie down, close your eyes, and let my voice be your guide to a restful night. I'm starting today where I stopped three weeks ago in Moscow after saying goodbye to our good friends Mira, Juan, Han on the 4th of May 2017. And this is where our journey really begins.

Why do I say really begins? I think that up until now, even though it got a lot more Eastern European, it was still European and it was still familiar. And while Moscow is a very different city from say Munich or Berlin, it still has a bit of a European influence and it's still a relatively modern city and that is all about to change very quickly now. So on this May the 4th we board our train in the evening. It is the first time on the actual Trans-Siberian railways. And it was a little similar to the trains we had before, similar to the train we had from Ukraine to Russia definitely. That means there is a big, you like a train a wagon there are compartments and we had a compartment for i think for people on this first leg and again we had a very nice russian lady who was showing us to our seats and who was serving tea and he was asking if we're alright and who was making the beds in the evening. That's just part of the journey.

And with us in the compartment was a girl called Dina, who turned out to be not only the most excellent travel guide for our next stop, but who was also the most calm and nicest voice we have heard in a very long time. She was super cute, super nice, very easy to talk to and so friendly and so engaging with us and without wanting anything or without asking for anything. And at the same time, without being pushy or anything, she was explaining about our next stop, explaining about our next stop which was the city of Kazan somewhere still in the western part of Russia I would say and I don't really remember she was either traveling with her mom or she was traveling to see her mom in Kazan but either way we talked a lot to her and it was very nice and it was very helpful.

And then the next day when we arrived in Kazan in the evening, we met her again together with a friend. And they showed us around a bit and they took us out for drinks. And that was absolutely beautiful. Very very very nice of her during the day in Kazan we did a lot of walking Kazan has part of an old city that looks almost like Berlin like my old place like in Prenzlauer Berg where they renovated all these buildings, these like three or four story buildings from the 40s, like the 1940s. And they had these gas lanterns that we also had back then in Berlin. So it still reminded me a little bit of home. But then there was another part of the city of home. But then there was another part of the city with the blue mosque for example. I actually don't know if it's called the blue mosque. I will have to look that up. But there was a mosque, a big mosque with a blue rooftop. Very beautiful, very different than what you usually see in our parts of Europe. And also what started to be a little different is the food we saw.

The city of Kazan had a lot of influence from, I guess, south of Kazan. Like when you look at a map, when you look at a map, south of Kazan is the western part of Kazakhstan. And then if you go further down, there is Georgia, Azerbaijan, and then Iran. And it's on the same longitude than the United Arab Emirates and Oman and Yemen. And even though that is quite far away, I believe you can see some of those influences. For example, when you go to the markets, there are tons of different kinds of dates and fruits and plums and this kind of fruit and dried fruit that at least I kind of relate to that part of the world. What was also different was definitely the cars. Many of the cars there looked like straight out of a museum or out of a 70s or 80s documentation about Russia. But even though it was partly a bit older, it was in general very pretty. Looking at the pictures, I mean, I guess I tend to take pictures of the prettier buildings and not of the uglier ones. But in general, looking at the pictures here, it seems that Kazan is quite a nice place. There are castles.

Kazan is quite a nice place. There are castles. There was this kind of park or I don't even really know what that is but I'll definitely put the pictures up. This like park or area in the middle of the city with the wooden houses that almost look like in you you know, where I'm from, from the Black Forest. And there was a big building that looked like an opera. And it seems like there's some kind of underground or metro system, at least partly, that also looks very Soviet. But the nice kind of Soviet, you know, the marble and the very impressive pillars and all that. So Kazan definitely can recommend. It was a nice place. We had very nice food.

Again here I have another picture from Kazan, from Botikovsky rayon, where we have shashlik and I remember that was excellent meat. I think when I was in Georgia many years later, we had the same kind or at least the similar kind of food. Oh yeah, what also happened in Kazan or before Kazan, you know, when I talked about the preparation for this long trip in episode five or something, and when I was talking about the packing list and, you know, how we tried to optimize everything and how we put a lot of effort in planning. That was also when we decided to bring one pair of sneakers for general day-to-day. Also when it's getting warmer, being able to be comfortable and to walk comfortable. And for the colder part, which is probably mainly the Russia and Mongolia part we bought I think both of us Philip and I bought hiking shoes like proper half height hiking boots and I was wearing my hiking boots I think twice in Moscow because I had cold feet or I don't know because they were more comfortable because they were too big to pack I don't remember but I was wearing them twice and then they got wet and then they got smelly and so I left them out of our train compartment like outside on the there was a little like heater on the side I left them out of our train compartment like outside on the there was a little like heater on the side I left them there to dry and of course I left them there forever so luckily that happened in Kasaan because Kasaan had something that looked like a Nike outlet. And they had tons of Nike shoes. And I found not a hiking shoe again, but I found another pair of sneakers that I had for, I think, the rest of that whole, like, many, many months trip. So that was very nice.

And then also in Kazan, we went to see a doctor. Not a doctor. We went to see a pharmacist. Because, like I just said, the shoes were smelly. They got wet. My feet. Philipp's feet. It was all... I guess there is no way of putting this nicely. Our feet were a bit smelly. So we went to this pharmacist and they didn't speak a word of english we didn't speak a word of russian we tried to communicate it started just like using our hands didn't really work so in the end I put up my feet like I was standing on one leg, getting up my other feet, smelling on it and making a noise. And the pharmacist started laughing and she understood. And she gave us this little ointment, which turned out to be the most amazing ointment for smelly feet I ever had, because we put it on once, and we did not have sweaty or smelly feet for the next two weeks, minimum. I don't know if that ointment is legal anywhere else, I don't know what's in it, the whole description is Russian, I don't know what's in it. The whole description is Russian. I don't know if it's healthy. Probably not. But it worked very, very well. And it wasn't just me. It was Philip and me and the friends we met. You use it once and your feet stay dry and smelling perfectly fine literally for weeks after using it once. I will see if I can find the name of that thing again. Anyway, so we got new shoes, we got the ointment. And then in the evening we were meeting the girls again, Dina and her friend, and they took us to a nice little like I think craft beer place. I remember because they had beer taps as faucets in the bathroom. And that was a nice evening and Dina gifted us a German chocolate, a Milka bar of chocolate for our next part of the trip, which was from Kazan to Yekaterinburg.

Now again if you look at a map Yekaterinburg is about as far from Kazan as Kazan is from Moscow. So that was another I don't know how long but another night in the train. And the train was similar to the first night so nothing new to report here. And then when we arrived in Yekaterinburg, we stayed at a nice hostel. Actually it was it was quite all right for a hostel. And then Yekaterinburg was really different. Maybe it was just because the weather was bad, it was raining, but in parts of Yekaterinburg, where we were walking around, you know, when we travel, we always try to walk around and see the sights and the things that everyone sees and that all the pictures are about. But we also always try to see some local neighborhood or, you know, just like where normal people live. And we did that in Yekaterinburg. And like I said, maybe it was due to the weather, but it looked like somebody took the color out of life. The buildings were all gray. The sky was gray. The streets were gray.. The sky was gray. The streets were gray. Everything was gray and gray. And you know when they sometimes have these documentaries on TV. And actually I want to say I read somewhere, again I don't know if that is true, but I read somewhere that especially Hollywood or the Western film industry they portray countries different countries with different color grading so always when a US movie is about somewhere southern American or anywhere Mexico southwards, they do a slightly warm and orange color grading, because that implies, well, that it's actually warm and that there is a lot of sun. And of course, to a degree, that is true. And in the same way, if you look at any western movie about Russia, Russia is always like a little bit bluish gray and that is also to the color grading. I read about it and I can say at least oftentimes that is true. And I also want to say that I think that is dangerous because obviously the grass in Russia is just as green as the grass in Europe. And the nature in Russia many times is just as beautiful as it is in other countries. And even the cities, like I said before, the old part of Kazan, they can be very beautiful and very colorful, and on a nice summer day, if you can't tell from the actual architecture, I'm very certain you cannot tell from the color if you're in Russia or in Moscow. I'm sorry, if you're in Russia or in Moscow. I'm sorry, if you're in Russia or in Mexico. And so I think this like whole image that we have in our Western heads that for whatever reason Mexico is orange and Russia is gray is dangerous and it's also often wrong but I'm telling you on that day May the 6th or 7th it was just like that everything was gray and we felt like in an old movie or an old documentary somebody really took all color out of the world and I guess what didn't help in Jekaterinburg is that one of the main attractions is a keyboard made from stone by a riverside, which was absolutely fun. I don't know the background of it. I will try to Google it and put it to the links. I don't know the background of it, I will try to google it and put it to the links. But you can imagine it's just like I say, it's a keyboard, you know, like a computer keyboard with whatever 90 something keys and each key is big enough so you can stand on it made from stone on a little bit patchy piece of grass by the river. Another site is this church and I remember it's got something to do with blood. Blood church. Again, I will look that up and I will either link it or maybe write a short paragraph about it in the blog. Right now, I do not recall the details what it was about.

I talked about cars already. I'm looking here at a picture of a public bus that looks like from the 1950s. There were two cool things. One thing was for whatever auspicious reasons there was a patch of forest where you could go and put a colorful band like a ribbon around the trees and where we went there were like tons like thousands of ribbons around these trees that looked quite nice and that was also close to a place that i found very very cool which was the border between Europe and Asia. Now there is no real border. You can read up on that, I did. There is no real border but partly for convenience they put some kind of unofficial border and a monument in the city of Yekaterinburg. And every time I look at that picture, as I do right now, it irritates me that Asia is on the left side and Russia is on the right side. Europe is on the right side. But be it as it may, I guess we were just looking at it from the wrong direction. It was fun to stand with one leg on one continent and with another leg on another continent. I don't think there are too many places where you can actually do that. And I think it probably was the first and last time I have done that. probably was the first and last time I have done that. There is a nice little picture with Philipp and I making fun.

What was also super cool about the Katharineburg and what will always stay in my memory is that in that hostel I mentioned before, we met two people, a couple, Sylvia and Paul. And as it turns out, they were doing something similar that we did, which is taking the transit going all the way from Europe to Asia to Mongolia, and then go on some places in Asia. So immediately we became friends. We asked them to join us. We invited them to sightsee. We did a couple of things during the day. And then again, yet another amazing thing that happened that night was that we joined couchsurfing, the hangouts, and pretty much immediately there was a girl who invited us to join her. And we texted a bit and she asked, hey, you want to come over to our place? And I said, sure, why not? So the four of us, Sylvia, Paul, Philipp and I, we went over to what turned out to be the most Soviet building I have seen, I think, ever. And it was quite the experience. Her name was Vera. We saw her again later in Southeast Asia somewhere. Her and her twin sister, very nice girls. They live off a very basic salary, like very low income, I guess. But they make the very best out of it. They try to travel the world. They do a lot of couch surfing, sleeping at other people's sofas and so on. And they invited us over and they made food for us. Veram was making food for us. And we were sitting there and we were having a beer or two and we all got to know each other and it was a small glimpse into the life of a local there and we really liked and enjoyed that experience and I guess we learned a lot from it.

On the next day, which was already our last day in Jekaterinburg, we went shopping because what was about to happen was our longest part of the Trans-Siberian Railways and that was somewhere around 70 hours non-stop in the train. 70 hours doesn't sound too long, but do the math. That is like three days in a train without coming out of the train, except for, you know, stops to go pee or something outside like on a train station and yeah so what we did the four of us now paul and sylvia and philip and i we went shopping we had a whole shopping cart full of what looks pretty much like junk food now. A lot of like bread and also some fruits, some bananas, some some soup, you know, this like boxed soup you just pour hot water on and then it becomes soup. And then finally sometime in the evening we had all packed. I'm looking at a picture here now with Sylvia standing in a huge pile of plastic bags and backpacks and jackets. It wasn't super cold, but it was far from being warm, so we had to wear jackets there. our train to our next stop which was three days away more than three days away which was going to be Irkutsk at Lake Baikal and luckily maybe by chance or maybe because they organized it that way all the foreign tourists meaning in that case the four of us were staying basically together in the same compartment or actually we didn't really have compartments we decided to do the longest part of the transip in the most natural and most basic way so that means we we had like one wagon, 62 beds or something like that. But we were staying in the same corner, kind of like next to Paul and Sylvia, which turned out to be very, very helpful. Very, well, just nice to have them around and close by so we could talk to them and play cards and i don't know what you do when you have three days on a train so what did we do on that train well mostly look out of the windows see how the nature changes or for the last two and a half days of the trip, which is, you know, like most part of it, how it doesn't change, because you go past a birch tree forest, which in the first couple of hours looks beautiful, but then after 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 hours it still looks exactly the same like you you move for days but you don't move because nature out there for three days looks exactly the same what was more interesting than just looking out there was inside the train. Because you see a lot of people come and go. We had the luck maybe or not that our train was used by a lot of soldiers coming home from wherever they were. And so there was always a bit of action, always something happening. I think officially you could not buy alcohol, but obviously everyone was sneaking in their vodka bottles and stuff like that. And every time you stopped somewhere, Trans-Siberian Railways is not the fastest. So every time you stop, and that happens a lot, you stop for half an hour or sometimes even one hour to refill the train, to add water, to I don't know what. And so we had a lot of these stops and every time we stopped somewhere there were like hundreds of people out on the uh you know you know outside the train standing there smoking and then there were merchants like local people who just came and they had dried fish often they had weird kind of snacks and yeah so we used the opportunities like everything cost nothing it's like it was super cheap so we bought random stuff and random snacks and also a bottle of illegal vodka here and there and that's how we spent our time in the train talking playing cards eating just sitting there looking out of the window meeting other people oh yeah i remember because i just see that on the picture we we met this real life barbie literally like looks like barbie who stayed in our compartment or in in our part our corner of that train for about for for a couple of hours i think only, only, or maybe overnight. I don't remember that part. Also forgot her name. Very, very interesting experience.

And then there was one friend we made, I guess, that was very strange as well. We walked, one time we walked all the way to the train restaurant because we wanted to eat something nice. And the train restaurant, it looked quite Russian, quite Soviet. And they put this menu in front of us on our table. And I thought like, wow, that is some train menu. And it was leather bound, really thick, nice leather. And I open it and there were like 30 pages of menu, like in a more than in a normal restaurant. And we open that and we study it for a while and we translate where we have to. And then we decide for something nice, like a beef stroganoff or something. And we order that and the lady just said, Nyet. So, okay, I guess that's out. And we tried that with the second dish and the lady again goes, Nyet. And we do that twice more and the lady says yet yet yet and we're like okay so i guess this is all fake and turns out what they actually had was some kind of fish and some kind of borscht or something wasn't terrible we ordered it and we had a couple of vodka shots because that's just what you do in russia and when we ordered that vodka there was a guy coming not wearing a t my age, bald guy, naked on top, having strange tattoos. And he didn't really talk English, but in Russian he gave us, you know, like he implicated he wants a vodka or something, he wants to drink with us. We had a couple of vodka shots with him, which in the end, well, we ended up paying for him, as it turns out. And somehow with our phones and Google Translate or whatever existed, he managed to make us understand that he's just out of prison for killing someone. us understand that he's just out of prison for killing someone and he's been there for the last 20 years or whatever and now he's there and he's happy that we are friends now and also he was drinking all the vodka we paid for and we we got a little scared but but also you know, there were a lot of people around. He also said he's fine now. So we took some fun pictures with him, and then we decided to go to bed. And then the guy started following us. And we tried to get away faster, but he was a bit, I don know pushy aggressive and then lucky for us there was like this big big big russian lady who was our train wagon conductor you know the lady i keep talking about that every wagon has one and she stopped the guy and the guy did not even discuss. She's just like, not in here. At least that's, I assume, what they said, because obviously it was all in Russian. And the guy said, okay. And that's how we kind of got rid of him. And then we were hoping very much to not meet him again. So good times in the train was really enjoyable. I was not bored for even a second. Then again, I kind of never get bored. But yeah, that was our trip. The longest part of the Trans-Siberian from Moscow via Kazan and Yekaterinburg to Irkutsk. And because now I've already been talking for quite a while, I think I'll make a cut here, and I'm going to read some Tom Sawyer for you, and then we will come back to Irkutsk and our way into Mongolia and our arrival in Mongolia in the next episode.