Night Trains

The Russian trains felt further from European culture than I've been since seeing Petersburg and I felt elation draggin my suitcase through the grand staircases suggesting a previous century of elegant travel, towards the bulky soviet trains.

The trian was decorated with icicles, some filthy black.

'Well, it seems you got the best seat,' says my friend.sarcastically as she deposes me safely to my alloted number. I worry when I see I have a single seat and small table for my 10 hour nocturnal jouney. Fortunately, the whoel structure cleverly folds out into a bed. The problem isI've got on a side bunk near the door to the toilets

. The 'Platskart' has rows of  cosy double bunks pointing to these exposed side bunks, adjacent to the window. The family near is

I’m considering venturing beyond the mysterious train doors, identical tohose gritty grey cantene-style kitchen worktop, to sea whats behind them. Perhaps it won’t be the den of inequity  I imagine - a long pub style interior, chestnut brown and worn reds - with a small buffet, stench of testosterone and cheap tobacco, gravely voices discussing women - and the women they discuss are at once objects and godesses. - and football. Or perhaps they don’t talk in there - maybe it is the metro over again - but sit and stare at the floor and chain smoke.

An image evoked by the slovenly male arms opening the doors before disappearing with a clear click, again and again. So often, that it seems like a revolving doors. They dissapear for a long time.

--

After the noise has died down and most people and in bed, I look in. Behind the  doors - a small rectangular space, a man crouched on the floor smoking..Kitchen worktop on every side. Colourless flat.That’s all.

From the train at night disparate bestial sounds - it is a cacophony, a primitive music. It seems the people have been possessed by the small furry animals they wear; purring in some corners, mewing on others.. Then desparate smokers coughs, reptilian. These Russian trains are an excellent advertisement for non-smoking.

Return Journey

On the train again; fourth long distance train journey in five days. This train has significantly less smokers. No heavy coughing and constantly agitated doors.

I can see feet from every angle. Some feet stick out from under the cover, bare. Others are mummified in the covers.

This whole train thing is very un-English. Designed for a country of hundreds of millions, of proletariat and freezing cold exteriors. Privacy is not something included with Platskart; women sleep adjacent to men. A group of rough men are opposite me today. The sort of unpolished masculinity which spits out like fat from a roasting spit, burning and staining your clothes.

I’m in leggings and a black studded gothic top, a I feel very aware that this is a  kinky sort of get up. Yet I don’t in reality feel threatened. There is the unsettling bit here  reassuring dress that however saucily, teasingly you dress no-one is looking. You are probably the hundreth saucily dressed girl they've seen today. This open place with the strict train stewardess is not an environement to feel threatened in. In the morning she reprimands  the strong bulky young man who fell asleep, beer in hand, on the bench without putting down any bedding. ‘Kak spal!’ . ‘He slept like that.’ Tut tut. She is a matron and these grown up  unshaven men are naughty school-children to her.