29th June 2009
I entered my cabin on the train to Moskow to find it a little different from my one to Warsaw. The windows did't open, it was a slightly older train, it was also full of bizzarely shaped boxes with two polish geographers cramped up under them. They explained the boxes were filled with their bikes, which was viable for one box since it had handlebars poking out of it but the other didn't even appear to have wheels under the tightly wrapped sheet. I was tempted to ask them about the second 'bike' but they were sharing their food with me and translating the polish / russian that came my way so I left it be. Also it meant that no official was at all intersted in my bag in the least.
Throught the journey we drank and played cards, and they told me about growing up in commuist russia. It was interesting, thought they both said they hated the controlling gov. and so on, they also said with the limited choice in goods afforded by communism people appreciated themselves and their lives more, instead of always chasing adverts. They left at 4 in the morning.
On arriving in Moskow I quickly became terrified, for though I had been registered coming into Belarus, I had not been acosted coming into Russia itself. This worried me so much in fact that I (and I have to be one of the first westerners to ever do this) confronted a station guard. After an hour and about seven uniformed men coming round (one of whome was bald and with albino eyes) to hear my case and finally a phone call to an english speaking friend one of them had, it turned out my stamp into belarus was actually all I needed for russia and I should just cross out anything else in pen.
Anyway, i've spent the day huting down taxis and places to eat, seen Red Square, and then finally found this internet cafe (hidden in a back door of a tiny state libruary for computer sciences). As in Warsaw there are many more stories, to do with taxis and being followed but I must go do a hundred things before I go. Also, I appologise for my spelling, but the keyboard is not arranged as I'm used to, and the spellchecker is in Russian!
Throught the journey we drank and played cards, and they told me about growing up in commuist russia. It was interesting, thought they both said they hated the controlling gov. and so on, they also said with the limited choice in goods afforded by communism people appreciated themselves and their lives more, instead of always chasing adverts. They left at 4 in the morning.
On arriving in Moskow I quickly became terrified, for though I had been registered coming into Belarus, I had not been acosted coming into Russia itself. This worried me so much in fact that I (and I have to be one of the first westerners to ever do this) confronted a station guard. After an hour and about seven uniformed men coming round (one of whome was bald and with albino eyes) to hear my case and finally a phone call to an english speaking friend one of them had, it turned out my stamp into belarus was actually all I needed for russia and I should just cross out anything else in pen.
Anyway, i've spent the day huting down taxis and places to eat, seen Red Square, and then finally found this internet cafe (hidden in a back door of a tiny state libruary for computer sciences). As in Warsaw there are many more stories, to do with taxis and being followed but I must go do a hundred things before I go. Also, I appologise for my spelling, but the keyboard is not arranged as I'm used to, and the spellchecker is in Russian!