DAY 158 THURSDAY AUGUST 30 TRANS-SIBERIAN TRAIN

The rain stopped but it was cool and windy. We walked through the Expo Centre again. They had a monorail taking people to the Amusement Park.

And we passed throught this gate with an unidentified statue.

There were 16 pavilions, representing the countries in the former USSR.  We saw the Communication Tower in the distance which is no doubt famous.

There was an old aeroplane and a space rocket.

One of the pavilions had a large stained glass window which was quite beautiful but neglected.

The whole area was being prepared for Moscow's birthday party on Saturday, September 1.  A very long tent had been erected and when we looked inside it appeared to be like the festival in Helsinki with a hundred little stalls, but they were not selling food; rather they had Russian goods of all kinds, especially clothing.

Coming back we saw a picture of the fountains in action taken from the air.

Then we came up to the fountain and found it had just been turned on.

 The golden statues of women represented the 16 Soviet Countries.  On the way back to the hotel we saw lines of older women holding up hangers with home-made clothing for sale.

We packed up and checked out at 12 noon and left Ken in the lobby with the luggage while we three took another walk around a residential area.  Apartments facing west can get hot in summer so many had put aluminium foil across their windows.

In the hotel car park we found a dozen or more stretch limos including some Hummers. They must be popular for special events.
At 2.40pm our guide Tanya arrived with a minibus driver and escorted us to the Kazansky Station, which was quite crowded even though it had only 6 platforms.

A locomotive arrived with our train 60 behind.

We walked along the platform, excited to be setting off on a 9000 km journey.

We got past the ticket lady.

and settled into our large two berth cabin.

We were given a box each containing numerous items, some of which were of the "suck it and see" variety. We worked out it contained a yoghurt bucket, 2 small chocolate bars, one tea bag, sugar, salt, pepper, ketchup and 2 sachets of mustard.  There is a restaurant car but the menu is pot luck to us.  We did bring some food with us.  There are two nice toilets at one end of the carriage and boiling water on tap at the other.  No showers.  The train took off at 4.50pm and after leaving Moscow we passed through forest most of the time. At a station called Vekovka which we reached at 9pm, hawkers were selling cakes, crystal glasses, chandeliers, a stuffed hawk and mongoose and many small trinkets.  This train was not going through Siberia, thus most of the passengers were travelling home to towns like Yekaterinburg. We pulled down our beds and had a comfortable night.  Much more so than the couchettes we have had previously.