Somewhere in Siberia

Rather a disturbed night as the train juddered and swayed accompanied by quite a lot of noise of brakes squeaking. V hot inside. We shared with another couple. The seats were plastic and shiny but we had a squashed mattress thing to put on top then duvet and sheets. Lots of stops. Watches went back an hour.

Passing towns with very poor houses, villages with wooden houses, fences like Kyrgyzstan, gardens newly tilled. Raining on and off, then snow. Scenery mainly Forest - taiga.

Stopped 3/4 hr at Krasnoyarsk at 10.30 am and got out of station to see Lenin mural. Very cold. Bought water then had a walk and back on train. (Mr C locked our compartment with the meter key he’d bought at home.)

Mostly the view is taiga, but sometimes the countryside opens to show poor towns with dilapidated little houses. Then there are huge cities with petroleum-chemical works and other industries. We passed snowy pine trees and birch. Miles and miles. We had brown bread, tomatoes and cheese for lunch. By afternoon the pines amid the birch were snow covered.

I don’t know where the time goes - it’s all very relaxing as the train is going so slowly. The time of arrival has gone back another 2 hours which is a shame.

We stopped for a bit in Novobirsk, the third biggest city in Russia.

The train windows are dirty and the swaying meant I didn’t get any decent pix of the scenery.