North!

Trains are for meditation, for playing out long thought-processes, over and over; we trust them, perhaps because they have no choice but to go where they are going.

~Alistair Reid

I met mom and dad at the hotel and managed their transfer of luggage to my place. Then I headed back to work as they repacked their bags and generally prepared for the evening train to St. Petersburg.

At around 11pm, our cab came and we trundled off to the Leningrad Station. It’s a rather gritty station, especially at night, and we waited on the platform under the watchful eye of what seemed like hundreds of policemen and troops. Still, I like Russian train stations – the bustle, the commotion, the hordes of people sitting quietly next to huge nylon bags full of god knows what. Its like an American airport – but a lot more interesting and, well, lifelike. Without khaki and blazer wearing businessmen shuttling between anonymous cities, talking about golf, and glued to their blackberries. Russian train stations are populated by unshaven cabbies in leather coats asking for fares, whole families on the move.

But what I especially like is the soundtrack. When a train pulls out, the station blares heroic Soviet-style anthems over the sound system – as if a simple departure is a triumph of science and technology over chaos. And when the train pulls in, a loud folk song about Moscow greets the disembarking passengers. In the US all we get now is a warning that your bag will be blown up and then eaten by dogs if you so much as set the thing down when you buy a cup of coffee.

Anyway, the “Krasnaya Strela” (Red Arrow) pulled in and we hopped on. I bought tickets for a whole coupe –a cabin with 4 sleeping berths – for the 3 of us. We settled in, and then realized it was midnight when the train pulled out. Time to sleep.