The Long Road to Tobolsk

In Krasnoyarsk, I purchased tickets for the next leg of the trip at a travel agent. She routed me through Tyumen to get to Tobolsk. At first, I thought of stopping in Omsk and spending the day. But after my forest adventure, my legs were screaming for a day off.

There was plenty of time to rest up since the train to Tyumen took some 30 hours. Or close to that, I'm not too sure. All train schedules in Russia run on Moscow time. In Vladivostok, for example, a noon train listed on the board is actually a 7pm departure. And so on across the country.

With so many time zones, anchoring the entire country to one fixed time maybe the only practicable solution. But it makes for a disorienting experience mid trip. I usually end up staring at my watch; I've travelled x hours across y time zones. Which means it is current time on my watch minus y time zones equals local time plus z hours difference to Moscow. Luckily, the train attendants keep pretty close tabls on the passengers and make sure they don't miss stops.

The attendant on the train to Tyumen, Alexandra Ivanovna, was an especially wonderful woman. She kept stopping by to chat with me. She's worked on the railroad for 15 years - and is very grateful for the stability of wages and employment it provided during some very tough times in Russia. Next year, however, she's going to retire and become an Amway agent. She excitedly shared brochures and marketing materials as we talked about it.

Amway came to Russia about a year ago. They opened a distribution center but didn't really know what to expect; everyone told them that russians were too lazy for an independent distributorship model. They figured they'd do X dollars in the first year here - not great, but worthwhile.

Instead they did 3 times that figure, and are racing to meet demand.

After a short layover in Tyumen's shiny new train station I continued on to Tobolsk. In the coupe, I met Sasha - already travelling some distance and with another full day to go. On the holiday-thinned trains he had been alone the whole time and it was obvious he was desperately in need of a chat.

He was travelling from Perm to Surgut, a major oil and gas field in the North - -20 degrees yesterday, he said proudly. He's interviewing for a safety engineering job with Schlumberger. Moving his family north doesn't thrill him, but he and his wife agreed that work with a major international firm would make it worthwhile.

I wished him luck when I got off the train at 3am local time in Tobolsk. 3am, I decided, was too early to take a gypsy cab into a city I don't know looking for a hotel I'm not sure about. I checked into the 'resting rooms' at the station instead - essentially a dorm for weary travelers with a long time between trains.

The beds were narrow and the toilet had no seat, but the place was deserted and, frankly, nearly as nice as some of the hotels I've been in at a much higher cost. For $8, I crashed out in a clean, comfortable - and stationary - bed.

Tobolsk can wait a few more hours.