SERGEI - Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia - page 7

Trains depart at all hours of the night. And restaurants and bars that stay open all night tend
to be full—all night.
“David, we should stop at the ticket office.”
Sergei has already purchased our tickets for tonight's leg from Moscow to Yaroslavl.
But we had planned to buy tickets at this station for the next few legs, from Yaroslavl to
Nizhny Novgorod, and from there to Izhevsk.
Now the fun begins: a Russian train-ticket window.
Here are a few facts. You can search Russian trains online. But the prices and availab-
ility that come up mean next to nothing. Even the times displayed can be meaningless, be-
cause often they are listed using Moscow's time zone, or they may use the local time zone
of the city you're going to. There's just really no telling.
Basically the best option is to visit a ticket window at a train station itself, rarely a
smooth experience, but at least you can go over each and every detail with a human being
before you plunk down wads of money. Even then, the chances of everything on the tick-
et being clear and correct are fair at best. And there is usually a lot of yelling and stress
in the exchange with the ticket agent, not to mention angry passengers in line behind you,
hogging your space and giving every hint that you're taking too long. And there's the
slight chance someone from the government is amid the chaos, listening in to learn where
a Western journalist such as myself happens to be traveling—something I experienced in
neighboring Belarus, a former Soviet republic so addicted to Soviet living it's as if news of
the 1992 collapse never reached there.
As with many experiences around here, I typically approach a Russian ticket window
with a great deal of anxiety. Over time, I have learned to treat this affliction prophylactic-
ally, taking deep breaths and distracting myself by imagining pleasant scenes of sailboats
and seashells. Sergei and I walk up to the ticket area, and it's chaos as always. Some win-
dows are closed, some are open, most are ambiguous, with a person staffing the window,
a crowd of passengers milling about, but nothing apparently happening. We approach one
window with just one customer—a woman in a sleek black overcoat, in my imagination
an employee of one of Moscow's posh law firms or energy companies, yelling at the top
of her lungs at the agent on the other side of the glass. She steps aside, stewing, clearing a
path for us.
Deep breaths, deep breaths . . .
“Zdrads-vui-tyeh,” Sergei says to the ticket agent, who just stares back. She has cropped
hair that's dyed a color popular among many Russian women—it's an unnatural red,
slightly less orange than a carrot, and clashing dramatically with her apple-red Russian
Railways vest. Her name tag identifies her as Anna Nikitenko. I see Anna's mouth move
and am fairly certain I hear something, but it's barely audible. There is a speaker on our
side and a microphone on Anna's, but the system is not accomplishing much.