A 27 Hour Trainride.

In the morning, Alyona brought me to the station with the tram, where a woman sold the tickets on board. The train was already there, but I had to wait to get in. My passport was doublechecked and I entered a clean new waggon (you might be less lucky if you try to take a train in Russia) where a comfortable bunk bed, linen, a pillow, a blanket and free hot water from a fascinating machine were available on the long long ride.

And long it was. Fortunately, I shared my compartment with two nice Russian women and Michael, a bald ship engineer with a nice moustache who had seen the world, or at least an array of harbours on all of its continents. It was interesting talking to him, although - his English was just slightly better than my Russian. But we had time! O yes, we had time. And using our meager shared vocubulary, hand and feet gesturing being of some help, we spoke about traveling, about Russian literature (admittedly, we only did some name-dropping), and then I asked him how he felt about Obama.
"Well, I very glad", he said. "And do you know "Voyna i mir" (War and Peace)? Yes, yes. "Bush - voyna; Obama - mir. We were fond of that association and laughed, catching the attention of the woman sleeping below me on the bunk bed. "What are you talking about?" she asked in Russian. "Politics!" I think that is a funny situation: give two men a few words and they already start talking politics. Yes, it felt great, and I wrote a few pages while Michael read some Rasputin. When the bumping of the train got nasty, I stopped writing and went to bed.

Murmansk. Alyosha.

I waited my five days in three different places, with three totally different kinds of people, who were all so kind. The last two nights I stayed at Evelyn's, a member of couchsurfing and a German who teaches Russian in Norwegian (!). So I enjoyed a conversation about linguistics, history, politics, which nourished my mind and prepared my for the huge country I will be going to. Evelyn told me a lot about Russia and the Ukraine, for example about the historical towns of the Golden Ring around Moscow, of which I was ignorant, and about the 3th class in trains called "platzkart" where traveling is not only cheaper, but also funnier since you meet many talkative Russians. I will go and see for myself.

Without problems I got my visa (someone at the consulate told me, I should have brought a confirmation of my payment, but it was already lying on his desk, right in front of him. Puh-ha! So the topic of the "dokument" and "your papers are not in order" was safely overcome), and I took the minibus to Murmansk. We arrived at the border when it was already dark and had to go to several cumbersome checkpoints, just like in airports. Our bags were driven through a machine that bleeped, but the officers didn't care. We got back in the minibus and drove another three hours to Murmansk.

Alyona picked me up with her mother, and I was invited to their flat (which was somewhere away from the center on the 9th floor with the elevator broken) like a special envoy. I gave her my small gift, a box of chocolates and was shown around her place. Together with the rat Gonzales I had some Soljanka with Mayonaise, and was shown my own room. This could not have been better...

Thank you so much! Alyona and two friends showed me around Murmansk during a nighttime stroll, and I got a glimpse of the atmosphere of this rather large arctic town. Murmansk is a relatively young city (in fact, the last Russian city to be founded, in 1916). A lot of sailors live here (Alyona's father was at sea). They showed me a huge statue with an eternal flame in front of it. It was a concrete soldier standing 35 meter tall, watching out over the bay of Murmansk, and the monument for the marines who died in the submarine accident with the Kursk in 2000.

It was cold and windy, and we decided to walk back home. A very good night.