Saturday 5^th April

We’d booked the train yesterday if you remember and I seem to remember having quickly scanned the rail website and the average journey time between Novosibirsk and our next destination, Krasnoyarsk was around 11-12 hours.  So it kind of threw me a bit when Nik told me the train would be at 7:30 this evening and we would be getting to Krasnoyarsk at around 11am the following day.  As Krasnoyarsk is another hour ahead of here, I calculate that at being around 14 ½ hours so I ask Nik “are you sure that’s the time in local time?” The reason for asking is I remember when we were in Perm, the station clock showed Moscow time, 2 hours behind and it kind of threw me a bit.  When I asked, I was told that all national trains run at Moscow time, throughout the Russian Federation.

I asked Nik to check but was told “everything alright” so I had to assume he knew what he was doing.

The temperature has plummeted today.  When I woke up it was 4 degrees, now it was heading to 0 degrees at a rate of knots and the sky is looking laden with snow clouds.  We have to check out of the hotel at noon, and as sure as eggs is eggs, no sooner are we out on the streets than it begins to sleet, then snow. 

Nik needs socks as he has deemed it not worthy of his efforts to wash any, and he reckons he can buy them for the same price the hotel would launder them for.  Fair enough, so we head for the shops.  Now call me old fashioned if you like, but the last place I’d think of looking for cheap socks would be somewhere like the House of Fraser.  So off we head to the nearest department store and Nik seems genuinely surprised that the socks are around the equivalent of £5 a pair.  I am genuinely surprised that he seems genuinely surprised and tell him we need a cheap stall or supermarket.  The snow is quite heavy by now and I come up with a Plan B, we buy some washing stuff and he can wash a few socks.  So we wander into a supermarket, past all the cleaning stuff without as much as a pause, so I opt to buy a small bottle of vodka for the train journey and we head out into the snow once more.  Nik is now whinging like a pup about being cold and wet but I have things I want to do so arrange to meet him later in the hotel.

I mentioned earlier that Novosibirsk was defined as being the geographical central point of Russia.  This is not the modern day Russia as we know it, but the old Russian empire which included a few more of the ‘Stans and there is a tiny little orthodox church slap bang in the middle of the main road going through the town.  I head there and take some photos then go inside where there is a small chapel, complete with burning candles.  It takes me back to my youth and I light a candle and even say a prayer for the first time in many a year.

To get to the church, I had to take an underpass which, in typical Russian fashion is crammed with hundreds of tiny stalls selling anything from CDs to cigarettes, bras and hats to … yes, could it be …? mens socks!!!  So I buy 5 pairs for the Boy Blunder and head back to the hotel to miss Nik by about a minute.  No matter, I need a rest and doze off in reception for a while, ticking the time down to 7:30. 

At around 5 I decide to head out for some food, and having just sat down and ordered, Nik’s free meal radar kicks in and he texts and ask me to order him a coffee.  And soup.  Quite moderate by his usual standards but he is coughing all over my seafood linguine and complaining about having a bad chest.  So he orders a pack of cigarettes, what else?  On my bill.  Now I had quite cutely sat in no smoking for about the first and only time since I’ve been here as I was initially on my own, and to date, everyone I have eaten with has smoked like chimneys.  At the dinner table.  They all do around here, and it makes me really appreciate the smoking ban in restaurants at home.  Pubs, I can take or leave smoke, but when you’re eating food, I prefer to eat it without someone else smoke heading towards me.  And it always heads for the non-smoker, it’s the law.  Fags over here are cheap as anything, but stink like cheap fags so I’m really happy to eat one meal smoke free, it’s bliss.

We head out into the cool air and the first thing Nik does after coughing his guts up is to light a fag.  I give up.

We collect our bags and head to the station.  We scan the board for our train, nothing showing.  But there’s a 2nd board with later trains, and … I don’t need to say do I?

Luckily Nik redeems himself to a degree by arranging for us to go around to the apartment of a woman he knows and we pass the time drinking coffee then Bacardi and tonic while watching the Russian equivalent of Cirque Celebre, or whatever it is.  I don’t care, it’s already -5 outside with a biting wind and the station is not the nicest place to kick your heels for the best part of 4 hours.