Not the Trans Siberian

(We took a trip last week to the east).

Siberia is famous for it's Trans-Siberian Railway, taking seven days from Moscow to Vladivostok. I have never done the whole trip. I have done Beijing to Krasnoyarsk (four days), on four occasions, once via Mongolia. That is my record for the longest on a train.

It's always a little more of a challenge with little children on the train. We weren't quite sure how PJ would deal with 31 hours of clickety clack. Personally I find the rhythmic journey quite relaxing. There's nothing quite like train travel (when you have a place to sleep that is). You can wander around, meet people, read, sleep, take in the view, sit in the restaurant, all with none of the pressure of a long drive on the road.

I spoke to a friend on skype of our upcoming trip. He asked if there would be any nice views. Most of the travel I have done on the train in Russia has been through either grasslands by Chita or forest. I should not leave out that those train trips have also been past Lake Baikal in the south.

[Yes, I have taken the train from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk too, and from Moscow to Helsinki (and Helsinki to Tampere). So although I can not say I have done it in one trip, I have actually taken the train all the way from Tampere to Beijing (via Mongolia). I wonder how many people can say that?]

As we approached Lake Baikal from the west, I noticed a couple of peaks covered in snow. All of the snow out our way in Krasnoyarsk has melted by now, as it is May. The contrast of snow covered peaks with the forest is always pretty. But as we traveled the mountains began to grow taller. I hadn't taken the time to study the geography of northern Baikal, so I did not know that it is surrounded by mountains on either side. Some of these mountains are over 2500 metres. So I was very pleasantly surprised to see some very stunning views on our train journey east to Evenki country.

The train line that we took is called the BAM line. It was constructed from 1974 to 1984. None of the construction was done with prison labour, but only with "clean hands". Fifty thousand workers were recruited via the Communist Youth League. The line was built as an alternative to the southern Trans-Siberian Railway, because that line is so close to China.

It can be argued that the BAM line goes through some very isolated country, where few people live. We certainly appreciate the existence of such a line. So many parts of Russia are better serviced by train than they are by road. Because the line was deemed to "go nowhere" the young people of Russia made up a joke for the acronym BAM. In Russian the phrase is Brezhnev Obmanivaet Molodozh. Brezhnev planned the project. The word obmanivaet sounds like abmabivaet and means "deceives". Molodozh means youth.

If you have never traveled on the train on Russia, you can see why you really should come and visit and take a trip to see some of the most stunning views in the world.