So it has been a fair while since I have updated everyone on my activities. Last time anybody really heard from me was st Petersburg. Since then I’ve been constantly doing things and I’ve rarely had access to any internet. However here is basically what happened whilst I was on the vodkatrain through Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
I left st Petersburg late at night and only just managed to catch the train to Moscow. To say that I was uneasy about the trip ahead would be an understatement. Luckily I met Julia, one of the group members on the train that night and immediately started to worry a little less.
We arrived in Moscow and the last thing that either of us wanted to do was go outside and sightsee, so we figured that watching borat would be just like reading a guide book for Kazakhstan. That’s when we met Jamie, the third member of our group and later we met valentin the final (little did he know we already facestorked him after getting his details from reception).
At each stop on the vodkatrain you meet up with a ‘honcho’ which are effectively just guides but theyre always locals and are just there to help show u round and to have a nice chat. Our first guide was marina and she was awesome. Over the next few days she took us to all the cool places in Moscow:
· the kremlin
· st basils cathedral
· Red square
· The metro system which is decorated with very beautiful soviet architecture and art
· Some of the extremely fancy department stores (they’re built in old aristocratic palaces. Very fancay)
· Many of the sculptures that dot the city
· The state circus (where we would make the first of many bribes on the trip)
· And Moscow’s answer to Disneyland. It wasn’t much of a reply and thankfully was closed
· We also sampled some Russian vodka at a dodgy student bar one night.
Anyway we had a lot of fun hanging out in Moscow with marina and teaching her proper English such as the meaning of does a bear shit in the woods. It was sad to see her go as we left on the train headed for Tashkent. That trip would take 3 days but was just as fun.
So the train trip. It was epic in so many ways. The first night we cracked out the vodka and saw how much fun a drunk Julia is. Unfortunately the next nights were more subdued since we had a bit of a run in with a kazak official who wanted to kick us off for drinking beer. He was asking for a 7500 ruble bribe which is around 250 dollars. We weren’t have’n none of it so we stood our ground. Thankfully he spoke no English and valentine spoke Russian so we good tell him to go jump. We were all still pooing our pants though and were perfectly prepared to pay the bribe. Luckily after about 20 minutes we managed to get him to piss off since their wasn’t much he could actually do.
The other highlight was teaching some uzbeks returning home after a year working in Moscow how to play uno. They were a little slow to pick it up but loved it so much. A little vodka helped the process along. From that point on they never left us alone always wanting Jamie to go and play cards wth them.
Anyway the train was a good laugh and the days passed fast and pretty soon we made it to Tashkent where we met the legend that is mike jones.
