A Night on a Russian Train

A real-life experience traveling on a Russian long-distance sleeper train.

I recently wrote a note about Russian railroad travel and how it compared with Amtrak and Via. I hope all of my subscribers have the Substack app, because it provides you access to the Notes section of Russia Simplified. (Alternatively, you can access it via a website.) If you do not have the app, it's worth installing, because I post several notes a week in addition to these newsletters you get weekly in your email.

I must tell you, I avoid Russian sleeper trains. The last time I travelled on one, visiting Kaliningrad, and to this day I don’t know what made me take a train and not fly. Kaliningrad is an enclave of Russia squeezed in between Lithuania, Poland, and the Baltic Sea. It is detached from the main Russian territory, and it takes a whole night and crossing three borders to get there from Moscow. The train that connects Moscow and Kaliningrad is a branded service tagged “Yantar’” (“Amber”). I wonder how many readers can guess why this name? I bought a ticket, kupé, an upper bunk. “Branded” trains are supposed to provide better service and comfort, at least in theory.

There are ten train terminals in Moscow, each serving trains of certain types and certain directions. The train to Kaliningrad departs from Belorussky Terminal. Normally, boarding starts 30 minutes prior to departure, and I was there on time. There are two types of platforms on Russian stations: low and high. The high platform is aligned with the car floor, so to enter, passengers simply step inside the car. Low platforms require climbing the car stairs, and it’s anything but easy, especially if you have luggage. The train I was boarding was at the high platform, which lowered towards the end of the train, where my car was. It was a short line of passengers at the door, slowly crawling those car stairs with their suitcases, backpacks, and bags. The stairs are narrow, steep, and high. The train attendant was not providing any help.

My turn came, the train attendant looked at a handheld device which had a list of passengers. She checked my passport, confirmed my bunk number, and that was it. With electronic tickets, there is no paperwork.

When I got to my compartment (Russian: kupé, купе), the two lower bunks were already occupied by an elderly couple, and we said hello. Typically, in branded trains, the bunk beds are made in advance. On this train, however, it was not made; it was a set of linen, a pillow, and a blanket, all separate, and I had to make my bed. FYI: Car attendants won’t make it for you. It was a hustle making a bed in a narrow compartment on a high bunk, but alright, I somehow managed to put the linens, a pillow, and a blanket together so it would look kind of sort of like a made bed.

By the time I finished fiddling with my bed, the train departed. My fellow travelers said they will allow me to eat and left the compartment. To eat, I would have to sit on one of their beds, and it was actually very polite of them. Although they did not have to leave, I had no problem having food while they were there. Eating on trains is a sacred ritual for Russians. The moment the train starts to roll, you see passengers opening bags and sacks with food and start eating. I ate before the journey and was not hungry. Besides, what I had for food was only a sandwich, just in case, and a bottle of wine. The latter was essential, because I knew, I just knew, the trip would be brutal, and wine was supposed to ease things up a little bit. I doubt the wine had helped. Still, I realized that there might be no other chance to sit at the table, and eating on the upper bunk bed wouldn’t be especially comfy. So I sipped some wine, ate my sandwich, and went into the corridor, signaling to the couple that I am done.

Two compartments away, it was a consortium of a train attendant and a bunch of passengers. I listened to their talk, and it turned out something in that compartment was annoyingly squeaking. The attendant was attempting to fix it by sticking a folded newspaper in between some parts of the kupé. It did not seem to work.

I returned to my kupé and climbed onto my upper bunk bed. Sure enough, once the train left Moscow city limits, the mobile network went off completely and never came back, aside from a slow-speed connection at the stations we flew by without stopping. Wi-Fi was on, but the internet did not work. Neither could I send a text nor use any apps on the phone. I opened my Kindle.

In the meantime, my neighbors had some food, laid on their lower bunks, and fell asleep, sound asleep. I was always amazed by people who can sleep on Russian trains. The train was shaking, coupling mechanisms banging, something was rattling and squeaking, accompanied by a cacophony of other sounds, and it all was on the background of the wheel sound. Other passengers were walking and talking in the corridor, and all the sounds penetrated the thin walls and doors.

On top of things, about an hour into the journey, the heating started to pick up momentum. It was horribly hot and stuffy inside. I went to the train attendant to complain. She turned on the AC. It was epic; the heating was boiling from below, and the AC was cooling from the vent on the ceiling. I could breathe for a little, and then the AC went off, and it was hot and stuffy again. I removed the blanket, but even if I took off all of my clothes, it wouldn’t help as it felt like a sauna inside. I left the compartment again, again complaining about the overheating, and she ran the AC over and over, each time not for long. The whole trip, it was extremely hot.

One out of four beds in the compartment remained empty since we departed in Moscow. In Smolensk, one of the very few stops the train made, a fourth passenger appeared. To be exact, his belly came in first, and the rest of his body followed. The top of his head was on the level of his upper bunk. He faced a task of making his bed in the dark compartment, lit only by dim streetlights on the station. He tried to make his bed above his head, without seeing it, as he could not step on the lower bed as an elderly lady slept on it.

He managed to spread the sheet, shove the pillow into the pillowcase, and started climbing to the bunk. That was something, because of his physique and because the small ladder near the door was not of much help. He finally did it, laid on the bed, tossing and turning, breathing heavily. He stationed himself on top of a narrow bunk, and after several uneasy, constrained moves, settled in on his back. A moment later, the train moved, leaving the station, and the train attendant came in and asked for his ticket. This happens if you buy a ticket through a ticket office, not online. The guy was pissed off: “I barely got up here, I’m not gonna move, it’s in the inner pocket of my jacket; there is nothing of value in there; look it up yourself!” He pointed at his jacket with his bare leg. The attendant started searching his pocket, door still open, letting in some fresh air.

The whole bustle woke the elderly lady, and being interrupted in the middle of her sleep, she was disoriented and started shouting: “What happened, what happened?!” The attendant found the ticket and disappeared, shutting the door behind her. The lady fell asleep again.

The train gained speed, and the guy on the bunk in front of me, hand length away, started snoring. It was not just snoring, it was singing with the snore, a flock of whales roaring. The two people down below slept like they were dead. It was hot and stuffy again.

Then it was Minsk, one of the major stations en route. The stop was very long, maybe an hour or so. I guess they swapped locomotives in Minsk. The non-stop station announcements were so loud, it felt like I was in the station. I could clearly hear voices and the snow squeaking under the steps of people passing by on the platform, sounds of newly arrived and departing passengers entering or leaving the car.

Finally, when the night was almost over, and maybe the guy stopped snoring, or perhaps I was exhausted enough, I started dozing off, and the car attendant knocked on the door, warning that we are approaching a border with Lithuania. Everyone woke up, the light was turned on, and they started searching for their passports. After the Belarusian border control, the train crossed the border and stopped again for the Lithuanian border control and customs. Thankfully, the border control procedures on both sides went smoothly and quickly.

By the time we left Kyana, a small station where border control took place, it was bright morning, and sleeping was much less of an option than before. I went to the attendant’s kupe asking if she has any coffee. “Sure!” she said and pulled out a “three-in-one” instant cappuccino. I refused, asking for a tea instead, which I had sitting on a foldout chair in the car corridor. Then there was traveling through Lithuania, another two border controls, and hours later we arrived in Kaliningrad.

Russia Simplified has four previous publications on the topic of railroad travel in Russia:

Traveling the Trans-Siberian Railroad

Railroad Travel in Russia — Part One

Railroad Travel in Russia — Part Two

Railroad Travel in Russia — Part Three