A couple of weeks ago I took a trip between Helsinki and Astana (Kazakhstan) by train. It wasn't something I do every day, so I thought it'd be worth documenting here both for myself and anyone else that's interested. Annoyingly, I'm very bad at remembering to take photos, especially when I'm enjoying myself, so the snaps I do have are fairly random.
Helsinki
Helsinki - Moscow (Train 31 - "Tolstoi")
I was really surprised by how modern the "Tolstoi" was. The carriages seemed brand new (they were built in Austria in 2012~2014 based on information I've found online). It's the first time I've had key card access to my sleeper berth!
I went for the cheapest option on this train - a 4 berth sleeper - but I had it to myself. I saw some empty berths as I walked down the train and I'd estimate the train was less than a quarter full. Having said that, RZD did put on ~16 coaches for this train, so it would take a large crowd to fill it!
Most of the train was made up of the modern carriages I was in, but at the very front of the train there were 3-4 older carriages, sticking out as they were built to the larger Russian loading gauge (the modern carriages were far shorter). These larger carriages are visible in the foreground of the photo I took from the Helsinki station platform.
The route goes through very pleasant rural Finland - lots of pine forest and clear lakes. I went to the restaurant car for dinner - the RZD staff serving were friendly and the food was pretty good (although the prices matched Finland more than Russia). I paid with euros and was told they do take card, but only once the train has passed into Russia (which happens around midnight). One of the waiters suggest I ate dinner and paid in the morning, but his superior was not so keen on the idea! Cash was fine with me.
The restaurant car gradually filled up with retired Finns keen to sample various beers. There was a pleasant atmosphere with the modern train adapted with curtains at the windows and a TV attached somehow at the end of the carriage.
The restaurant was scheduled to close when the train arrived at the border, but I was already back at my sleeper berth by then. Border formalities were pretty straightforward, although not as quick as the "Allegro" high speed service between Helsinki and St Petersburg which paused briefly at the border while we were stopped. On the "Allegro" border checks take place while train is travelling.
When I woke up in the morning as we stopped at Tver, the only stop between St Petersburg and Moscow, around 2 and a half hours before Moscow. As I opened the window blind a little later, we had good views as we passed over the Lama river. Gradually suburban railway stations started to appear as we slowed down closer to Moscow. We passed office workers in their morning commute and old ladies on their way into town. Soon we were on the approach into Leningradsky station.
Moscow
Moscow - Aktobe (Train 18)
Train 18 is a wonderful old train operated by Kyrgyz Railways. It's a world away from the modern experience on the "Tolstoi". While my compartment the previous night had been very comfortable, train 18 felt less clinical and far friendlier. The Soviet-era carraiges had seen plenty of passengers over the years but were still in pretty good shape. They feel very spacious - I had an upper bunk in a 4 berth "kupe" and I could sit up easily with room to spare. Despite the large amounts of cargo being carried by some of the passengers, there was ample room for luggage.
Kyrgyz Railways operate very few trains. The only active railway in Kyrgyzstan is the stub of line from Kazakhstan, ~100km through a mountain valley to Bishkek (and on to Balykchy on lake Issyk-Kul in summer months). The service to/from Moscow several times a week is the only one operated year-round by Kyrgyz Railways. For every uniformed provodnik, there were a couple of casually clothed assistants helping out distributing bed linen, taking down passenger lists, helping in the restaurant, etc.
There was a bit of a mix up as I boarded the train half an hour before departure was due. The service permitted "e-registration" (Russian/CIS self-print) tickets - I presented my print out at what I thought was my carriage 10 (there was no number, but it was the one after carriage 9) but the provodnitsa could not find my name on the passenger list. She told me I must go to the ticket office and sort it out - this was quite worrying given the brief time before departure. I did as I was told and went to the ticket office - they attempted to turn my e-registration into a paper ticket, but because of the limited time before departure, the system wouldn't permit it. I got help from my partner back in London, a Russian speaker and it was determined that my e-registration was sufficient to board the train. The ticket office staff radioed through to the train manager for my train and told him to accept me. I rushed back to the train where the same provodnitsa again refused to honour my ticket. Given the train was ~20 carriages long, finding the "train manager" was going to be difficult! There was now less than 5 minutes until departure - I decided to walk further down the train to see if I could find someone to help. Luckily it turned out the carriage order was mixed up and carriage 10 was further down. The provodnik here admitted me with no problem and I was put into the first berth in the carriage while they performed their dispatch procedures. Why the first provodnitsa did not check the carriage number on my ticket and direct me further down the train, I do not know!
By now, I was hot from my jogs across the station to sort this out. I was pretty relieved to be on the train as it pulled out of the station and into Moscow's suburbs! I'd been mentally preparing for a night in Moscow and a flight to catch up with my train! A Kygryz woman in the kupe spoke very good English and we chatted while an older woman moved things around to find space for the goods she was carrying. Part of the reason I made this trip by train was to gain some experience with my (very rudimentary) Kazakh - Kygryz is mutually intelligible, so I was happy to have a chance to speak some Kazakh/Kygyz for the first time this trip.
Soon I found the provodnik and he moved me across to my correct berth. Unfortunately for me, it was in with a middle aged Russian couple, so my chances to practice Kazakh would be limited. However, the couple were friendly and I learnt they were travelling to Baikonur where the husband worked as a technician supporting the cosmodrome. I climbed up to my berth and feel asleep as we pulled further away from Moscow.
The next day, the train progressed through rolling green countryside on its way to Samara in Southern Russia and on towards Kazakhstan. In my carriage there were a mix of Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Russians - all ages were present from babies to the elderly. There were also some people from outside the region - as I stood by the open window, I got chatting to a retired German man on his way to a hiking holiday in Kyrgyzstan. He was travelling all the way by train on his outward journey and planning to travel back via Helsinki and then a ferry to Luebeck, with a few weeks in Kygyzstan in between. An impressive journey! He introduced me to a Belgian couple in their mid-20s, taking the slow route to China to fly back from Beijing in September.
We went to the restaurant carriage together for lunch. On offer were two Central Asian staples - manty (a large, lamb filled dumpling) and laghman (a very hearty lamb soup with thick noodles). The cost for either was 200 roubles (~£2.50). I had a very tasty laghman as we passed tiny halts where platforms of a few metres length had been erected every ~20/30km - each halt had a km number.
Soon we were in Samara, where we had a 40 minute stop. I'd been to Samara once before, in the summer of 2008, when I first visited Kazakhstan. That year, I hadn't purchased a ticket in advance and was told by the ticket office that all trains heading to Central Asia for the next month were sold out, due to migrant workers travelling home for their summer breaks. Many people were sleeping out at the station, waiting for space on a train to take them home. On that occasion, I had found the correct platform for the Dushanbe train and managed to approach a provodnik before most people had made it onto the platform. The provodnik agreed to give me the bed in his kupe in exchange for the normal price of a ticket, while he shared bunks with the provodnik from the adjacent carriage. After we'd agreed this, a large crowd tried to get onto the train, while provodniks at each door pushed back trying to admit only those with tickets. After a few minutes, once of the provodniks fell back and the crowd rushed on to the train. The corridor was filled with people finding a comfortable position sitting on their luggage. For the rest of the journey, the train staff walked down the train, attempting to extract "fines" from those without tickets.
On this occasion, Samara was far quieter. People did join the train there, but there was no large crowd as before. I'd read that low-cost airlines have reduced patronage on trains between Central Asia and Russia - possibly that is the reason. I walked along the platform to see what was available from the shops. Most Russian railway stations no longer have the variety of food and drink to purchase from individual sellers that they used to - a regulation was made several years ago prohibiting this kind of hawking. On the platform at Samara several kiosks sold sweets and cold drinks, but I couldn't see anywhere selling sausages or bread, the old staples of Russian train travel. I watched as the electric locomotive was detached from the train and a diesel was attached. Samara is the end of unbroken electric traction from Moscow on this route.
We continued again, on towards Orenberg and the border with Kazakhstan. I snoozed until we pulled in to Iletsk where Russian exit formalities would be carried out. It's a good job I got a snooze in, as our border crossing in to Kazakhstan would take up most of the night, preventing a proper nights sleep. In addition, the border crossing meant the official time of the train changed from Moscow time (UTC+3) to Astana time (UTC+6), so we lost 3 hours. We arrived at Iletsk 01:15 Moscow time / 04:15 Astana time. The stop was scheduled for 2 hours - the provodnik for our carriage was very keen to have us up and ready for the border guards. However, apart from a brief customs check, the immigration officers didn't reach our carriage until 2 and half hours later. We left the customs post after 3 hours and trundled across the border to repeat the routine on the Kazakh side.
I'd been prepared for a slow border crossing, but the keenness of the train staff to avoid upsetting the border guards with sleeping passengers meant snatching more than an hour or two of sleep was almost impossible. We left the Kazakh border at Zhaisan at 10:00 Astana time. I had time for a couple of hours rest before we pulled in to Aktobe, my transit point in Kazakhstan.
Aktobe
Aktobe - Astana (Train 88)
My train to Astana was a Talgo operated by KZT (Kazakhstan Temir Zholy). The train consisted almost entirely of 4 berth kupes, with ~20 relatively short articulated carriages. I've had the opportunity to travel on some modern trains around the world, but (possibly in comparison to the Soviet-built train I'd just been on) this train felt like the most modern I'd experienced. Aktobe railway station has a single recognisable platform - other tracks are accessed from ground level or from slightly raised concrete and it was a strange sight seeing such a modern train being boarded. I pulled myself up into the train just before the station staff started blowing their whistles to warn people to stop crossing as a freight train passed on the adjacent track.
Talgo trains were introduced to Kazakhstan in the early 2000s, initially just on the primary Astana-Almaty route. Since 2010, more Talgos were ordered and now its possible to travel between most large cities by Kazakhstan by Talgo. Incredibly, Talgo claim the Kazakhstan order was the largest in the history surpassing the cumulative total of all other orders! Kazakhs complain that Talgos are too cramped internally - a wider version of the Talgo is now being built in Kazakhstan to a wider loading gauge with the first of these carriages now in service between Astana and Almaty.
Their timetabling has made a big difference to journey times within Kazakhstan. On the Aktobe-Astana route, a non-Talgo train takes 28 hours to cross the ~1400km, while the Talgo takes 18 hours (a plane takes 1.5 hours). I'd questioned before whether the higher speeds of the Talgo were safe on track that hasn't been substantially upgraded. However, the average speed on the journey is still only ~80km/h - this is not a high speed train, but it's certainly faster than what came before. The Talgos popular with Kazakhs and my train was full, although the older trains sell out faster due to the lower cost. To give a comparison, on this route a non-Talgo train costs ~5000 tenge (~£11.50), a Talgo train ~15000 tenge (~£34.50), and a plane is ~50000 tenge (~£115).
I walked down to the bistro/restaurant carraige and planned to get some dinner. With a large team of waiting staff on duty, it felt like a fully serviced restaurant. The restauarant part was full, so I found a seat at the bar. As I attempted to find some traditional Kazakh food, I realised the menu was filled with ambitious dishes that I couldn't easily read. When I managed to translate them, I found that Octopus was available, along other continental European dishes. My request for manty was met with a suggestion of steak. The man sitting next to me helped out and we found a Kazakh fried lamb dish.
Most of the men sat at the train bar were businessmen heading to the Expo being held in Astana. The atmosphere was boisterous with a lot of beer and with vodka (held in personal jugs kept behind by bar in the CIS style) being drunk. I was quite a curiosity with people trying to understand why I'd chosen to take the train through Aktobe, rather than flying directly from London. People were friendly and I had a good laugh trying to communicate in Kazakh. A maintenance engineer for the train came to the bar for some tea and we chatted about his experience with the Talgo compared to older Soviet-built carriages. He was proud of the Talgo, but admitted the more compact machinery could be more difficult to fix that what came before.
As I ate my meal, the steppe passed by the window. It's a strange experience to travel by train through such a landscape - the modern train was so quiet and insulated from the outside, while the landscape was so consistent that it almost felt like being on a ship sailing through the sea. Occassionally I'd spot a herd of wild horses and we saw some hills in the distance. I was enjoying the progress of the train. I realised my journey was almost complete - I was almost willing the train to slow down a little so I could enjoy it a bit more!
I went back to my kupe and attempted to climb in to my upper berth. I agree with the sentiment that it's cramped inside - as well as the low ceiling, there are inconviniently placed columns which I managed to hit my head on when I was getting up to the bed. Once inside it was comfortable and long enough for me to stretch out - I slept well.
I headed back to the bistro in the morning. One of the waiting staff I'd spoken with the night before was there and he offered me some tea. He explained that train staff work for 20 day stints, sleeping on the train. His route was Aktobe-Astana, while his home town was Almaty, more than 1000km from either place. He stays with the train for 3 weeks, then heads home for a break. He was a young guy and seemed to enjoy this routine.
By this time, Astana appeared on the horizon. The modern towers of the city are very stark against the backdrop of otherwise un-ending steppe. I don't generally enjoy modern cities in the mould of Dubai, but Astana has some charm. While much of the city has been planned around private transport, the centre of the modern city is very walkable and has green areas separating out the striking architecture which makes Astana very distinct. The bazar in the older part of city is fun to walk around and its a great experience to walk across the river separating the two halves of the city when it freezes in winter.
My train was heading to the new train station in Astana, closer to the new part of the city than the original train station. This new station only opened in June this year and I was interested to see it for the first time. The train pulled silently into the station and as I was met from the train, my journey was over.
Astana
Helsinki
Helsinki - Moscow (Train 31 - "Tolstoi")
I was really surprised by how modern the "Tolstoi" was. The carriages seemed brand new (they were built in Austria in 2012~2014 based on information I've found online). It's the first time I've had key card access to my sleeper berth!
I went for the cheapest option on this train - a 4 berth sleeper - but I had it to myself. I saw some empty berths as I walked down the train and I'd estimate the train was less than a quarter full. Having said that, RZD did put on ~16 coaches for this train, so it would take a large crowd to fill it!
Most of the train was made up of the modern carriages I was in, but at the very front of the train there were 3-4 older carriages, sticking out as they were built to the larger Russian loading gauge (the modern carriages were far shorter). These larger carriages are visible in the foreground of the photo I took from the Helsinki station platform.
The route goes through very pleasant rural Finland - lots of pine forest and clear lakes. I went to the restaurant car for dinner - the RZD staff serving were friendly and the food was pretty good (although the prices matched Finland more than Russia). I paid with euros and was told they do take card, but only once the train has passed into Russia (which happens around midnight). One of the waiters suggest I ate dinner and paid in the morning, but his superior was not so keen on the idea! Cash was fine with me.
The restaurant car gradually filled up with retired Finns keen to sample various beers. There was a pleasant atmosphere with the modern train adapted with curtains at the windows and a TV attached somehow at the end of the carriage.
The restaurant was scheduled to close when the train arrived at the border, but I was already back at my sleeper berth by then. Border formalities were pretty straightforward, although not as quick as the "Allegro" high speed service between Helsinki and St Petersburg which paused briefly at the border while we were stopped. On the "Allegro" border checks take place while train is travelling.
When I woke up in the morning as we stopped at Tver, the only stop between St Petersburg and Moscow, around 2 and a half hours before Moscow. As I opened the window blind a little later, we had good views as we passed over the Lama river. Gradually suburban railway stations started to appear as we slowed down closer to Moscow. We passed office workers in their morning commute and old ladies on their way into town. Soon we were on the approach into Leningradsky station.
Moscow
Moscow - Aktobe (Train 18)
Train 18 is a wonderful old train operated by Kyrgyz Railways. It's a world away from the modern experience on the "Tolstoi". While my compartment the previous night had been very comfortable, train 18 felt less clinical and far friendlier. The Soviet-era carraiges had seen plenty of passengers over the years but were still in pretty good shape. They feel very spacious - I had an upper bunk in a 4 berth "kupe" and I could sit up easily with room to spare. Despite the large amounts of cargo being carried by some of the passengers, there was ample room for luggage.
Kyrgyz Railways operate very few trains. The only active railway in Kyrgyzstan is the stub of line from Kazakhstan, ~100km through a mountain valley to Bishkek (and on to Balykchy on lake Issyk-Kul in summer months). The service to/from Moscow several times a week is the only one operated year-round by Kyrgyz Railways. For every uniformed provodnik, there were a couple of casually clothed assistants helping out distributing bed linen, taking down passenger lists, helping in the restaurant, etc.
There was a bit of a mix up as I boarded the train half an hour before departure was due. The service permitted "e-registration" (Russian/CIS self-print) tickets - I presented my print out at what I thought was my carriage 10 (there was no number, but it was the one after carriage 9) but the provodnitsa could not find my name on the passenger list. She told me I must go to the ticket office and sort it out - this was quite worrying given the brief time before departure. I did as I was told and went to the ticket office - they attempted to turn my e-registration into a paper ticket, but because of the limited time before departure, the system wouldn't permit it. I got help from my partner back in London, a Russian speaker and it was determined that my e-registration was sufficient to board the train. The ticket office staff radioed through to the train manager for my train and told him to accept me. I rushed back to the train where the same provodnitsa again refused to honour my ticket. Given the train was ~20 carriages long, finding the "train manager" was going to be difficult! There was now less than 5 minutes until departure - I decided to walk further down the train to see if I could find someone to help. Luckily it turned out the carriage order was mixed up and carriage 10 was further down. The provodnik here admitted me with no problem and I was put into the first berth in the carriage while they performed their dispatch procedures. Why the first provodnitsa did not check the carriage number on my ticket and direct me further down the train, I do not know!
By now, I was hot from my jogs across the station to sort this out. I was pretty relieved to be on the train as it pulled out of the station and into Moscow's suburbs! I'd been mentally preparing for a night in Moscow and a flight to catch up with my train! A Kygryz woman in the kupe spoke very good English and we chatted while an older woman moved things around to find space for the goods she was carrying. Part of the reason I made this trip by train was to gain some experience with my (very rudimentary) Kazakh - Kygryz is mutually intelligible, so I was happy to have a chance to speak some Kazakh/Kygyz for the first time this trip.
Soon I found the provodnik and he moved me across to my correct berth. Unfortunately for me, it was in with a middle aged Russian couple, so my chances to practice Kazakh would be limited. However, the couple were friendly and I learnt they were travelling to Baikonur where the husband worked as a technician supporting the cosmodrome. I climbed up to my berth and feel asleep as we pulled further away from Moscow.
The next day, the train progressed through rolling green countryside on its way to Samara in Southern Russia and on towards Kazakhstan. In my carriage there were a mix of Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Russians - all ages were present from babies to the elderly. There were also some people from outside the region - as I stood by the open window, I got chatting to a retired German man on his way to a hiking holiday in Kyrgyzstan. He was travelling all the way by train on his outward journey and planning to travel back via Helsinki and then a ferry to Luebeck, with a few weeks in Kygyzstan in between. An impressive journey! He introduced me to a Belgian couple in their mid-20s, taking the slow route to China to fly back from Beijing in September.
We went to the restaurant carriage together for lunch. On offer were two Central Asian staples - manty (a large, lamb filled dumpling) and laghman (a very hearty lamb soup with thick noodles). The cost for either was 200 roubles (~£2.50). I had a very tasty laghman as we passed tiny halts where platforms of a few metres length had been erected every ~20/30km - each halt had a km number.
Soon we were in Samara, where we had a 40 minute stop. I'd been to Samara once before, in the summer of 2008, when I first visited Kazakhstan. That year, I hadn't purchased a ticket in advance and was told by the ticket office that all trains heading to Central Asia for the next month were sold out, due to migrant workers travelling home for their summer breaks. Many people were sleeping out at the station, waiting for space on a train to take them home. On that occasion, I had found the correct platform for the Dushanbe train and managed to approach a provodnik before most people had made it onto the platform. The provodnik agreed to give me the bed in his kupe in exchange for the normal price of a ticket, while he shared bunks with the provodnik from the adjacent carriage. After we'd agreed this, a large crowd tried to get onto the train, while provodniks at each door pushed back trying to admit only those with tickets. After a few minutes, once of the provodniks fell back and the crowd rushed on to the train. The corridor was filled with people finding a comfortable position sitting on their luggage. For the rest of the journey, the train staff walked down the train, attempting to extract "fines" from those without tickets.
On this occasion, Samara was far quieter. People did join the train there, but there was no large crowd as before. I'd read that low-cost airlines have reduced patronage on trains between Central Asia and Russia - possibly that is the reason. I walked along the platform to see what was available from the shops. Most Russian railway stations no longer have the variety of food and drink to purchase from individual sellers that they used to - a regulation was made several years ago prohibiting this kind of hawking. On the platform at Samara several kiosks sold sweets and cold drinks, but I couldn't see anywhere selling sausages or bread, the old staples of Russian train travel. I watched as the electric locomotive was detached from the train and a diesel was attached. Samara is the end of unbroken electric traction from Moscow on this route.
We continued again, on towards Orenberg and the border with Kazakhstan. I snoozed until we pulled in to Iletsk where Russian exit formalities would be carried out. It's a good job I got a snooze in, as our border crossing in to Kazakhstan would take up most of the night, preventing a proper nights sleep. In addition, the border crossing meant the official time of the train changed from Moscow time (UTC+3) to Astana time (UTC+6), so we lost 3 hours. We arrived at Iletsk 01:15 Moscow time / 04:15 Astana time. The stop was scheduled for 2 hours - the provodnik for our carriage was very keen to have us up and ready for the border guards. However, apart from a brief customs check, the immigration officers didn't reach our carriage until 2 and half hours later. We left the customs post after 3 hours and trundled across the border to repeat the routine on the Kazakh side.
I'd been prepared for a slow border crossing, but the keenness of the train staff to avoid upsetting the border guards with sleeping passengers meant snatching more than an hour or two of sleep was almost impossible. We left the Kazakh border at Zhaisan at 10:00 Astana time. I had time for a couple of hours rest before we pulled in to Aktobe, my transit point in Kazakhstan.
Aktobe
Aktobe - Astana (Train 88)
My train to Astana was a Talgo operated by KZT (Kazakhstan Temir Zholy). The train consisted almost entirely of 4 berth kupes, with ~20 relatively short articulated carriages. I've had the opportunity to travel on some modern trains around the world, but (possibly in comparison to the Soviet-built train I'd just been on) this train felt like the most modern I'd experienced. Aktobe railway station has a single recognisable platform - other tracks are accessed from ground level or from slightly raised concrete and it was a strange sight seeing such a modern train being boarded. I pulled myself up into the train just before the station staff started blowing their whistles to warn people to stop crossing as a freight train passed on the adjacent track.
Talgo trains were introduced to Kazakhstan in the early 2000s, initially just on the primary Astana-Almaty route. Since 2010, more Talgos were ordered and now its possible to travel between most large cities by Kazakhstan by Talgo. Incredibly, Talgo claim the Kazakhstan order was the largest in the history surpassing the cumulative total of all other orders! Kazakhs complain that Talgos are too cramped internally - a wider version of the Talgo is now being built in Kazakhstan to a wider loading gauge with the first of these carriages now in service between Astana and Almaty.
Their timetabling has made a big difference to journey times within Kazakhstan. On the Aktobe-Astana route, a non-Talgo train takes 28 hours to cross the ~1400km, while the Talgo takes 18 hours (a plane takes 1.5 hours). I'd questioned before whether the higher speeds of the Talgo were safe on track that hasn't been substantially upgraded. However, the average speed on the journey is still only ~80km/h - this is not a high speed train, but it's certainly faster than what came before. The Talgos popular with Kazakhs and my train was full, although the older trains sell out faster due to the lower cost. To give a comparison, on this route a non-Talgo train costs ~5000 tenge (~£11.50), a Talgo train ~15000 tenge (~£34.50), and a plane is ~50000 tenge (~£115).
I walked down to the bistro/restaurant carraige and planned to get some dinner. With a large team of waiting staff on duty, it felt like a fully serviced restaurant. The restauarant part was full, so I found a seat at the bar. As I attempted to find some traditional Kazakh food, I realised the menu was filled with ambitious dishes that I couldn't easily read. When I managed to translate them, I found that Octopus was available, along other continental European dishes. My request for manty was met with a suggestion of steak. The man sitting next to me helped out and we found a Kazakh fried lamb dish.
Most of the men sat at the train bar were businessmen heading to the Expo being held in Astana. The atmosphere was boisterous with a lot of beer and with vodka (held in personal jugs kept behind by bar in the CIS style) being drunk. I was quite a curiosity with people trying to understand why I'd chosen to take the train through Aktobe, rather than flying directly from London. People were friendly and I had a good laugh trying to communicate in Kazakh. A maintenance engineer for the train came to the bar for some tea and we chatted about his experience with the Talgo compared to older Soviet-built carriages. He was proud of the Talgo, but admitted the more compact machinery could be more difficult to fix that what came before.
As I ate my meal, the steppe passed by the window. It's a strange experience to travel by train through such a landscape - the modern train was so quiet and insulated from the outside, while the landscape was so consistent that it almost felt like being on a ship sailing through the sea. Occassionally I'd spot a herd of wild horses and we saw some hills in the distance. I was enjoying the progress of the train. I realised my journey was almost complete - I was almost willing the train to slow down a little so I could enjoy it a bit more!
I went back to my kupe and attempted to climb in to my upper berth. I agree with the sentiment that it's cramped inside - as well as the low ceiling, there are inconviniently placed columns which I managed to hit my head on when I was getting up to the bed. Once inside it was comfortable and long enough for me to stretch out - I slept well.
I headed back to the bistro in the morning. One of the waiting staff I'd spoken with the night before was there and he offered me some tea. He explained that train staff work for 20 day stints, sleeping on the train. His route was Aktobe-Astana, while his home town was Almaty, more than 1000km from either place. He stays with the train for 3 weeks, then heads home for a break. He was a young guy and seemed to enjoy this routine.
By this time, Astana appeared on the horizon. The modern towers of the city are very stark against the backdrop of otherwise un-ending steppe. I don't generally enjoy modern cities in the mould of Dubai, but Astana has some charm. While much of the city has been planned around private transport, the centre of the modern city is very walkable and has green areas separating out the striking architecture which makes Astana very distinct. The bazar in the older part of city is fun to walk around and its a great experience to walk across the river separating the two halves of the city when it freezes in winter.
My train was heading to the new train station in Astana, closer to the new part of the city than the original train station. This new station only opened in June this year and I was interested to see it for the first time. The train pulled silently into the station and as I was met from the train, my journey was over.
Astana
Last edited:
