Finally, we are in Archangelsk. Twenty-two hours on the train. No TV, no lounge car, nothing but some good reading material and a loaded mp3 player.
The world may run out of oil but I can't imagine Russia running out of trees. For literally hundreds of miles you see nothing but forests on both sides of the tracks. I'm talking dense forests. No roads, no barbed-wire fences, no nothing...just trees.
Along the way you might see some small villages but nothing I would really call a town. The train comes through these small hamlets with maybe 10-15 houses. Very few cars, lots of bicycles, no satellite TV receivers, not even anything that looks like a school. It does seem they have electricity close to the tracks but a few blocks away, I can't tell.
The police presence at each stopping point seems to be some type of army personnel. I think it might be hard to keep a policemen in these areas unless you were forced to be stationed here.
A lot of the area is beautiful, especially around the small lakes. Except for cutting wood, I don't know what type of occupations these people would have.
We eat a lot of junk food, drink a lot of tea (they have free hot water!) and keep figuring up how many more hours we have left. You can walk in the hallway outside our cabin but two people can't walk side-by-side.
F-i-n-a-l-l-y, our car attendant comes and tells us our stop is next. Whether our friend Nicolay is waiting or not...I'm getting off this train!
Of course, Nikolay is waiting and we jump in his car for a short ride to his apartment. As we ride into town, I'm hit with the realization that I'm a long, long way from Athens, Texas. I've been overseas for more than a year now and have traveled to Latvia each summer for the last six years but Archangelsk, Russia is so much different from what I'm used to.
Archangelsk is very near the Arctic Circle. I know the winters can be brutal and it shows in most of the infrastructure. The roads are really poor, with lots of pot holes. Most of the people live in 1950 and 60's built large apartment complexes. It is quite literally like stepping back into the 1960's in a lot of ways. There are very, very few private homes and they have a different philosophy about keeping communal or city property mowed. Basically, it doesn't get done.
While the conditions of Archangelsk are tough, the people were great to us. We were treated exceptionally well by Pastor Nikolay, wife Tija and their family. We stayed in his daughter Roxanna's (actually Oxanna?) and her husband Vladamir's apartment. She was a great host and excellent cook! She lives on the eighth floor and if everyone holds their breath, three people can get into the elevator at the same time. We could not have been treated any nicer than by these two young people.
We had no problems when we went out walking around and exploring but I'm sure we stuck out like two Texans in Russia.
Here are a few pictures of some of the people mentioned above:
Nicolay, Steve, Roxanna, Vladamir
Wednesday breakfast....good sausages and hot mustard.
A good example of most of the housing in Archangelsk.
Small playground for the children in the complex.
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