FROM SHANGHAI TO LONDON BY TRAIN: Russia: On the train

We got a cab to the station as Fabio was understandably concerned we’d get set-upon. We were in separate carriages: 1 and 17, so we said goodnight and boarded. My bed was in a four-bed compartment with one other young lady who didn’t speak any English at all. Russians are unsmiling and serious upon first meeting and she was no exception. Since it was late I just wanted to sleep but these scary skin headed young tattooed guys kept coming in to chat to her while drinking beer, slamming doors and allowing their mobile phones to ring. At 3am I eventually worked up the courage to point at the main light just above me (I was in a top bunk) and asked that she use her reading light instead. I didn’t understand her response and when I turned the main light off she blew-up and turned it back on again. What a bitch. There was simply no reason to keep this light on other than to stop me from sleeping. As she was sat on the bottom bunk, speaking to a person opposite her, it made no sense to have the main light on for her. Truly scared that some soldier might stab me or similar, I stayed quiet until 4.30am when she decided she didn’t need the main light but continued animated chatter with these rough guys until around 6am where she slept for three hours. I know this because I laid awake counting the passing hours, occasionally muttering “what a bitch”.
That day was spent entirely on the train and things got better and better as the day progressed. In the morning I walked to Fabio’s carriage which took about fifteen minutes and involved fighting through the sweaty smelly third class, jumping between carriages and ducking under the hard stares of the female carriage conductors for whom we have to be entirely submissive too. Later that morning, two big Russian men settled in my compartment which I was pleased about as they would prevent the super-bitch from doing another light-on/chatting all-nighter. In the afternoon I met Fabio for lunch in the restaurant carriage and decided to opt for the ‘can’t beat them join them’ mentality and got chatting with the soldiers. Well, I say chatting but it was just guessing mixed with animated gestures. They were interested in me but only in a novelty kind of way, like I was a freak show. One guy kept pestering me to see my mp3 player and I let him handle it. Then I think he said words to the effect of ‘I’ll borrow this until you get off the train ok?’ and off he went.
The two big Russian men, stubbly and gruff, about fifty years old, were strange in their response to me: every time they’d see me, one of them would explode into real fits of hearty laughter and the other would chuckle in that kind of ‘I’m only laughing because you are’ way. Perhaps he was a tad retarded. Mid-evening they got off and two beautiful thirty-something women took their place. One of them was keen to talk and although she only knew a tiny amount of English (and French), we communicated pretty well. I discovered they were both single mothers who worked in the same business together and were going home to Novosibirsk, my destination. We had a good laugh together and I felt wonderfully reassured when I told them about super-bitch woman and the more talkative one responded with “I’m big boss” with super-woman style gestures. I could feel the passing soldier’s eyes on me and could guess their conversation:
“how does a weird foreigner like that get to talk to women like that?”. Indeed, super-bitch woman made a brief appearance and seemed a little intimidated as she took some of her stuff and retreated, probably to a soldier’s compartment. These pretty ladies, Ann and Katarina, completely changed the mood of the journey for me and Ann in particular was so helpful. She even found the soldier with my mp3 player and demanded he gave it back to me now as I hadn’t known he wanted to borrow it.