4 November
Got my first train tonight at 10pm. Checked my bag in at the station before that to save some time. Dmitry cooked me a very tasty breakfast of fried potatoes and some kind of schnitzel washed down with the obligatory salted gerkins and tea with delicious honey from his mother I think. Went to see the WWII memorial - 10's of thousands of names were on the wall for this area alone which is very hard to even comprehend. Afterwards went to the Border Guard Museum which was well worth a visit. I was the only person in the museum and was being tailed around by the security guard in every room I went too - but she was very nice and kept pointing out interesting exhibits.
Went back to Nostalgia Cafe for dinner before my train - this time they were showing Москва слезам не верит. Nice movie - have the song stuck in my head now.
On the platform waiting for the train I met Pavel. Big, smilely, drunken Russian who was delighted to meet someone to practice English on. He actually spoke pretty good English although he spoke with a comically steryotypical accent. We did speak some Russian together too but he wasn't a great tutor. I was actually quite relieved when my fellow compartment travellers arrived at Ussuriysk and he had to go back to his own wagon and fall asleep with his 2 lt bottle of beer. I was sharing with three very nice Russian ladies. Elya and Olya were teachers and about 40. The other lady was a lot older (maybe 60). All were very friendly and happy to engage with me in Russian (none of them spoke English) and made me a butterbrot for breakfast. It was a shame to say goodbye to them the next morning when I got into Khabarovsk.
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