We scrambled aboard our train only minutes before its departure at 2313 Wednesday night, the fourth. We shared a compartment with three women, one of whom was exceptionally helpful in signing us in for the train ride, in Russian. Before we had only guessed what the sign-in paper’s columns required, trying to decipher what previous passengers had written and answering in kind. Just clueless American tourists.
I was suddenly awakened the next morning when a huge, rough hand grabbed my foot and a gruff voice demanded something in Russian. Still half asleep, I fumbled for my passport. After the border guard quickly inspected our small bags, he moved on, and I was asleep by the time we began moving again. We had made it back into the Russian Federation. Around ten, I got up and took out my camera to photograph the countryside passing outside the car. When I popped off the lends cap, a few glass shards tinkled to the floor. I was horrified. Then I realized it was only the UV protection lens and not my camera’s. The night before I had bumped my camera bag off my bunk and it had fallen to the compartment’s table. I carefully tried to remove the shattered lens and finished cleaning my camera’s lens after we arrived in Omsk around 1100.
Knowing we would need a hotel for two nights, we set our sights north of the station and picked our way over two miles to the other side of the Irtysh River and our guide book’s recommended hotel. At last we found it, part of a Soviet-styled apartment building in the industrial part of the sprawling city. The attendant was graciously patient but it took nearly half an hour for us to determine the hotel was well above our budget, did not have Wi-Fi as promised by our guidebook, and couldn’t register us. Russia wants to know about its visitors and requires them to register if they stay in a hotel or over five days without hotels. Our first visit to the Federation had fulfilled neither of these stipulations but our second, 11-day visit would. The hotel attendant went out of her way for the clueless American tourists. She referred us to a less expensive hotel that could register us and even called us a cab. Until our taxi arrived, we tried to explain a Russian television game show that takes place in the back of a taxi. Much to my disappointment, our short taxi ride failed to deliver trivia questions or raining roubles.
Satisfied with the new hotel, we gave the attendant our passports for the registration process and relaxed before bed. Friday morning I discovered the hotel’s single shower had no hot water. You know you’re desperate to be clean when you endure a freezing cold shower. Knowing my limits, I used the hot pot in our room to wash my hair. After some confusion involving Dan waking when I was reading outside, the two of us ended up exploring the city separately. Dan, consulting the map, walked the historic district with its Lenin monument and brass statues of a Soviet workman emerging from a manhole and the wife of a 19th-century governor reading Pushkin. Appropriately enough, they lined the ul Lenina, or Lenin’s street.
I explored a Russian market and the river with its own Lenin monument and memorial to “victims of Stalinist repression.” I had taken a few photos in the market when a man approached me, said something in Russian, and made a gesture that looked very similar to getting handcuffed. I put my camera away. Near the Lenin monument, I made some new friends with a dozen teenage skateboarders. They enjoyed showing off their skateboard acrobatics for my camera, discussing their favorite bands and rappers, and imitating my American accent. I returned to the hotel then spent another hour exploring the historic district. A delicious soup and a little Russian vodka, and we spent another laid back evening designing a logo for the trip. Dan and I, by our powers combined, produced a very satisfactory design for the Roving the World phenomenon. We may print t-shirts and posters.
