railway bureaucrats to thank for the women. In 1995, I set out from London to travel to Moscow by train on the aptly named
Ost–West Express.
I was hoping to travel through to Moscow on the Russian car but, for a reason I could never fathom, it was impossible to reserve the eastern leg of the journey in advance. When I reached Warsaw, I found the train was full. Instead, there was space on a later train, the
Polonez,
a Polish service that followed the same route.
The train was almost empty when it pulled out of Warsaw central station. Alone in the carriage, I stretched out on one of the benches, worked out how to flip it over into a bed, pulled down the window to watch the city slide behind us, and saw the River Vistula sparkle in the afternoon sun. A few minutes later, we reached the east side of town. The platform of Wschodnia Station was heaving and even before the train stopped, a large bag was pushed up to my window. When I stood up, I saw two young women shouting at me in Russian and gesticulating that I should take it. Five more packages followed. Another four were dragged in by hand.
The women filled the luggage racks with their bags and then covered the floor. They even managed to raise the level of what had been, until then, my bed. My bed? Nothing was mine now.
As we pulled out of Wschodnia Station, the women introduced themselves. This one was Katya, short, dark-haired, plump, with a melon face. The other was Svetla, who was pretty, fair-haired and big-hipped. She was obviously proud of her flatter stomach, for she wore a T-shirt that was both too short and too tight. She was also halfway to filling her mouth with gold. They were both in their mid-twenties, lively and in good humour. We shook hands and there was a moment of laughter at this gesture. Withthe formalities over, they took off their coats and checked that their bags were properly stowed – this was a business trip, after all. Then they set up a table on one of their bags, spread out some paper on it, and unpacked a bag of food. They ripped apart a roast chicken, while we ran the gauntlet of international conversation: Charles’n’Di (still!), Gorbachev and Putin, Chechnya, children, the goods they were travelling with (‘clothes’, they insisted, which they would sell back home). That, and the weather back home in Irkutsk.
From Poland we were heading towards Belarus. The Belarus Embassy in London had assured me that I could cross their country if I had a Russian visa, which I did. But I had been woken in the night on entering Poland, had had a torch shone in my face, and had been questioned about the Middle East stamps in my passport, my name, and my origins. So as we approached the border between Poland and Belarus, I became quiet. But while I was a little tense, Katya and Svetla were unmistakably nervous.
The frontier between Poland and Belarus follows the River Bug. I traced its movement across my map: it was one of the fault lines between East and West, a crossing place, as slender and sensitive as an exposed nerve. We came up to it across open countryside and slowed as we approached the border: two rows of fences and rolled wire. I assumed the space between them was mined.
Guards in towers watched over the stillness as we clanked onto an iron bridge over the river. The train was moving slowly enough for someone to have jumped off without getting hurt, and for guards to have shot them before they hit the ground. Across in Belarus, beyond the electric fences, a phalanx of officials in great coats and high, peaked caps waited for us. Katya looked at them and crossed herself.
Unlike the Polish police, the Belarus immigration official spoke excellent English. He asked for our passports and returned them duly stamped. Then a customs officer came on board tocheck the luggage. I held up my British passport and he smiled, so when we started moving again I assumed, in my innocence, that we were in the clear and that whatever followed would be a
Ost–West Express.
I was hoping to travel through to Moscow on the Russian car but, for a reason I could never fathom, it was impossible to reserve the eastern leg of the journey in advance. When I reached Warsaw, I found the train was full. Instead, there was space on a later train, the
Polonez,
a Polish service that followed the same route.
The train was almost empty when it pulled out of Warsaw central station. Alone in the carriage, I stretched out on one of the benches, worked out how to flip it over into a bed, pulled down the window to watch the city slide behind us, and saw the River Vistula sparkle in the afternoon sun. A few minutes later, we reached the east side of town. The platform of Wschodnia Station was heaving and even before the train stopped, a large bag was pushed up to my window. When I stood up, I saw two young women shouting at me in Russian and gesticulating that I should take it. Five more packages followed. Another four were dragged in by hand.
The women filled the luggage racks with their bags and then covered the floor. They even managed to raise the level of what had been, until then, my bed. My bed? Nothing was mine now.
As we pulled out of Wschodnia Station, the women introduced themselves. This one was Katya, short, dark-haired, plump, with a melon face. The other was Svetla, who was pretty, fair-haired and big-hipped. She was obviously proud of her flatter stomach, for she wore a T-shirt that was both too short and too tight. She was also halfway to filling her mouth with gold. They were both in their mid-twenties, lively and in good humour. We shook hands and there was a moment of laughter at this gesture. Withthe formalities over, they took off their coats and checked that their bags were properly stowed – this was a business trip, after all. Then they set up a table on one of their bags, spread out some paper on it, and unpacked a bag of food. They ripped apart a roast chicken, while we ran the gauntlet of international conversation: Charles’n’Di (still!), Gorbachev and Putin, Chechnya, children, the goods they were travelling with (‘clothes’, they insisted, which they would sell back home). That, and the weather back home in Irkutsk.
From Poland we were heading towards Belarus. The Belarus Embassy in London had assured me that I could cross their country if I had a Russian visa, which I did. But I had been woken in the night on entering Poland, had had a torch shone in my face, and had been questioned about the Middle East stamps in my passport, my name, and my origins. So as we approached the border between Poland and Belarus, I became quiet. But while I was a little tense, Katya and Svetla were unmistakably nervous.
The frontier between Poland and Belarus follows the River Bug. I traced its movement across my map: it was one of the fault lines between East and West, a crossing place, as slender and sensitive as an exposed nerve. We came up to it across open countryside and slowed as we approached the border: two rows of fences and rolled wire. I assumed the space between them was mined.
Guards in towers watched over the stillness as we clanked onto an iron bridge over the river. The train was moving slowly enough for someone to have jumped off without getting hurt, and for guards to have shot them before they hit the ground. Across in Belarus, beyond the electric fences, a phalanx of officials in great coats and high, peaked caps waited for us. Katya looked at them and crossed herself.
Unlike the Polish police, the Belarus immigration official spoke excellent English. He asked for our passports and returned them duly stamped. Then a customs officer came on board tocheck the luggage. I held up my British passport and he smiled, so when we started moving again I assumed, in my innocence, that we were in the clear and that whatever followed would be a
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