How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Annie Dillard

The time shaped as a giant pile of mud oozes away to its sides on the white, porcelain plate. The wheels of the train hitting the tracks sound like a young, inexperienced percussion drummer – occasionally slowing down, occasionally speeding up, basically being a real pain in the ear, yet playing relentlessly in strength, stretching the solo over the course of multiple days.

Imagine Woodstock with one lousy drummer while being confined in 6 square meters.

That’s exactly how I felt on the morning of day 4.

I woke up at brunch time. No idea what exact time that was, but the train compartment was filled with the smell of instant coffee, Moldavian cheese, some kind of a sausage, boiled eggs, and sweet tea.

There was a hint of one more smell I wasn’t able to identify until I realised that I haven’t washed my hair nor showered for the past ~80 hours so I took my reservoir full of wet tissues, asked Tatiana for some shampoo, took a mug I used for hot water, and headed to the toilet room.

What followed was a long and painful process of de-smellization in a small (and slightly smelly) train toilet. Luckily, the train toilet was only slightly smelly and relatively clean. A cleaning lady (with a working name Berta 3) cleaned the toilets and even vacuumed the central “hallway” of the train every day. That of course didn’t change a thing about the wackling train, the small basin, the coldness of the water, and the uncomfortable closeness of the open toilet through which you could see the rails moving under the train, but it made the whole experience much more pleasant than expected.

After approximately 20 minutes of washing my hair, using a barrage of wet tissues, and thinking how long will it take until my wet trousers dry in the cold Siberian air, I decided to not care much the huge spill on my left thigh and went back to my compartment.

I made it just in time to finish the brunch with girls as the train started to slow down and I decided to jump out for few seconds to buy some new rations.

I walked on the platform for a few minutes, stretching out my legs and enjoying the freezing cold air tingling the inside of my throat and lungs. The scenery was completely, utterly, village-y. Imagine a platform with a long train. Small houses around. Not much going on. Only smiling babushkas, Russian elderly grannies (I am using the expression elderly on purpose, as their age could be anywhere between 50 and 150), sitting on small chairs and selling random things. I started to approach them, when a sudden though occurred in my mind.

The shape of the babushkas on the small chairs perfectly resembled the shape of “third train-time” I had in my head for the past few days.

Definitely not a coincidence.

I shooshed the idea away to focus back on the food, smiled, and continued to walk to the little babushka commercial district.

I bought some bread, piroshki, apples, and cinnamon rolls and headed back to the train as I was not sure how much time was there left. By the way, a random fun fact about the train – if you miss its departure, you are basically screwed and need to wait for the next one. I’ve heard an urban legend saying that you can also quickly find a taxi and ride to the next station (the distance between stations can be anything between 60 to 200km) and catch your train. This becomes quite an adventure if all you have on is an old sweater, jeans, and slippers.

Maybe next time. Not in -25 degrees Celsius.

I returned back to my compartment and greeted Berta and Tatiana. Berta started reading a book and Tatiana and I started to talk in a very delicate combination of crude Chinese covered with a dash of English and a pinch of Russian.

Tatiana shared an interesting story. Few years ago, she was originally working in a Moscow bank, living in Moscow apartment with her Moscow husband, leading a typical Moscow life.

Until one day, when they divorced, that is.

What followed was a bunch of long, tremendously long months of recovery and rediscovery. The job in the bank stopped making much sense for her, whatever she did, was boring. She decided to calm down a bit and take up a new job in a library. Taking care of the books, clients registration, something easier that enabled her to focus on basic (yet often not easy) things. Even though she didn’t find joy in almost nothing, she got used to wander through the empty corridors by herself and randomly list through books that bumped into her.

And then, one wonderful day, she stumbled upon a collection of Chinese poetry. She didn’t understand one single character, yet she slowly fell in love with the shapes of the characters, the flow of the lines, the contrast of the dark ink, the almost sexual attractiveness of the unknown.

This was the beginning of the story how Tatiana, at the age of 33, decided to study Chinese. Now she was on her way to Beijing to spend 4 months on a language exchange programme with the goal to pass the HSK4 test.

Oh, and why take the 7-day trip by train which is more expensive than the air ticket? Because she was afraid of flying. Of course, she was fully admitting, that a plane would be faster, cheaper, and more comfortable, so she is open to the idea of flying back, but first, she needs to collect some courage.

I let her words sink for a bit and spent the next few hours watching the trees.