Trans-Siberian Railway

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The Trans-Siberian Railway is the name given to the three rail routes that traverse Siberia from Moscow. These are...

• The Trans-Mongolian goes from Moscow to Beijing,China via Ulaanbaatar,Mongolia.
• The Trans-Manchurian travels through Siberia and Chinese Manchuria to Beijing.
• The Trans-Siberian proper goes from Moscow to the Pacific terminus of Vladivostok.
• See also: BAM - Baikal-Amur Mainline

The Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest railway in the world. It was built between 1891 and 1916 to connect the Russian capital Moscow with the Far-East city of Vladivostok. En route it passes through the cities of Perm, Ekaterinburg, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Chita and Khabarovsk.

	trans-siberian railway Travel Guide : 1 Get in 2 Visa information 3 Tickets 3.1 Station numbers 3.2 Fares 3.3 Timetables 4 Buy 5 Eat 6 Drink 7 Sleep 8 Safety 9 External links

Get in

The three termini of the Trans-Siberian are Moscow, Beijing and Vladivostok.

Moscow can be reached by train from anywhere in Europe. Fares from London (one-way) start at around £200. Eurolines (http://www.eurolines.com/) operate the European coach system, fares from London start from around £60. Aeroflot (http://www.aeroflot.com/) are the principal airline operating into and out of Moscow.

From Vladivostok, ferries run during the summer to Niigata, Japan. Aeroflot and Vladivostok Air (http://www.vladavia.ru/) serve Vladivostok, amongst others.

Beijing is served by numerous international airlines. It can be quite easily be reached overland from anywhere in China or the Far East.

Visa information

Most travellers will need visas for all three countries.

China and Mongolia are fairly straightforward. The best bet is your own embassy or consulate, or in Hong Kong. Visas for British citizens cost £30. However, Mongolian visas can easily be obtained from the Mongolian consulate in Irkutsk (Russia), and Chinese visas in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia).

Russia is more problematic. Invitations are generally required, and they must be registered in the country within 72 hours of arrival. However, Russian transit visas issued in Beijing last 10 days, and require no invitation. This would be enough time to make the trip and spend a couple of days in Moscow.

Tickets

There are four ways of buying tickets for the trip. You can either purchase them from a travel agent in your own country, a travel agent in the country you will start the journey in, turn up and buy tickets yourself or book online at http://trainline.ru/. The first option is the safest but the most expensive, the latter the cheapest but riskiest. Popular trains can be sold out well in advance, particularly in peak season.

Normally it is possible to buy the tickets in any Russian station, not necessarily one on the route of the train. It used to be possible to buy the tickets for Trans-Siberian routes (eg. Moscow-Irkutsk) in Belarus (eg. Brest), and it was even cheaper there than in Moscow. It is not clear if this is still the case.

On some stations there are still special windows for selling tickets only for foreigners, although the price of tickets should now be the same for foreigners and local people.

Tickets are normally personal, with name and passport number written on them, so you may need to have passports for all persons you are buying tickets for with you when you pay (although perhaps the name and passport number is enough). Also, if you plan to buy tickets on more than one occasion, it may be useful to keep handy a piece of paper with the travelers names written in the Cyrillic alphabet instead of transcribing them each time.

Station numbers

Station numbers are used internally in the Russian railway computer system, but they are usually printed on the tickets as well.

Knowing them may help when making the reservation in smaller stations, or if buying the tickets abroad.

• 2058000 Kaliningrad (???????????)
• 2000000 Moskow (??????)
• 2000002 Moskow - Yaroslavskij Station (?????? (??????????? ??????))
• 2000003 Moskow - Kazanskij Station (?????? (????????? ??????))
• 2000006 Moskow - Bieloruskij Station (?????? (??????????? ??????))
• 2054052 Severobaikalsk (???????????????)
• 2054001 Irkutsk (???????)
• 2100035 Brest/Belarus (?????)
• 33605018 Warsaw/Poland - Central Station (Warszawa Centralna)

Fares

Fares are widely variable, but difficult to predict exactly. Rough ideas would be

• Moscow - Vladivostok $250/$500 (2nd/1st class, one-way)
• Moscow - Beijing $200/$320
• Moscow - Irkutsk $60/100
• Irkutsk - Ulaanbaatar $30 (one-class)

Timetables

Russian Railways (http://www.poezda.net/train.htm) has them all, but you will need to use alternate spellings for some destinations. Beijing is called Pekin, Moscow is Moskva, St. Petersburg is Sankt-Peterburg, Ulan Ude is Ulan-ude, Ulaanbaatar is Ulan-Bator, and Khabarovsk is Habarovsk.

http://trainline.ru/ is much more convenient and allows you even to book tickets online. Airmailing the tickets to your home costs only 5$ here

• The Moskow-Irkutsk route takes about 3.5 days

Buy

Eat

On the Moscow-Irkutsk route (and possibly up to Vladivostok) the train stops for 20-30 minutes every 3-4 hours. Everybody can get out of the train, and there are always people on the platform that offer a variety of fresh food (eggs, fish, cheese, bread, fruits, meat or cheese in a cake, ...) and often some drinks for passengers. Prices are low; only Russian Roubles are accepted. Many of the trains have dining-cars, although if you do not speak any Russian, ordering the food will be an experience, to say the least.

Drink

In every train car there is a pot with boiling water available for free.

Sleep

All tickets for long journeys trains are for sleeping places.

Note that there is no shower in the train (in 2nd class at least)

Safety

The journey on the Moskow-Irkutsk route (train Moskow-Vladivostok) seems to be very safe, especially if you travel in group of four (or multiples); then you will get a separate four-bed cabin. Every train car has one or two staff (provodniks/provodnistas) that check tickets, do cleaning, take care of boiling water, etc.

Cabins can be locked from the inside with two locks. One can be opened from outside with a special key, the other cannot be opened from outside, and when locked allows the door to open no more than 5 cm (2 inches).

External links

• The Trans-Siberian Railway: Web Encyclopedia (http://www.transsib.ru/Eng/)
• Everbrite's Trans-Siberian Page (http://members.aol.com/imershein/Page9.html/)
• Russian Railways (http://www.poezda.net/train.htm/)
• route (http://waytorussia.net/TransSiberian/Route.html) and timetable (http://waytorussia.net/Transport/Timetables/TransSiberian.html)
• Transsib Tickets and Visas (http://www.transsib.com/trans-siberian.html)

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