Chapter 6 across siberia

We stayed in Harbin for a few days and boarded the Soviet-operated Trans-Siberian train on September 4th. The sleeping berths on the car have four berths each.We, six Chinese students, lived in two rooms, one of which had two bunks, and was slept by someone else. We often changed passengers, all of whom were Soviets.There is a dining car on the car. I heard that the price is extremely expensive, and it only accepts US dollars.Therefore, as soon as we got into the car, we had to rely entirely on the basket brought by Harbin. The train runs on the Songnen Great Plains.The grassland outside the car is hundreds of miles away, stretching as far as the eye can see.At dusk, a round of red sun is about to set, and the sun cannot be said to set here, because there are no mountains at all, only grasslands; at this time, in my eyes, the grasslands suddenly turned into the sea, and the train became a ship.It's just that the sea is calm and there is no sign of turbulence; however, its momentum is still magnificent, no less than the real sea.

The next day, the car arrived in Manzhouli, which is the border between the Soviet Union and "Manchuria".The train stopped, and it was said that it was going to stop for a long time.We all got out of the car and were inspected by the Soviet customs.I never thought that the Soviet officials would inspect it so meticulously, so slowly, and so earnestly.All our luggage, whether big or small, boxes or baskets, are all opened and checked one by one, regardless of size.We are standing by and ready to answer inquiries.A very ordinary and very rough iron kettle, which we were going to use to carry boiling water on the train, was not spared, and was double favored.This thing is clear at a glance, but the Soviet officials seemed to have discovered a miracle. They turned the kettle over and over again, deliberated and discussed, touched and touched, knocked and beat, and also checked to see if there was a "clamp wall" inside the kettle.Even the lid that looked like a thin iron sheet could not escape the law, and it was knocked several times.The only thing missing here was a microscope, and if there was one, no matter what its height, they would never throw it away.I was so angry that I really wanted to explode.A foreign middle-aged friend who was in the same car next to me saw my situation, patted me on the shoulder, and said something in English: Patience is the great virtue ("Patience is the great virtue").I understood his intentions, smiled knowingly, suppressed my anger, and waited for the inspection as usual.Probably at that time, the Soviets regarded foreigners as "suspicious elements" and were suspected of deliberately subverting their regime, so they had to.

After the inspection, my anger disappeared and my heart returned to calm.A few of us walked out of the station and wandered around the city.Manzhouli is just a small border town, not even a small town.There are only a few streets, and it's hard to tell which one is the main street.The houses are basically built with wooden boards, similar to Siberia in the Soviet Union. There are no bricks and tiles, but more wood, which forms such an architectural feature.We went to a wooden house store and bought some cans of sweet pickles, made in Japan, to take with us in the car as a side dish. Back in the car, the world will be settled, and there will be no more interference.Below the car is the Trans-Siberian Railway that spans thousands of miles between Europe and Asia.From then on we will live in this car for seven or eight days. "A man is a celestial being, and he walks a thousand in a day." We will never walk more than a thousand a day now, and we will live in the wind and lightning.

Life in the car is monotonous but colorful.Eating, drinking and sleeping every day is methodical, with simplicity and complexity.The convenience is that you don't need to do anything to eat. There are two big baskets for each person, and you can just reach out and eat when you are hungry.The complication is that drinking boiled water is extremely problematic. There is no boiled water supply in the car, and neither is cold water.Every time we arrived at a larger station, we would take turns holding iron pots, rush to get off the train, go to the hot water supply point on the station, turn on the tap, fill up the iron pots, and then return to the car to share and drink.There was an old European lady with white hair and a long journey. She obviously didn't bring her own iron kettle; even if she did, she couldn't use it.As soon as our kettle was brought into the car, she came over tremblingly, holding a cup in her hand, and said in Chinese: "Boil water! Boil water!" We understood, filled her cup with boiling water, and smiled. And don't.From then on, three meals a day, every meal like this.It seems that her "foreigner", this foreign "bourgeoisie", is not richer than us.She didn't go to the dining car to eat steak and borscht, and she didn't squander dollars.

Speaking of steak, although we didn't eat it, we saw it.One day, when I was having lunch, a Russian waitress suddenly came out of the dining car. She was tall and burly, she was very fat, she was wearing a white coat and a tall white cloth hat, at least one foot high, the top of which almost touched the compartment. the ceiling; but he was wearing high-heeled shoes, his face was full of spring breeze, and he was majestic, and he walked over with ease, like a general, full of majesty.Holding a large plate in his right hand, it is filled with fresh fried steaks. The aroma of meat overflows and penetrates the nose. It is indeed very tempting and makes people salivate.However, when I asked the price, I was shocked; it was three dollars per piece.No one in our car would pay three dollars for a meal.This female "general" carried the plate, walked around, and brought it back.Does she despise us foreign bourgeoisie?Did she think to herself: Are you better than Shakespeare's miser Sherlock?I have no idea.After this burst of fragrant wind, we were indeed hungry, so we quickly took out the basket and gnawed on its "crack".

The problem of our eating is roughly like this.Do you want to know how Russians eat?They are completely different from us, which is conceivable.They will never bring a basket of food from Harbin, China, but use local ingredients.As I mentioned above, in the two compartments of our Chinese students, there are two berths that do not belong to us, but are often changed.One day an officer of the Red Army came in. We didn't understand the epaulettes of Soviet officers, and we didn't know what title he was.But he was quite amiable, and as soon as he entered the carriage, he looked around with blue eyes and nodded with a smile.We also responded with a smile, but "don't understand" with him, we can only speak with gestures.He took out a small book like an ID card from his arms, which contained his photo, and he told us with gestures that if he lost this ID card, he would decapitate himself with his right hand on his neck, that would be To be beheaded.This little book has great powers.Every time he came to a big station, he took it and got out of the car, got a "crack" somewhere, and things like cream, cheese, sausage, etc., went back to the car, and munched.This is roughly what the supply system of the Red Army looked like.

The problem of eating and drinking in the car is solved in this way.When it comes to Lazar, it has become a huge problem.Forty or fifty people live in a train, but there are only two toilets.Often overcrowded.I usually get up very early every day to line up.Sometimes I think it's already early enough, but when I open the door, there is already a long queue of people.Hurry up and join the team, looking forward eagerly.How long would it take you to brush your teeth, wash your face, and defecate alone?If you run into another person suffering from constipation, the situation will be more serious.Those things in my stomach are just about to move, but the team in front of me doesn't seem to be shortened. I can know what it's like when I think about it.

However, life in the car is not all difficult, there are also pleasant sides.The six of us Chinese students are usually crowded in one compartment.Although they were all classmates at Tsinghua University, they didn't have much contact because of their different professions.At this time, they were forced to get together, and almost all of them became close friends.We sat idle and bored, so we went to the world and talked nonsense.We are all twenty-three or four-year-old children who have not yet experienced the world. Before everyone's eyes is an unknown world, full of roses and shining with rainbows.Our eyes are bright and our hearts are transparent. When we talk, we have no scruples and no barriers between the two. There is never a time when we can't talk, and we enjoy ourselves in the small car.Sometimes when we have nothing to talk about, we play chess.Physicist Wang Zhuxi is a master at this.The five of us played against him individually. We lost one set, two sets, three sets and four sets, or even more sets. Anyway, we always lost.Later we teamed up to play against him, and we still lost, lost, lost.The philosophy of the philosopher Qiao Guanhua can't help him either.In the eight or nine days in the car, we didn't win a game.

Talking about the mountains and playing chess felt boring, so I just looked out the window.Thousands of miles away, the scenery outside the car does not change too much.Generally, there are only large forests, which are lush and green, as if they are boundless.The products in the forest are probably very rich.Once, I got off at a station deep in the forest and went to the platform for a walk.I saw a Soviet farmer carrying a basket of large pine nuts for sale. The pine nuts were surprisingly large and very cute.I had never seen one before in my life, and I couldn't resist the temptation, so I took out my fifty cents and bought one.This is the only shopping I did in Siberia, and it will never be forgotten.In addition to the primeval forest, there are also prairie, but it seems that there are not many.What impressed me the most was Lake Baikal.Our train circled more than half of the lake and took nearly half a day.The caves are one after another, and I don't know how many caves I have drilled through.The mountain is densely covered with jungles, green to the top.The railway is built on the shore, and you can look down on the lake from the train and know it well.The water of the lake is emerald green, and the bottom is clearly visible near the shore, and gradually turns dark green or almost black when it reaches the center of the lake, and the bottom is unfathomable.It is really a wonder in the world. To this day, I can see it as soon as I close my eyes.

In this way, we had both difficulties and fun in the car. Eight days passed in a blink of an eye, and we arrived in Moscow on the evening of September 14.