[International] A nice trip for Russia's rich

Victor

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/0728/1224301490474.html?via=mr

A nice trip for Russia's rich

EASTERN EXPRESS MOSCOW to NICE: The 52-hour train journey from Moscow to Nice – the last leg in our series – is aimed squarely at today’s wealthy Russians, but also attracts people with too much luggage and men who like to drink in peace, writes RUADHAN Mac CORMAIC

‘YOU’LL SEE, it’s a journey from another world,” the man from the French rail company SNCF had said when I booked my ticket from Moscow to Nice. Now, as the Russian babushka and I eye each other up and anxiously contemplate the next 52 hours in our shared cupboard, I’m growing nostalgic for the old world.

“Natürlich,” says the attendant, rusty German being the only language we can find in common, when I explain why it might make sense for me to take the empty cabin next door. But there would be “a fee”. I say I can’t pay and hold firm, figuring he’s the sort of person who would blink first. He isn’t. Instead, I’m moved into a cabin with Ilya Kholmakov, a 30-something Muscovite with an incipient beard and an Italian football jersey. He seems relieved to have company, greeting me with a long, friendly-sounding monologue in Russian and a gesture towards his jar of Nescafé that says: what’s mine is yours.

The 52-hour Moscow-Nice route, in service since last September, is a throwback to another time; an attempt to lure passengers away from planes by recreating the romance of old-world long-distance train travel. Setting off from Moscow’s Belorussky station every Thursday afternoon, the train – operated by Russian Railways – stops in 22 towns in eight countries over the 3,300km journey to the Côte d’Azur.

Fares range from €306 for a bed in a three-berth second-class cabin to €1,200 for the most luxurious compartments, which include en suite bathrooms, televisions, mahogany doors and room service. The train is aimed squarely at wealthy Russians retracing the steps of their country’s nobility over the centuries.

Nice became an established resort for Russian high society after the Russian imperial family built a holiday home there in 1856, and a rail link ran from Moscow to the Riviera from the late 19th century until the outbreak of the first World War. Nice itself was so popular that the largest Orthodox cathedral outside Russia was built there in 1912.

Of 110 passengers, there are three non-Russians on board when we pull out of Belorussky station and start winding our way through the Moscow suburbs. The other two are Claudia Koehler and Sven Schymik, a German couple who have spent a week of their holiday in the Russian capital and are now on their way to Poland’s Baltic coast. Trains are a major part of their holiday, as Sven is a bona fide rail nut. He takes pleasure in showing me the registration number at the end of the carriage, which tells him that it was was made in the 1990s by Goerlitz, an east-German manufacturer that used to supply train companies all over eastern Europe.

“When you go by train in Germany, they’re really modern, but here they’re much more interesting,” he says. The couple’s enthusiasm is a tonic for the weary traveller. They planned every detail of this trip a year ago, and they seem to be having the time of their lives. “Maybe in two years, we’ll do the Trans-Siberian,” Claudia says. “It’s expensive, but that’s the dream.”

Back in the cabin, Ilya and I are getting along well despite having no common language. He speaks to me constantly in slow Russian. What I glean is that he is on his way to his sister’s wedding in Monaco, but he is afraid of flying so the direct train to Nice has saved him a much longer and more awkward journey. He knows Ireland through its music – Sinéad O’Connor he likes, but Bono is too much of a businessman. And in any case, he prefers A-ha and Depeche Mode himself.

After a while, Ilya signals that he has something to show me. He zips open his man’s suit-bag – hanging on a rail – to reveal a gold sequined dress decorated with elaborate feathers. I admire his dress, wondering what I might not have caught in our last Russian exchange, but he explains that it’s for one of the girls in the family.

Long train journeys don’t make many demands of their passengers, but they do insist on a near-total separation from the world outside. The carriage’s heedless motion presses home the idea of travel as a continuous vision, a single self-contained odyssey. Phones don’t work for long stretches, the time of day loses its relevance and after a while you feel yourself slowing down, taking your time, letting the train impose its pace.

Russians submit themselves easily to this idea. The restaurant car is virtually empty all the time; nearly everyone on the train, Ilya included, sits out the whole journey in their tiny cabins, stoically whiling away the days by staring at the changing landscape with no more than tea and biscuits to keep them going.

Maybe they know all about the Russian dining car, where the evening menu contains such delights as “Hidden Chicken”, “Salad of the Veal Language” and “Cutting from boiled language moves with a horse-radish”.

IN THE MIDDLE of the night the train reaches Poland, where the border guards on both sides wake us up for visa checks. The Poland-Belarus border has become one of the most heavily-policed in Europe since it became the EU’s eastern boundary in 2004.

One of the conditions for Poland’s entry to the union was that it strengthen security on its 736-mile eastern frontier, so the guards who police it were supplied with new Land Rovers, Honda motorbikes, night-vision goggles and thermal cameras.

Belarus, equally keen to seal itself off, also plays its part. On the Belarussian side of the “green zone” – a large wood of beech and pines that runs along the Bug river for hundreds of miles – the border is fortified with watchtowers, trip wires and electric fences. This being Belarus, the electricity doesn’t always work.

When the guards leave and the sun rises, the train gets going again. We pass wooden homes and the farmlands of eastern Poland and, after a brief stop in Warsaw, move south through the Polish interior, past stations whose names – Szeligi, Katowice, Zebrydowice – blend into one another.

Ilya and I settle into an easy routine that looks like this: read a book, have an unfathomable chat, read another book, share some Nescafé, take a nap, repeat the sequence. In general, not much happens. A trip to the dining car is the highlight of any day; on the second evening I treat myself to the “tomato segments stuffed juicy syrno-garlick refuelling.” We barrel on, trundling southwards and over the Czech border in time to catch the sun setting spectacularly behind the most picturesque panoramas I’ve seen since I left Paris a week ago. The Russian dining car has been replaced by a bright, airy Polish one with excellent food and three Ukrainian waiters who are happy for me to while away the hours there.

People on board have all sorts of reasons for choosing the train to Nice. Some, like Ilya, are afraid to fly. Several families have so much luggage that the train works out cheaper. “It’s much easier by train than by plane,” says Svetlana Miniconi, a Belarussian who is travelling with her two-year-old son Alexandre. Her husband is French and they live near Nice. “It’s quite long, but everything you need is here. And the view is lovely,” she says, nodding towards the window.

For others, it’s not a question of time or money. They just prefer travelling this way. “We have some people on the train who work all the time, so two days on the train for them is a restful holiday,” says Dmitry Filippov, a young Ukrainian who works in the dining car.

Many of the passengers have homes on the Riviera, or visit regularly. Dmitry tells of one wealthy Russian businessman who has taken the train six times since October. “He takes his wife and children to the plane and sends them to Spain. Then he gets on the train in Moscow and joins them three or four days later.” He pays €1,200 each time. “For the people who take the VIP cabins, the money is not a problem. €1,000, €2,000 – it doesn’t matter.” Another waiter tells me some Russian men take the train to drink in peace, or to “get away from their wives”.

We cross Austria at night, and by the next morning we’re in Bolzano, in northern Italy. When walking between carriages in Russia, you were hit by a blast of cold, crisp air. Now it’s hot and humid. We see endless vineyards and olive groves. “Romeo, Romeo,” Ilya declares, looking out the window. We’re in Verona.

By late afternoon we reach Genoa and catch the first glimpse of the Mediterranean. The light is coastal and diffuse, and from here the train seems to cling to the sea all the way to France. You can feel the mood on the train growing giddy as we tick off the last few stops and near the final stretch. San Remo. Bordighera. Ventimiglia. Soon we’re brushing past the palm trees of the Côte d’Azur and charging towards our terminus.

It’s just past seven o’clock on a balmy Saturday evening when we finally pull into Nice station. Dmitry and the Ukrainians have changed out of their uniforms and are heading into town for the evening. Ilya bids farewell with a firm handshake, a conspiratorial smile and a few impenetrable words before disappearing into the clutches of his family’s welcoming party on the platform.

It’s only eight days since I left Paris, but the 100 train hours and the countless thousands of kilometres I’ve clocked make it feel more distant. Solid ground – solid, sturdy, unmoving ground – never felt better. I’ve an ex-con’s gratitude for new-found space. What I do that night is walk. And feel like I’ll never stop.

Series concluded