Introductions

NIZHY-NORINGRAD, Russia – The carriage attendant is surprisingly friendly as I prepare to bring my monster load abroad. She helps the 70-pound rolling suitcase make over the gap between the platform and the Rossiya. I'm mortified that I can't lift my suitcase for a couple feet, but there's none of that Russian rudeness in the attendant's return expression. She places her hand underneath the bag, and then I'm aboard. My Trans-Siberian odyssey has begun.

I will be traveling from Moscow to Ulan-Ude, 3,000 miles to the east, aboard the Rossiya, the primer train in the fleet. It should take 94 hours, or just under four days. This is the longest transportation ride of my life, and it started with me banging me bag.

Things don't get much better on the train car. The train hallway is quite narrow, and immediately curves to the right at the entrance to avoid the attendant's cabin. My bag bangs the sides of the hallway in several places, and the compartment is so narrow that my pack get stuck. I'm too big for the train.

My cabin light is on. I turn the corner to see a man seated on the bottom left bunk. He is short, with a shaved head and large almond eyes. I can see the outline of tiny hair bristles, which show that although his hairline is receding, if he let his mane grow out he would not be bald. He might be 25, possibly 30.

I panic. Up until this point, my compartment was completely hypothetical. I didn't know if there would be Russians or Czechs or elephants in the place with me. But now with this short man in a green sweater and brown pants, this cabin is real. I will spend the next four and a half days in this cell, with people deposited here by the luck of the ticket machine.

I smile, I don't say anything. For some reason, I don't want to them to know that I am a foreigner. It is preposterous, I'm sure this man knew two seconds after I rounded the corner that I am American, but suddenly I don't want to be the foreigner. I want to know what to do, to fit in on this train. Instead I'm just a klutz, who doesn't know what to do with his voluminous bags.

My rolling suitcase is far too heavy to lift off the ground, so I place it in the main storage space under the bottom bunk. It takes up most of the space, and that's less than half my belongings. I also need to share this place with the person who will sleep on this bunk, who has not yet arrived. Worse, when I go to close the storage area, it won't close. My bag is too tall.

I hem and haw for a couple minutes, trying to force the bag into an area that doesn't fit. Then another person arrives, a young man with a cleft in his chin. He points to the upper bunk opposite mine, and neatly arranges his couple bags where the bald man is sitting. Then he takes his seat opposite me and watches the continuing bag show.

I throw my pack up above the beds in a small crawl space.

A few minutes later the fourth passenger arrives, a woman several large parcels. She will sleep beneath me, and we need to share luggage space. One look at the nearly full baggage compartment and my over-sized rolling suitcase, and she frowns. This isn't going to work, there is simply too much stuff. But somehow this woman makes it fit, moving each piece of luggage as if it is a Jenga piece, and the wrong movie will send the whole tower crashing to the table. Soon each piece has found a position, and the four of us take a seat on the lower beds.

There is silence for some time. I stare at the two men across from me, and occasionally to the woman on my right. The train starts moving without warning, without a whistle or cheers from relatives on the platform. Our journey may be epic, but it begins with a whimper.

A while later, I point to myself and say my name.

"Jon."

Then I do it again. "Jon." I'm pretty sure I'm imitating some horribly racist documentary where an anthropologist goes into deepest Africa and encounters a lost hill tribe.

Thankfully my companions get the idea and soon I'm struggling to learn three names. Chin man is Vasily, Baldy is Sergei and the woman Olga.

But who are Vasily, Sergei and Olga? I'm not too sure. After a couple hours, mostly spent configuring the cabin and establishing our names, Olga reaches for the light switch. It's after midnight, and Vasily and Sergei also unfold the brown comforters at the end of their bunks.

I'm not tired, so I make my bed and then go into the hallway. There are no seats here, unlike on a Chinese train, and so I lean against a small protrusion and stare out of the window. The scenery is limited and unchanging: short, stubby pine trees and undulating hills off the side of the track. There are thousands of miles to go. I'm not sure how I feel about the people in my cabin, they are strangers still.

This is exactly how I imagined it: an adventure unfolding very, very slowly.