The Arrival

ULAN-UDE, Russia — Daylight comes quickly and painfully. Sergei wakes the rest of the cabin up, and demands that we all look out the window. Outside there is blindingly white nothingness. It is the southern end of Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world. Now completely iced over, the lake reflects the bright winter sunshine, ratcheting up the pain of my hangover headache.

It's monotonous and strangely beautiful, a vast, empty expanse. The other side of the train hugs steep mountains, their slopes covered by wispy mounds of snow blown by the wind and then frozen into shape. The scenery is other-worldly, a huge contrast to the endless stubby pine trees and rolling hills that I've seen unceasingly since Moscow.

I begin to gather my belongings, taking back the iPod from Vasily and stuffing the remaining pieces of bread into a pink plastic bag. I find five socks on the end of my bunk, and a sixth on the floor under Olga's mattress. The large rolling suitcase is removed from the storage place and put into the hall, along with my overstuffed blue pack.

As the Baikal fades into the distance, the carriage attendant comes over with my ticket stub. I thank her, but realize that I don't even know her name. She's been two doors down for five days, but I can't say I've learned a single factoid about her life on the rails. It must be incredibly monotonous, slowly rolling from Moscow to Vladivostok endlessly. I suppose this must be a prestigious position in the railroad company, something that requires slaving away on tirgid local lines for several years before getting the assignment. But this endless travel must get boring.

Suddenly I realize that my journey is almost over, and that I probably won't have the luxury again of taking a week out of my life to travel the rails. I feel a deep sense of regret about the things I didn't do: I never went to the restaurant car, took a makeshift train shower with two cups of tea water, spoke with the young family three cars down or bought mittens from the Tuvans selling them compartment to compartment.

Instead my Trans-Siberian is in the tiny compartment. Olga issuing dietary commands. Vasily bopping his head side to side because of hip-hop. Sergei and his expressionless face, not moving.

If this journey was just a three-hour flight or an overnight hop, we would have parted as strangers. Instead the trip went on much, much longer, and they had the opportunity to slowly reveal their personalities.

For them the Trans-Siberian is a means to an end, the most practical way to get to another place. Times are good, but not too good. They can travel, but it takes a long time. They have enough money to visit family (Vasily), to go on a vacation (Olga) or commute to a new job (Sergei), but not much. They don't have to travel third class, platzkart, with its stained sheets and lack of curtains. But there's not enough money to avoid this taxing trip, which seems to carry little novelty for the three of them. On my first day, Olga asked me why I didn't fly to China. I wanted to see Russia, to have an adventure, I said, and then asked her why she didn't fly. "Money," she said, and Vasily, sitting next to her nodded.

For me there was romance on this train. Flying is soulless and uninteresting. The most I can hope for on a flight is a couple hours of banter with someone about their condo in South Florida. Here I got to know three people, somewhat intimately, and all the while I was headed toward somewhere. I wouldn't have taken a plane if it was free.

The Rossiya lost time during the night, and Ulan-Ude is not in sight at the scheduled arrival time of 10:18. The endless taiga returns, with its uniform hills and occasional painted wooden cabin. An hour and a half later, the city finally comes into view. Ulan Ude occupies a wide, bowl-shaped valley. The train snakes around the bowl's lip, hugging a frozen riverbed and a string of rusted, shuttered factories. The city is in a beautiful location, but the skyline looks the same as all the sad Russian towns we passed the last four days.

The train decelerates and stops. I throw my pack on my shoulders and grab the rolling suitcase, and head down the narrow hallway. As I begin the turn around the carriage attendant's cabin, my suitcase bangs the side, just as when I boarded. But this time Sergei is right behind me, and he takes the back and goes around smoothly.

Outside the three stand beside our car in a ragged line. We hug; I hug Olga twice.

"Dasvedanya!" I shout in a Zhivago moment, then I turn my back to the train, walk toward the station and don't turn around, not even once.

To Catch a Book Thief

ALBANY, N.Y. - It's official. I will be attending Beijing's Tsinghua University this spring for language classes.

In preparation for attending the "MIT of China," I've been spending time acquainting myself with the library's rules of operation.

The library closes six days a week promptly at 9:50 p.m. The library has only seven rules, but the Web site sternly reminders users, that "offenders are subject to criticism, admonition and even punishment."

Policies are further explained in a question-and-answer section of the Web site.My favorite is the response to the question, "What happens to a book thief?":

"Book theft will be reported to the university, and be seriously punished with corresponding disciplines. Taking books out of circulation desks or reading rooms without checking out will be regarded as attempted theft."

Sounds serious. I'll be sure to check out any books I take from the library.

A Russian Master

ALBANY, N.Y. - I'll cop to putting some unusual things on the blog this week. Poems, old articles and weird pictures. That's just the way it's going to be sometimes on here.

This morning I had tea with a Russian woman, Irina. Irina is in her middle 40s and came to our meeting in a full-length formal coat and black slacks. Her wavy hair was recently highlighted.

I wore a mint colored button down shirt with a yellow and blue band near the shoulders that said "RedEx: Redhot Express" across the front. It cost $5 at an export shop in Hong Kong.

We met at Border's Books and Music in the Albany suburb of Colonie. My father was there, and so was Irina's daughter, Tonya. Tonya, 15, is a ranked chess player, future AP student and anime fan. By coming to Albany today, she missed anime festival in New Hampshire. She made an elaborate costume for Halloween this year, a hooded warrior that took more than 20 hours of sewing between Irina and Tonya, and plans to wear it at future anime gatherings. I told her about my recent trip to an anime festival, where I saw a number of people walking the hotel event room floor with eight-foot keys from the game Kingdom Hearts.

"That's a very popular game," Tonya said. Apparently anime tastes in the Northeast aren't terribly different than in the Heartland.

Tonya and Irina live in Montpelier, the tiny capital of Vermont. (Tonya said it only has 8,000 people, Wikipedia says 8,035, which is pretty damn close.) They're originally from Moscow. I'm not sure why they came over here: I was too busy talking about anime to ask.

Irina and I met because I've recently begun planning a trip to Russia. I tentatively thinking about flying to Moscow from New York in early February, and making my way to language school in Beijing by rail. Paul Theroux, the chronicler of train journeys, has convinced me to take this long trip. Irina's never been on the long train, but she had some advice on the Moscow leg of the trip.



"The plane food was O.K.," she said. The best part about Aeroflot - the Russian airline - was the free rubber duck provided in coach.

Moscow has terrible traffic. It always moves, just at a slow pace. Obviously Irina does not travel with the blue light buying sect in the city.

I shouldn't travel places at night, it's not good. What will happene, I'm not sure, but Irina didn't get into I didn't want to ask.

There's a cool chocolate factory near the riverside monument to Peter the Great. Sounds yummy.



And best of all, Irina agreed to hook me up with an American friend living in Moscow to be a companion, guide, friend and possible host while in the city. For the price of a cup of Pomegranate Green Icea Tea, I learned quite a bit.

Hometown Prose

ALBANY, N.Y. - One fallacy that continues to persist is that when I'm home, I'll catch up on my e-mail. Before arriving here in Albany, I imagined myself typing away at the computer, returning unanswered dispatches from March and reconnecting with lost friends. In reality, you're much more likely to receive a note from me originating in Indiana or France than Albany or Boston.

But tonight, with an extra hour due to daylight savings time, I started an e-mail to a friend in Australia, last seen in Zhengzhou. I decided to write to him because in addition to having an unanswered e-mail, I'm also reading a book that takes place in his current town of Alice Springs.

The book is "The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin, and tells the author's quest to find the meaning of indigenous songs, and more deeply, trying to find a connection between nomadic peoples around the world. It's an ambitious, mostly non-fiction account of a lengthy visit to the area in the late 1980s. The text is fascinating, as it runs from encounters with Russian castaways and priests on the lam. The book makes me pine for a visit to Alice Springs, a desert settlement of 28,000 over a thousand miles from a major city.

I hesitated to mention this in the e-mail, as it seems too obvious. Surely my friend has heard of the travel book largely set in his hometown? A book that is taught in universities, has been awarded several prizes and is considered a masterpiece by important literary critics?

Albany has one famous work of fiction: "Ironweed." The William J. Kennedy book chronicles a down-on-his-luck man's return to his hometown during the final years of the Great Depression. I should say it apparently does, because I've never read the book. I heard of it growing up, but its setting in Albany never made me want to pick it up. I remember it now because in my travels, when people (usually educated people) find out I'm from Albany, they'll ask me if I've read "Ironweed."

So maybe The Songlines isn't being read in Alice Springs after all.

The White Elephant in the Newsroom

WICHITA, Kan. – Today marks the end of an era. Dennis Rader, the BTK Strangler, has agreed not to appeal his conviction in 10 killings during the 1970s and 1980s.

Rader is Wichita's most famous citizen – certainly more people have heard of him than Wyatt Erapp or Kristie Alley (who recently bought property here). His string of murders were terrifying. He stalked young women for weeks and then killed them in their homes. His crime spree went unsolved for years, and generations of young women here didn't know if they would be the next victim.

BTK was captured in 2004 after a dramatic reappearance. He turned out to be Rader, a respectable citizen in nearby Park City. He had a Boy Scout troop. He attended church. Many he came back because he had more time with his children finishing high school.

I knew the basic outline of the case before I arrived here. What I didn't realize was the central role the Eagle played in the drama. Many letters and notices were addressed to the Eagle.

Some of the paper's most talented writers haven't been available this summer because they're busy writing a book on BTK. Their deadline is steadily approaching – October 1 for the final manuscript – and it doesn't seem like the right to ask them to sit back and reminisce. The book, after all, will be available next spring.

Slowly though, stories have trickled out. About the time CNN gave several interviews from the desk where I now sit. The psychic who came here to film a British documentary to crack the case.

I interviewed BTK's pastor for an unrelated story about a missing dog (Don't laugh: that story ran on the front page).

BTK was the biggest story ever to come out of WIchita. It is the biggest story most people in the newsroom will ever cover. It's hard to imagine the newsroom when it was so consumed with this one giant story – terrifying and compelling in equal measure. It's not something I've ever seen in a newsroom, and it's not something I'll necessarily ever see, either. The closest I can get is the occasional stories from the people who worked the case.

When a reporter confirmed the news that Rader is not appealing, a strange mood came over the Crime & Safety section of the newsroom where I now sit.

"This is it, isn't it?" I said.

"Yes, I hope so," a reporter said. "He was a terrible, terrible person."

He still is.