The Train Journey North

I sit here waiting in my hotel room! Waiting for what I know not …….. a phone call perhaps? Everything is in the air, whether I travel North by train to meet the ship or the ship comes South to meet me in Kholmsk. I do not know, so I sit here in my hotel room waiting for a call to duty!

I must admit it is a better room to sit in than the one I had the previous night! In fact I could go as far as to say that it is a whole lot better and bigger and comes resplendent with a large bathroom, a dining area, a comfy chair area and a separate bedroom. Just goes to show what a bit of money can do here - all 5500 Rouble's (110 UK Pounds) of it. One thing though that annoys me, something of my own making it seems as when I departed the last hotel I must have packed a dozen mosquitoes into my suitcase; last night was an exercise in mosquito killing again! I killed three between the hours of 1 am and 4 am, finally falling into an exhausted sleep despite the one or two hungry beasts waiting for my eyelids to droop before zooming in for a drink! The phone rang as I idly inspected the blood spots left behind after my mosquito-killing spree, yes; it is to be the train!

Train used to clear the tracks
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

I boarded the train in Yuzhno, to depart the South at precisely 2045hrs. The carriage that I was booked into was courtesy of SEIC who due to the high percentage of petty thieving going on in the public carriages have their own complete old yet secure coach! Naturally First Class, naturally not the First Class that I am used to but the pillow and the sheets were clean and luckily there were only two persons to occupy the four berth cabin that I plonked myself into!

I slept soon after departure, not much else to do really and woke up at about 3am, having suffered a half-night on what must have been the most uncomfortable bed I have ever slept on (a cross between one half of the moon and a volcano)! Needing the toilet I toddled off to the see the "railway-tracks-flashing-by-beneath-you" basin only to find the door locked. I waited, I waited a little bit more and then a little bit more again but if somebody was inside they weren't going to come out! The security guard came along and in sign language pointed out that the toilet door was locked! I am not at all sure what he said as it was all in Russian but he simply opened up a carriage door, pulled the lever that lowers the steps down and pointed for me to disembark from the train (we were stopped at this moment in time). So there I was standing outside having a piss in the drizzly rain and onto the wheels of some goods train parked near us, a weird feeling to say the least! After having completed my business and zipped up I looked along the length of the train and in the gloom of the night and through the drizzle of rain I could see various other figures all occupying themselves with the task that I had just completed! Erm, what happened to the toilets and what do the fine ladies of Russia do in situations like this? Oh, and lest I forget, what happens in winter when it is cold enough to freeze your pecker off?

The Lunch Box on the Nogliki Train
Photo Copyright Life Sketches

I woke up the next morning at about 8am and with the toilets now unlocked I proceeded to wipe the sleep out of my eyes, comb down my hair and wash the fuzz from my teeth! They provide a lunch box on the train, a large cardboard box filled with all sorts of goodies from fizzy bottled water to a sewing kit! This last item I am still unsure about, is there something that I don't know? For food was an assortment of little salads, two packets of hot-pot-noodles, some slices of bread, cheese and ham, three apples and a yogurt! Unfortunately, for my compartment companion and I, the ham had worked itself into a right state, when I opened up the box the rotting putrid smell sprang out causing me to lose any feelings of hunger I may have had! I must say though that the lunch/dinner/breakfast box was very sufficient and worthy, a welcome respite from the rigors of having to cope with a loud snorer in the opposite bed and one in the next door cabin who was louder than the one in mine! These two noise disturbers managed to snore in unison so that when one was rocking the boat (train) the other was discharging his ill-gotten gains - not that it made an iota of difference to my suffering!

The train journey takes 14hours to get from Yuzhno to Nogliki; hopefully arriving at 1130 a.m. The meal box comes courtesy of the Railway Authorities but as I am writing this I can see the security guard starting his rounds to collect the 60 Rouble's from each passenger for the use of the clean sheets the night before! The scenery outside is very untouched, it is not often that one gets to see such beautiful and constant land that has been left to its own devices. All around is trees, long thin trees some without leaves others green and bushy yet all combine to say "no humans have been here". And then every so often a wooden hut will appear, the door left open until occupied so that any curious bears will not have to destroy the door to look around and the signs of civilization creep up in the form of telegraph poles cleverly disguised as trees ( in some cases I think they still have roots).

A typical view from the train
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

This is a place were not much happens; the only people living this far north are either oil workers, railway and road personnel maintaining the lines of access to the remote regions, a couple of farmers who once escaped here from Moscow and some drunks who either took the wrong turning at Yuzhno or who got drunk because they could not find there way back! This is the wilderness as it should be and the only reason why this train, the roads and the lines of communication are kept open and maintained is because at the top is a large base that supplies and maintains the link to the platforms, rigs and production units offshore - The Nogliki Camp!

Sakhalin is an Island on the move, hampered somewhat by freezing cold and harsh winters but to get the oil from the sea this is but a small obstacle to overcome! One fine day when the wells run dry, when the last drop of oil drips from the ice encrusted and rusty tap the oil companies will move out, the personnel will leave in dribs and drabs and slowly the locals, who have made money, provided support and local knowledge to aid the flow of oil to the mainland and abroad, will see no future in staying behind! They will vacate their wooden huts, leaving the doors open behind them and move back down to Yuzhno and the bigger cities to seek work. The oil camps and bases will rust and rot, the buildings will eventually fall apart and what cannot be taken away will be used by the remaining scavengers, those drunks who still don't know how to get back home. The telegraph poles will fall down and nobody will replace them, the railway tracks will buckle and mis-align themselves but nobody will care as no trains go there anyway and the roads will become pot holed to fit in with the rest of the country! This is the future of any oil boomtown, this is the future of Sakhalin but right here, right now, this is the beginning, and the picture today is rosy and the outlook good! It might be twenty years; it might be fifty years before the oil runs dry so here I am today at the beginning of something being made.

Putting British Rail to shame our train arrived early at 1030am. I thought it might be best to have another visit to the toilet, who knows what the next stage of the journey would hold, only to find it locked again! So that was that, I was in Nogliki, desperate for a piss and one step closer to joining my ship somewhere out at sea!

Ieuan Dolby
Author and Webmaster of SeaDolby.com
Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 29th August 2006