| 301 Travelling small towns- zizagged Zima etc Saturday - tried to visit some Buryat small town.. but the bus station was so confusing. So I decided instead of taking a train to the next city 18 hours I would begin by travelling small town to small town. First took a mashruta (collective taxi) to a small town. When I asked about a cafe I was directed across the street. Inside I found Ronald MacDonald..yes MacDonalds has reached this small town in Siberia. The letters actually say Macfoods, but it was MDs inside There was rain a rather large market. a bus ride to the station. A local train to another small town dead cheap and slow ..arrived more rain but the station was too far from the town ..another local train to Zima another small town but again the station was too far from the town .. took the bus in the wrong direction ..dodged the drunks ..nighttrain to Ilandskaya | 
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The toilet at Zima station as is typical of older toilets in China and USSR the cubicals have no doors. |  Typical countryside from the train. Most of Siberia is forest and you see trains full of pine logs going into China. However of course anywhere near the railway the trees were logged long ago. Most of the land next to the railway seemed to be huge grass paddocks tho I never saw any animals. Sometimes there would be dachas with vegtable gardens and orchards. Actually the common tree was silver birch. From the train track I never saw any thick trees. I guess the big ones had been logged anywhere near the railway, but someone told me it was too cold to ever get really big trees. |
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Sunday - Ilandskaya - Foolishly I thought I would get down from the train have a walk around and then catch another train, but as ever the schedule meant the next train was 5 hours later. As ever the smaller Russian towns looked abandoned by development log cabins and run down apartment blocks a rough market ..not quaint. | Bizarre church service I wondered into an old log cabin church and with it being Sunday a service was going on. It was bizarre and filled with mystical rituals . First the priest was swinging the incense filling the room with smoke . Then he went back into his sacred chamber behind the screen. No seats the congregation of mostly old ladies, a couple of probably reformed alcoholic men stood up crossing themselves every 2 minutes and often touching the floor. The ceremony went on and on with mystical twists the bible and holy objects were blessed and paraded around the room etc. The altar boy came up to me and spoke in Russian, I couldn't understand if he was just asking me to move my bag, inviting me for communion or criticising me for crossing with 2 fingers and not 3 .. so I left. I passed through a rough market staffed by brown skinned, turkic people. Then I took the train to Krasnoyarsk.
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