The train Kaliningrad – St. Petersburg was old, probably made during the Soviet times. I was the only person in my compartment, but not for long. At the first stop, a man and a woman took the bunks on the opposite side from me. They were members of the train crew who traveled to St. Petersburg on business. Both made their beds and went to sleep right away although the time was around noon.
The border control took a lot of time. First, the train stood on the Russian side of the border where the guards checked and stamped our passports. Then, we waited for Lithuanian border guards to do the same.
In Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, the train stop was 20 minutes. I wanted to browse stalls on the platform as it was in my youth when I took long-distance trains because I could not afford to fly. It’s not that I needed something. It was more curiosity to have a look at what kind of stuff they sold there. The platforms were bare in all directions as far as the eye could see. To my surprise, the same happened at all stops. There were no sellers of home-made pies or fruit as it used to be when the locals rushed to meet an arriving train in attempt to make some profit. Perhaps, the reason was strict security at railway stations nowadays and only the ticketed passengers were allowed to pass through it. I also heard that plainclothes police were on the train.
I had all meals at the train restaurant. The food was excellent and cheap. I was the only customer there. The waitress said that people preferred to bring their own food on the train just as I did many years ago.
I spent time reading a paperback. There was nothing interesting to watch as the train ran through villages, meadows, and forests. The land in Western Europe was all cultivated with small patches of natural vegetation. Here, in Eastern Europe, it was just the opposite. Long stretches of woody areas were occasionally broken by fields of crops.
The fellow travelers in my compartment slept as if they had been sleep deprived for days. Sometimes the woman got up and had a quick cigarette on the platform. The man wandered around a little. Then both got back to deep sleep. They slept through the night too and barely noticed my presence.
I got up at 6 a.m. on the following morning, hungry like a dog. I ate up all my snacks bought in Kaliningrad and could hardly wait until the restaurant opened at 8 a.m. The waitress apologized that they were not ready to serve breakfast yet and asked me to come in 30 minutes. She had rollers in her hair and was wearing a robe. This made me feel awful as if I intruded into her personal life. I returned later for a hearty breakfast and left a good tip for the waitress.
Twenty five hours on this train did not feel tiresome. My cousin met me on arrival and we went to the nearest metro station. At its entrance, we had to go through security; our bags were screened. My cousin told me that station closures became a routine practice after the terrorist attack in April 2017 at two underground stations in St. Petersburg. If an unidentified object was found, the entire station got closed and metro trains did not stop at it. Passengers had to get off elsewhere. Besides that, security was stepped up for the upcoming 2018 FIFA World Cup.
My cousin lived not far from the city center in an apartment located behind the Mariinsky Theater. This may sound wonderful except for one thing – her apartment was communal, i.e. it was shared by three families. My relatives owned 2 out of 4 rooms, one room was rented by a young woman, and another room belonged to an old hag who always showed up in the communal kitchen with tightly pursed lips and a sour expression on her face. My relatives outnumbered the old hag so she tried to be nice. At times, there were up to seven of them living in these two rooms. When I came only my cousin and her son were in town. They moved into one room and let me occupy the other. That’s the reality of life in St. Petersburg. People continue to live in communal apartments with no chances to improve their conditions. I read on the Internet about the tours for foreigners to view some of the most dreadful apartments.
I had a lot of plans for my one-week stay in St. Petersburg. It had been 4 years since I was in my native city last time. When I come I always watch for changes. Sometimes they are not for better, but this time I noticed a lot of good things. The city was cleaner, annoying advertising was gone, kiosks that crowded streets and squares disappeared too, people smiled more often, small cozy cafes opened everywhere, the service became much better.
