Spoil in Siberia's stark splendour

The wreckage of the Soviet Union lies scattered across Siberia. The view from the windows of the train linking the Mongolian capital of Ulaan Bataar and the Siberian capital Irkutsk is of a vast, beautiful landscape littered with the remnants of a failed experiment.

Huge derelict factories flank the tracks, roofs collapsing, walls covered in graffiti, the contents stripped by the hungry unemployed and the greedy criminals who are everywhere in modern Russia.

Some factories appear to have been abandoned before they were finished, their huge concrete frameworks standing cold and forlorn, the bare bones of projects that died a premature death.

Even such factories that are operating look a mess to Western eyes, chimneys pouring forth evil-looking smoke, roofs rusting, walls sagging, yards filled with rubbish and fences covered in graffiti.

In places we spy huge deserted camps - probably former military installations, although we prefer to think they might have been gulags - with wire fences leaning at drunken angles and long wooden barracks sagging under the relentless barrage of the Siberian winter.

Near one of these ghost camps is a huge cemetery, the graves stretching for kilometres alongside the track and even into a picturesque beech forest, leading us to speculate that this might be the last resting place of some of Russia's banished millions.

After three days travelling 1139km across the steppes in train 263 - stage two of our rail expedition across Europe and Asia - I can't help thinking that it has provided a window to a land which has lost its way and has yet to find the map to a brighter future.

First impressions are a little tarnished by the fact that it takes 11 hours for us to travel the 21km between the Mongolian border town of Sukhbataar and its Russian equivalent, Naushki, with much form-filling - "It's our national pastime," says Alexei, our Siberian guide, when we meet him later - and a great deal of pointless hanging around.

Second impressions aren't much better. Most of the hanging around is at Naushki where our tour leader tells us we absolutely must take a look at the station's "toilets from hell".

How could we resist? I have seen grottier toilets - though not much grottier - but they certainly fit into a general picture of decay.

Outside the station is a plinth which presumably once carried a statue of Lenin or Stalin, since hauled away in disgrace, but today carries only graffiti and empty bottles, probably left by the uniformed soldiers hanging round the forecourt, smoking and swigging from bottles.

In an adjacent park the authorities have erected two non-political statues, one of a naked woman pointing the way forward, the other of two deer. But both have been extensively vandalised and covered in graffiti. In one corner a group of drunken youths swig from bottles and yell incoherently at passersby.

But it's not all bad. The station is being rebuilt and in one section of the platform there is some natty new paving and brickwork.

At the far end of the platform is a small shop - difficult to identify if you have Western views of what a shop looks like, because there are no signs and no display windows - which sells a tasty array of food, including very good icecreams for only R10). A group of passengers who are confident enough about the scheduled departure time to wander into town return laden with beer that cost just R12 a can.

This proves a triumph for market forces because as our journey progresses the provodnitsa who run our carriage increase the price of the beer they sell from R20 to R40 a can.

There's nothing like a beer that cost only R12 or a nip from an R80 bottle of vodka - and outwitting a couple of profiteers - to make the world seem a happier place.

And, of course, Siberia is not all abandoned factories. Much of the landscape is extremely beautiful, with thick stands of silver birch, trunks shining in the sun, huge open fields lush with grass, and great clouds of purple and gold flowers.

To New Zealand eyes it's a puzzle that this rich countryside isn't farmed more intensively but I guess we have to remember that for long periods it is under snow.

Over the trees we frequently see the golden onion-shaped domes of picturesque Russian Orthodox churches.

Once we even spy a military base with lines of parked tanks, most of them under camouflage covers, and at the adjacent station there are tanks sitting on the back of wagons.

This line is a trainspotter's delight with beautifully polished old steam trains - in better condition, you'd have to say, than some of the working trains - standing at almost every station.

From time to time we pass areas where the fields have been ploughed and planted in vegetables or where the grass is being grazed by cattle, so the land obviously is fertile.

The villages fall into two sharply contrasting types. Most are rundown, with rusting roofs, sagging sheds and rubbish everywhere. But some are picturebook perfect, neat little cottages with the painted shutters so typical of Siberia set in a manicured landscape.

Why the contrast? Why are some villages so immaculate and others so run down? Why is some farmland productive but most lying fallow? Why, for that matter, so many factories lying idle but a few thriving?

Winston Churchill once described the Soviet Union as "a puzzle inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma".

It's somehow satisfying to find that just because communism has collapsed doesn't mean Russia suddenly fits neatly into our Western ideas.

* Jim Eagles trip was assisted by Singapore Airlines and Travel Directors.


Siberia by air
Singapore Airlines flies 16 times a week from New Zealand direct to Singapore. From Singapore, passengers can choose from 21 weekly flights to Beijing, then travel to Ulaan Bataar with Air China. For the latest fares and for further information see website link below.

By Train
Perth-based Travel Directors runs regular tours from Beijing to Helsinki by train, entitled Beyond the Trans-Siberian, all including time in China, Mongolia and Russia. Tours are almost fully inclusive and cost A$10,847 (just over $13,000).

Further Information
Email info@traveldirectors.com.au or click on link below. Alternatively contact Travel Directors' New Zealand representatives Go Holidays on the website link below or phone 0800 464646.