How To Travel Clandestinely In Forbidden Territory (Train Ride 3)

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I made my longest train ride ever as a student when I went to a language course in Moscow. That was in 1966 when the Soviet Union still existed and tourists couldn't travel on their own. Everything was organised by the state-run tourist organisation Intourist. Our professor had told us, no, ordered us, to go by train to get a feeling for the vastness of the country. I’ll be forever grateful for this advice. All in all, the ride lasted 36 hours (nothing compared to what a friend of ours did: Naples - Beijing, 11 days!). We had a big compartment in which we could sit, play cards, read, eat and drink endless cups of tea which the attendant of the carriage prepared with a samovar. For the night a folding wall was drawn in the middle so as to divide the women’s from the men’s section. During the course a fellow-student and I decided to visit the village Peredelkino about 20 km away from the centre of Moscow. We wanted to see the dacha (cottage) where Boris Pasternak (1890 - 1960) had lived and the cemetery with his grave. He wrote the novel ‘Dr. Shivago’ for which he got the Nobel Prize for Literature (made into a successful film with Omar Sharif and Julie Christie). Peredelkino was strictly off limits for foreigners in those days. Why? Search me. I have no idea. I decided to be a deaf mute for a while. The young man did the talking and bought the tickets. He had grown up in Poland and could speak Russian much better than I, at least as well as the hundreds of non-Russian peoples in the Soviet Union. We were poor and badly dressed then and disappeared inconspicuously in the crowd. All went well and we had a great day out. I WAS a deaf mute and inconspicuous when travelling in Denmark, but in a completely different situation. I travelled with a Danish friend, small and dark-haired, who’s taken for a local when in Italy, whereas I can pass for a Danish woman in Denmark. So the conductors and fellow travellers used to address me instead of her which I didn’t even notice because I don’t understand Danish. Very amusing! --- The photo shows Pasternak's dacha in Peredelkino. Photo: dpa --- Click on the green bar at the top of the site if you want to read about my other remarkable train rides.