Skopje / Moscow (August 2009). They are like fossils of transport history. Sleeping car of the Russian railways to this day driving in many European capitals - sometimes thousands of miles and all the low cost notwithstanding. In summer, real railway fans once a week traveling with the most senseless sleeper connection of the continent: A green car from GDR production combines six European countries, rolls from Moscow to the Greek Thessaloniki and back, the way time is according to schedule almost 64 hours.
The coaches Moscow - Thessaloniki moves in the summer once a week
Day 1, 22:00 clock, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia:
About a hundred people jump up, grab frantically for their suitcases, and heave heavy travel bags over their shoulders as they get closer to see the lights of the locomotive in the dark. But again it is just a freight train through the dimly lit hall of the station rattles and soon disappears behind a curve. For the third time only a false alarm. The night train from Thessaloniki to Belgrade is overdue for one and a half hours, but so far there was not even an official announcement.
Who swears in Germany is already on the delay of his zehnmütige ICE should never travel in a better life with the Macedonian Railways. Yugoslavia was never a real railway land, the practical usefulness of schedules in the Balkans have always been extremely limited.
Whether in the sleeping car to Moscow still places were, knew the friendly young woman is not rail at the ticket counter. In the independent Macedonia does not even own the station in the capital of a computer. After all, the woman spoke passable English switch, turned by hand the tickets out to the Russian capital, banged thick-service stamp out what the strange look the same ticket was important.
Finally, with about two hours late, the train arrives from Greece after all. Cluttered cars, Travelers crowd with their luggage in the run-down old car deck. Only the dark car at the end of the train is no one. "Moscow - Thessaloniki" as the Russian and Greek letters on the train destination signs. No light in the corridor. Only after persistent knocking back a gray-haired man opens the door naked to the waist, which dangles a small silver cross on his chest - apparently the sleeping car.
A train journey to Moscow will cost just 7146 Skopje Macedonian dinars, the striking car space is not included
The train journey to Moscow starts relatively bizarre, because I can not enter. Instead of joy is a passenger on it only problems. "How much you want to pay?" asks the conductor rather crossly. "Is this such a bazaar?" I reply, honestly puzzled. But this is obviously the wrong answer. Where I come from, whether the passport was in order, if I really had all the necessary visas for all countries. And anyway, the man growled, finally, give no sleeper tickets from the station office is not a compartment. Then he folds the door easy to restore.
two cars earlier sold the Macedonian couchette conductor still sleeps for 8 €, only to Belgrade, but better than nothing. Most departments are already occupied with Interrail tourists on the way home from vacation in Greece. The sober Interrailer diskutieren bis tief in die Nacht, ob die Serben allein Schuld sind an den Tragödien des Balkans, die besoffenen grölen durch die offenen Fenster Lieder in die kühle Nacht hinaus.
Tag 2, 9:30 Uhr, Belgrad, Serbien
Wegen der katastrophalen Unpünktlichkeit warnen alle einschlägigen Reiseführer vor der Bahnverbindung zwischen Belgrad und Griechenland. Die letzten einhundert Kilometer bis in die serbische Hauptstadt war der Nachtzug mit einer Durchschnittsgeschwindigkeit von geschätzt 30 Kilometern pro Stunde über die marode, eingleisige Strecke gerattert. Sein Ziel erreicht der Expresszug mit soliden viereinhalb Stunden Verspätung.
Die Interrail-Touristen make fast in search of their connections. "Look, a train from Greece to Russia," whispers an American backpacker in passing to his friend. "That's crazy!"
Before the Russian sleeping car smoking are a few passengers. Gennady, it means the surly man from last night, and a second sleeping car have put on their railway workers' uniforms. Among their caps make the two a concerned expression: the connecting train to Hungary is more than an hour left before, and actually had the Moscow car need to be reassigned to him.
I make yet another attempt, still staying in the car. "Still all occupied?" I asked sarcastically. Gennady now wants 80 euros for a berth to Moscow, I offer 30th We agree on 50 for a single compartment. The old wagon out of the building in Ammendorf VEB wagon has comfortable cabins with wash basin and air conditioning has been completely overhauled several years ago.
Budapest Keleti pu. The port has long since moved away
The only problem: "No one can now say more when we arrive in Moscow," says Gennadis Compagnon. He is the equal of his charming side, "But we will try our best to make all the stay as pleasant as possible." The two sleeping-car also have some hope that we will still somehow be related in time to Budapest to the front of our train again obtained.
Day 2, 21:00 clock, Budapest, Hungary
The sun is already, as the Inter City Belgrade-Budapest, unscheduled day in a Russian sleeper tow, finally reached the Hungarian capital. An hour later he had driven off in Belgrade, he was diverted due to construction of a branch line. For about 200 miles to the Hungarian border, he had needed a good seven hours.
The night train to Moscow is of course long gone, other trains heading east be driving from Budapest Keleti pu station. in general no longer. The passengers take the news with new version. Only one man from a neighboring compartment gets upset. An athletic type, black hair, angular features, as portrayed by an ancient Greek vase. He is on his way to the Carpathian Mountains.
"I have since booked an expensive sanitarium, thrown out the window a lot of money for nothing," he rails in perfect Russian. Panaiotis, it means the man who, like most passengers, a Black Sea Greeks. His parents once lived in Sochi, Stalin was as the Volga Germans deported during World War II to Kazakhstan. As the Germans from Russia also used the most Greeks Russia perestroika to emigrate to the historic home.
Gennady must negotiate in Budapest with the station manager first about who pumps the empty Bioklo of the car, but the Hungarians understand neither Russian nor English. A railway official spoke broken German. I'm needed as an interpreter. Gennady also doing his best and now fights for his passengers: "Can you give us at least something to eat?" he begs. "We have children on board." The Hungarian us smile: "Who has to blame for the delay?" she asks. "Well, first the Greeks, then the Macedonians, especially the Serbs," says the driver, "and a bit of the Hungarians," he adds quickly added, because he can not sense what's coming. But it does not sound convincing. The woman continues path smiles: "Then you demand the best among the Serbs of compensation."
Small town, big station: Chop in western Ukraine
pulls Cursing like the sleeping car. Previously, under Communism, he grumbles that there were not all this sloppiness Sun Gennadi has for decades been the railway. He was often in Germany, earlier, when there was a country called East Germany and even the direct connection Schwerin - Moscow announced.
Meanwhile, it's dark - and the coaches of Thessaloniki has been long since moved away from the station. We find him half a kilometer from the railway station building removed after an adventurous walk across the tracks. On board Panaiotis and his Russian friend Galina have begun their Ouzu supplies. All guests share their food with a Greek and now his Armenian fiancée, who had all made without board on the long trip to Bryansk. "In Athens, she had told us that there is here a dining car," said the Armenian, who was ten years ago no longer in her home town.
Day 3, 12:00 clock, Chop, Ukraine
All night, the Hungarian railway workers to do nothing other than the Moscow sleeper with its thirteen unfortunate passengers and two sleeping-car push of a siding to the other. Apparently the car is all around in your way.
the early morning, finally it goes on, the tail of a train after Zahony, a border town in the far east of Hungary. Around noon a freight locomotive the train brings over the border into Ukraine, where border guards are looking grim with shepherd dogs for drugs first, then rifling through the luggage of the Armenian and try to "tariffs" for their gift to the relatives to collect.
There is probably no other town in Europe with two oversized station buildings such as Chop. The rundown Town consists of a handful of streets and huge, kilometers long railway systems. Chop once belonged to Austria-Hungary, then to Czechoslovakia, then to Hungary. next Brest - - After 1945 the city was finally one of the two great gates of the Soviet Union. Here are all sleeper trains from Prague, Budapest or Vienna made on the way to Kiev and Moscow have been rebuilt and stop by the European to the Russian broad gauge. There
the time-consuming procedure, it even today. Open field, the car is jacked up and moved in with winds up. The European bogies are removed, from under the Russian sleeping car. Gennadi will use the time to find out how you go on with the journey. Meanwhile he has received calls from worried first Moscow. There is now known that the car is on its way from Greece have been lost.
The station chief of Chop is the sleeper of Thessaloniki as well no matter how before the railway workers in Belgrade and Budapest. The car will be for 16 hours placed on a siding and hanged the next morning on the express train to Moscow, she decides. Whether it might not even go faster, now want some passengers who transfer along with Gennadi her desk. No, that will not go, she shakes her blond-dyed hair. In addition, they must also have at other important things to worry about than a single sleeper, she says and stands up. Shortly after, you can take the wife on a shopping trip in town.
Although it is clear so that the journey will be long from over, the mood on board the sleeping car is now much more relaxed. It comes to something like almost family atmosphere. Spend the afternoon but most were not on the siding, but the only good restaurant in town, where although there are only chips and Soljanka, a sumptuous lunch of salad, but only costs the equivalent of three euros.
Day 4, 11 clock, Lviv, Ukraine
After a night beside the axle changing of Chop is now running everything according to plan again. The express train runs to Moscow in the early morning on time.
Galina had the morning about their time as illegal immigrants in Greece told, of how she had to make their way as domestic help. They had really come a long way in its operation in a town near Rostov-on-Don, southern Russia in the middle of the steppe. "If I had to do something on the bench, I was entitled to an official car," she recalls. The relatively comfortable provincial life was ended when the Soviet Union collapsed. Finally, Galina had scraped together their money, booked a holiday to Greece, had departed, and stayed there, when the visa expired.
It must have been a terrible time, without suspended rights in a foreign country, the mercy of a domineering old man, whom she had to attend. The Russian had begun during this time to write poems, take over the land of her dreams that was so different than hoped, and the hated old "mole" who had forbidden her to, any noise in the apartment. In Greece, so far no one wanted to publish the verses.
the late morning to reach their destination Panaiotis Galina and Lwow, formerly Lvov. From here there are a hundred miles to her Carpathian sanatorium. "Greece is beautiful," says Panaiotis bye. "But if you Have stomach problems, there is the best mineral water only here. "
Day 5, 9:56 clock, Moscow, Russia
Full steam was the express train raced through the Ukraine had reached Kiev in the evening, at night the Russian border near Bryansk. The fourth night in a row on the train go by fast. Neither the rattle of the wheels, even the squeak of the brakes or the nocturnal voice messages disturb the stations now more sleep. On the minute time reached train in the morning after all the Kiev railway station in Moscow. The coaches Thessaloniki-Moscow is the exact minute a day later than planned at the end of his journey. At the end are three passengers on board.
"And I'm crazy thought, but travel times by rail," laughs George one of the remaining Russian Greeks, coming from Athens and will continue even from Moscow to his hometown in the Urals. "I thought: That is so romantic." George disappears into the crowd of people who thronged to the entrance of the Metro station. Only one more day, then his trip is over.
Official summer schedule for the coaches Thessaloniki-Moscow 2009 (Source: www.bahn.de )
Thessaloniki 17:04
Anchialos 17:16
Polykastron
Idomeni 17:40 18:30 17:35
Gevgelija
Skopje
Presevo 20:40 22:35 23:09
Ristovac
Vranje Leskovac
23:26 00:55 +1 01:18 +1
Doljevac
Nis 01:45 +1 02:12 +1
Aleksinac
Stalac 02:45 +1 03:04 +1
Paracin
Cuprija 03:13 +1 03:24 +1
FC
Lapovo
03:44 +1 04:01 +1 Velika Plana
Osipaonica century. 04:29 +1 05:30 +1
Rakovica
Belgrade
07:30 +1 08:11 +1 Stara Pazova
India 08:19 +1
Novi Sad, Vrbas
09:04 09:41 +1 +1 +1
Backa Topola
Subotica 10:17 11:36 12:10 Kelebia
+1 +1 +1
Kiskunhalas 12:41
Soltvadkert 12: 59 +1 +1
Fülöpszállás
Kiskörös 13:11 13:34 13:41 Szabadszállás
+1 +1 +1
Kunszentmiklós 14:00 Budapest-Keleti pu 18:43 20:03 +1 +1
Szolnok
Karcag
Püspökladány 20:56 20:45 +1 +1 +1
Debrecen
Hajduszoboszlo 21:13 21:29 +1
Nyiregyhaza 22:05 +1
Demecser 22:25 +1
Kisvarda 22:37 +1
Zahony 23:59 +1
Chop 04:34 +2
Mukatschewo 05:38 +2
Karpati 06:01 +2
Swaljawa 06:15 +2
Wolowez 06:58 +2
Lawotschne 07:50 +2
Skole 08:39 +2
Stryj 09:19 +2
Lvov 10:57 +2
Ternopol 13:07 +2
Chmelnizkij 15:11 +2
Vinnica 17:06 +2
Kazatin Tovarnij 17:59 +2
Kiev Pass 20:36 +2
Konotop Pass 23:30 +2 +3
Bryansk-Orlovskij 04:27
Sukhinichi Eq. 06:29 09:56 +3 +3
Moskva Kievskaya
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