25/12/2017 – Ekaterinburg, Russia – Trans-Siberian Railway
When travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway, we quickly found there are near infinite ways to frustrate a provodnitsa.
We started by not speaking Russian, with our rudimentary attempt at greetings and niceties being received very poorly. We then had the cheek to escalate matters by having reserved a four-berth cabin just for the two of us which considerably wound her up when she had entered to scald us for leaving our bags on the top bunks, however we were yet to discover the most effective way to irritate the provodnitsa.
Tarnya had acquired perfectly engineered pyjamas with the magical ability to shed near infinite amounts of lint onto the carpet. Every time Tarnya moved slightly, the cabin was given a light dusting of lint. The provodnitsa took really offence to the mess made with Tarnya’s pyjamas and made it her mission to ensure that the lint (and the two of us) did not settle for long.
If I’d been asked how many times our cabin would be vacuumed during our three nights between Ekaterinburg and Irkutsk, I have no doubt that I would have been short of the mark by five. I might have guessed the general level of irritation the provodnitsa would have had for the first two cleans, but I’m not sure I would have been able to guess how angry she might be for clean three and four.
In the photo we’d been banished from our cabin like two naughty children, and like two naughty children we behaved, struggling to restrain our giggles at the absurdity of the situation. Her tossing the bedding around and swearing didn’t help us to calm down either. We didn’t really help matters when Tarnya’s pyjamas shed in the seconds we’d been out in the gangway, leaving no prizes for guessing what happened next!
However, by clean five, the hysterical phase had clearly passed and I think she started to see the funny side and had somehow warmed to us. So much so she warned us to hide our vodka before the police walked through the carriage. Maybe she realised we were a lost cause by that point.
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