Sixteen ways to entertain yourself in the Trans-Siberian train ride in Russia

Siberia, Russia Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Russia: Trans-Siberian train trip photo album

Sixteen funny ways to entertain yourself in the Trans-Siberian 2-week train ride through Russia.

Start to prepare for the trip well in advance: don’t change your shirt, socks or underpants at least for one week. Eat pea soup before the trip so in the train you will be able to entertain other passengers by farting “International”.

Use a lot of deodorant (spray, not roll-on) and other perfumes, or hang a wunderbaum to your neck. Hairy dices in the same rope make an unforgettable impression.
Ask the conductor for more toilet paper and throw it out of the toilet window. Repeat this until the whole train is out of toilet paper. See how it effects on the smell of other passengers in a few days.
Piss into the ashtrays and trash cans when you are drunk. Who the hell says that toilets should be closed when the train is in a station.
Go to restaurant as soon as it opens and ask for the menu. Return to your wagon only when the restaurant closes without placing any orders. You can eat your own picnic lunch instead, and look like you are trying your best in reading the menu. If someone approaches you just say “Izvinite, ne ponimaju po russki”.
Offer snacks and drinks to your neighbours. This way you start a vicious gift-giving circle that ends only when you or your neighbours have nothing left to give. You can easily consume all the food bought for the trip in one event. Make sure that you have more than your neighbours, otherwise you will have to fast the rest of the trip.
Open the window whenever your Russian neighbours are away from their seats. They will shake with fear: there is loads of bad luck coming from the open window and, furthermore, the bad smell will disappear. Nobody will win the prize of the worst smelling passenger.
Hide your used tea bags in corridors and behind samovar to see how much time it takes for the conductor to find out who is guilty and return the bags to you. This way you can learn some new swearwords that Russian language is particularly rich of. If you repeat the exercise please remember that it is a lot easier for the conductor to locate you the next time so find better hides.
Wake up the conductor in the middle of the night and tell that water in samovar is no longer hot. Repeat until the conductor starts to shout some new and exiting swearwords to you. If he tries to explain you that it’s night time and therefore samovar is off, you can tell him that according to Moscow /New York/Baghdad time it is day time. (Only to be tried when exercise number 9 is already mastered.)
Imitate Russians: put on knee-length trousers, use sleeveless shirt and wear stupid-looking slippers. Then take a pink toilet bag (men, women should use blue) in your hand and walk around humming "I’m too sexy for myself" and looking Very Important.
Prepare noodles that are Russians’ train favourites and pour the delicacy as a present to somebody’s slippers at night.
Take some hot water from samovar and put it in a big jar. Then walk along the corridor and try to spill it on as many people as you can. Every time you succeed mark it by saying "Izvinite". Next time you are on the move there is no need for sidesteps, everyone will dodge when they see you. You can optionally try to spill some vodka on the conductor and then call the train security to arrest him.
Entertain other passengers by listening to your mobile phone’s ringing tones in the middle of the night. It is especially good to play one hit over and over again so that everybody will catch the tune. Use the light of your phone to attract more attention.
Try to repair your broken lighter with over a half meter long jungle knife. Later you can enjoy the horrified faces of your neighbours staring at you.
As nobody will agree to change their seats in Russian trains, you can take this as a challenge and try to change seats as many times as possible. Yell, push and intimidate other passengers, conductors, train security guys, and militsiya. If you already did the knife exercise earlier, you will be more convincing.
Attract as many mosquitoes to your wagon as you can when train stops at some station and see how Russians dance local folk dance called ’Barynya’ (’ripaska’ in Finnish).