Plans for world domination

ONLY READ IF YOU'RE SERIOUSLY BORED. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CONDENSE THIS DOWN WITHOUT CONFUSING THINGS. YOU PROBABLY HAD TO BE THERE ANYWAY!

This is the story of my last night on the Trans Siberian Railway, Moscow to Irkutsk section. I'll write it as clear as I can but it gets really confusing and quite weird. It's probably best I start by introducing the main characters...

Bad Russian - He was our cabin neighbour and I first met him the previous night when keen to practise my Russian (which, by the way, is going pretty well) I joined a member of our group struggling to communicate with him in the corridor. Quickly Bad Russian's attention turned souly to me and I was offended by an innapropriate proposition and him touching my face. I retreated to back to cabin fast and stayed there. After this Bad Russian found himself receiving angry words from the cabin attendants for generally just being very drunk and pissing all the other carriage dwellers off. In the end we were forced to shelter in our cabin whilst we made a very long unschedualed stop. After lots of violent crashing around next door, he was locked in and we all waited hopingly for the police, army or old KGB to come storming onto the train. No such luck. Things went quiet and we set off again, but now with added security guard.

Next is Alex-A, or Russian Spy as i'll call him. He tracked us down on the last night after hearing romours we were on board. Apparently he is a military man on a peace mission to far Eastern Siberia to translate for some Burmese. They will communicate by talking in English. This is concerning as his english is pretty bad, the worst English speaking Russian we'd met. If you hear of a major misunderstanding between those two countries, he'll be why! We never did work out what the Burmese doing there anyway. He wanted to talk to us for a while so we could grade him (A,B or C) on his English. He also spent quite a lot of his time insisting he wasn't a Spy, which was odd as none of us has ever said or thought it.

Finally the cabin attendants and Yulia. The cabin attendants were nice but we didn't have too much to do with them. They spoke no English but seemed to appreciate the groups politeness and my attempts at their language. Generally though I assumed we were really just an annoyence to them. Yulia was lovely. A fourteen year old who spoke fantastic English and liked talking to us, and us to her. She was in the cabin at the end travelling with her family on the seven day journey to see her grandparents.

So the story begins with a couple of us looking out the window (obviously) when Russian Spy tracks us down. In Russian I introduce myself and the others in the cabin but then have to switch back to English to answer his questions. Amusingly to us all, when I speak he claims not hear a word I say for being distracted by the amazing meldody voice and Queens English accent! However he is less impressed by accents of the clearly spoken South Londoners whose sounded entirely different apparently.

In no time at all he is settled into our cabin with beers, which the boys dutifully drank when forced. After a short while he asks me to practice my Russian some more, and thinking that demonstrating my ability to order tea or vodka wouldn't be the best choice of phrase, I say 'Your plans for world domination are sadly mistaken'. This was where I went wrong, but it's not my fault, it was in the James Bond - From Russia With Love section of my phrase book. I thought he'd like it! He didn't and was upset to hear the English believe that Russia are planning to take over the world. He suggested it was more appropriate to refer it to the US and we agreed enthusiastically. His mood was difficult to read so we continued to sit holding our breath and laughed on que only when he did. The beers were finished and we succeeded in getting rid of him. We had a very early morning arrival to Irkutsk so felt some sleep was in order.

Taking the opportunity to spend just 10 more minutes looking out of the window before winding down, Bad Russian is about. He's learnt the word sorry, and as I appreciated he was very drunk the night before I persavered with his attempts to join our group in the corridor. It didn't go brilliently but actually it was working a bit. I can say stuff to him, but not understand his response. Yulia appears and joins us and does some translating. At one point, demonstrating my language skills to Bad Russian I play it safe with my choice of phrase and show him how I can order tea (15 minutes later I have some tea!) Not long later I am feeling uncomfortable around him and keep my attention focused on Yulia and the others. He spends the rest of the evening offering me more tea.

Russian Spy has come back. It seems my James Bondism has really got to him and now he's settled into our cabin again quizzing me on it. He eventually got over it but the conversation awkwardly moved on to our opinions of the Russia-Georgia conflict. I stayed out of this one. We were all tired, nervous and bored of him. Everytime he asked for an opinion from me he just went on about the melody of my voice which just frustrated me. I think before long we'd managed to shed him again and continue about our evening, except I'm still not happy to see Bad Russian is still lurking and offering me tea.

Suddenly Russian Spy has come back yet again and introducing himself as Bond. I don't know how it happened but whilst talking to Yulia, Bad Russian hanging around us so I turned to my cabin only to find Russian Spy settled in there once more. Both Russians are getting quite drunk and have now clashed. We don't know what is said between them but my name is mentioned lots. I'm left with no where to go so we attempt to get rid of Russian Spy from our room who is now talking extensively about Russian milertary history and we're too tired to work out what the right answers are. Yulia has gone to bed and Bad Russian continues to lurk outside. Russian Spy doesn't like this and now believes Bad Russian is actually the English speaking spy.

Now out of nowhere, the cabin attendants are at the doorway. We've had nothing to do with them all night but now they want my address. That is clearly what they are saying but Russian Spy is struggling to understand them (it seems our Russian translater isn't great at his home language either). Anyway, I give them my email but they come back wanting my home address and they give me theirs. Then they give me a phone number, which is rediculous because how could we ever communicate by phone? There are 4 of us in the cabin, but they tell Russian Spy that their details are only for me. They then invite me to Russia in the summer where I, and only I, can join them on a boat to China. I don't know why. The attendants then disappear.

We make some final attempts to clear our cabin of Russian Spy, who previously told us not to be polite, we should just ask him to leave when we're ready. But now he says we'll have to kill him or put up with him, he's not leaving (but all the while apologising for disturbing us). After he says some more odd things about me, he leaves and we lock up.



Finally there is a knock at the door, and some female voices. Perceiving it to be safe we open it to find the attendentas outside our cabin giving only us lit sparklers wishing us a Happy Old New Year before running away. We accept the fire hazard into our cabin and do our best not set fire to it before Russian Spy is back complaining we kicked him out so we could sleep and 10 minutes later we are still awake. We give up on the politeness and shut and lock the door again and go to bed now just a few hours from our Irkutsk stop.