The Trans-Siberian Railway is the 10,000-kilometer long, beating heart of Eurasia. Cutting its path through the wastelands of Siberia, it brings together geographically isolated regions and people.

On May 31th, 1901, after a lot of sweat and blood, just a few years before the October revolution, Tzar Nikolai of the Romanov dynasty opened the railway in the name of Russian empire, thus connecting St. Petersburg with the distant city of Vladivostok on the shores of Pacific Ocean. Soon the railroad was connected to European branches in the west and the Manchurian and Mongolian systems of the east, forming the longest man-made structure to the present day.

A hundred years since workers from east and west met in the middle, completing the railway and joining two continents, the Trans-Siberian railway continues to be a lifeline for millions in Europe and Asia alike. Most of the locals use the railway for just a few stops, some even on a daily basis, not knowing or caring from where the train comes or where it goes after they disembark.

The void between rich and poor is nowhere as obvious as in present-day Russia. The country owned by oligarchs and ex-communist political elite struggles to solve social issues, pressing on the backs of most cites and villages adjacent to the railway.

For days and nights, a vast composition leaps forward, splitting in half time-frozen cities and sleepy villages of Siberia. On each vagzal (Russian train station), the train is greeted by babushke (Russian grandmas) selling traditional dried meat and vodka rations to travelers. In small towns especially, the coming of the train is a big deal. It brings mail, supplies and loved ones together with news from the bright, distant capital. Traveling through six time zones provides enough time shared with a lot of people in a contained space, resulting in spontaneous, often deep conversations with practically every traveler with whom you are in a carriage. And the traveling folk here are truly colorful. You hear opinions and reflections of the citizens from all sixteen ex-Soviet states together with rich variety of Russian ethnicities, from Tatars and Buryats to the newest breed of Moscow businessmen. The idea that until recently all of these extremely different people shared one country, a few times larger than the U.S. or Europe, is mind blowing. Nowhere else in the world is it possible to sit and drink with a rich businessman exchanging stories with Armenian wine makers or Mongolian nomads, and often it turns out that they all went to the same university!

At the industrial city of Irkutsk on the shores of Lake Baikal, deep in the central Siberian plain, I separated from the main line (after a night on the Russian border), continuing southeast by Trans-Mongolian to Ulaanbataar, the capital of Mongolia. Since all points of interest for this story are deep in the Gobi desert, I swapped trains for Soviet-era army off-roader – the most common means of transportation here beside horses. Mongolia is an incredibly unique place. It is the only officially nomadic country, where by law land ownership is not possible. The name of the country’s capital portrays Mongolian spirit in every detail: Ulaanbataar means “big camp” in Mongolian. Yurts (mongol style tents) start at the very suburbs of the city. After rationing up with food and water for a ten-day crossing of the desert, I set out, leaving the Soviet style capital behind me.

Driving into the night through the desert, following the red marking on the GPS, never gets boring due to the extreme driving needed in combination with lone horse riders in traditional nomadic clothes that our car passed by every now and then. Considering the size, emptiness and lack of roads in the Gobi, this desert is surprisingly populated. Nomadic settlements are homogeneously scarce but everpresent. Hospitality, essential to nomadic survival, is equally extended to foreign travelers too. It is normal to spend the night in a yurt with a nomadic family, in exchange of food, alcohol and fresh stories.

The simplicity of their lives is amazing, considering these people live in one of the most extreme climates on the planet. Temperatures range from -40 Celsius in the winter to +40 in the summer, and the neighboring Himalayas make sure Gobi stays one of the driest regions in Asia. The desert’s emptiness is a perfect stage for crime, as I had opportunity to experience.

My vehicle got ambushed, resulting in a short chase. Thankfully, the whole thing ended soon after one of the jeeps behind us stopped due to a mechanical fault. I was told this happens very rarely, and supposedly, the majority of crime in Mongolia goes on in the capital, especially by the hundreds of homeless children roaming the streets at night, due to their extreme poverty.

Mongolia behind me now, it’s time to board the Trans-Manchurian train to Beijing. In Siberia you feel like you are in another time, in Mongolia you feel like you are on another continent, and in China, you feel like you are on another planet! Because almost all tourists and businessmen fly directly to China, official borders are adapted for local commuters in a true Communist heritage. After hours spent crowding on the border in the middle of the desert, I’m finally there. Covering three huge and very different countries, connected by the single rail track, passing different life styles, habits and religions, I was reminded of the true meaning of “traveling”, taken from us by planes, which forces us to spend time x-raying our shoes in airports instead of gazing through the windows for days, breathing in every millimeter of the road and contemplating all the shades of humanity, from Red Square to Tian An Men.

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Mario Topic – Trans-Siberian – Images by Magnesium Photos