A Rail journey through Moscow and Russia - Moscow Backpacker

There were four of us sharing the sleeping compartment: an older Russian woman who kept offering me homemade sausage sandwiches and refused to understand what I meant by saying I was a vegetarian, another woman younger, and eight months pregnant- with her little daughter and me. All of us were sweating and I was wondering how rude it would be to simply take off all my clothes and open the window for some fresh air.

There were constant knocks on the door. Someone came to offer tea with slices of lemon, another wanted to see our passports for the eleventh time, just to make sure. I didn't mind, though, it was too hot to sleep anyway.

I was travelling to Moscow with a teacher of mine to spend two weeks getting to know the Russian education system and visiting some of the capital's language schools. Being Finnish myself, I had always found it important to try to highlight the good sides of our Eastern neighbours (we tend to be pretty prejudiced and especially after the Winter War Let's just say it's easier to find a Finn who loves to roll naked in the snow than one who has anything positive to say about the Russians) but it was starting to feel impossible to think of any at the moment.

I needed air. And water. Apologising to my roommates, I made my way to my teacher who was staying in the first class. Together we decided to do something very Russian and opened a bottle of vodka. A few hours later there was a passport check again so I returned to my own compartment in much better spirits, stripped as many of my clothes as I had the nerve to and got ready to spend a night in the tropic.

I must've slept an hour or so before waking up to someone screaming. Too near, too loud. The Pregnant Woman was trying to get our door open, crying and swearing and panting heavily. It seemed to be stuck. I'll give you three guesses of who had been the last to come in and locked the door wrong.

The Little Girl started to cry, too and the Sandwich Lady got up, offering me a not so pretty glimpse of the body of a 70-year old Russian. We were all pulling the handle and calling for some help. How had I done this, got the door stuck? Was the Pregnant Woman going to suffocate from all her tears and yelling? And most importantly, was it not Russian that I had been learning for the past four years and if it was, how come I didn't understand a word of the instructions someone outside was giving us?

It took almost two hours. All of us were sitting on the floor because it seemed to be a bit cooler there. The Sandwich Lady was holding the girl and I was rubbing the Pregnant Woman's back, trying to calm her down. It started to dawn on me she was in labour no wonder about the panting and crying. Luckily for all of us, I still had some of the vodka left. We shared it and listened to the sandwich lady telling stories about her childhood. Can't say I understood much of them, but it seemed to soothe the Pregnant Woman.

Finally, at four o'clock in the morning, the door was opened. We were hugging each other and thanking God. They let the Pregnant Woman, Maria, out on the next station with her daughter. We were told she still had a few hours to get to the hospital before the baby would actually be born and she swore she would be ok. So it was just the two of us left, me and the Sandwich Lady. She handed me half of her sausages and some cold tea. I didn't have the heart to say no thanks.