Danger on the Train

Chapter 1 En Route to Moscow 2000

The late September sun was casting long shadows as our narrow-gauge train slowly chugged to a stop at the check point between Belarus and Russia. We weren't too concerned, because only a few hours earlier, our passports had been checked at the border in Lithuania. Even though the young man who checked our papers at the last stop disappeared for fifteen minutes, he eventually stamped them, giving us the freedom to continue our journey east towards Moscow. In my naiveté', I had smiled at him and tried to engage him in a friendly dialogue, but his English was limited. No, he had never been to America. I invited him to come sometime.

But at this border check, there were no smiles. The train stopped, and doors clanked open and shut, revealing four Russian guards, two women and two men, accompanied by a large German Shepherd dog on a leash. Their appearance was so severe that my breath caught. Their uniforms were standard split-pea green with red trim on their hats, and the women wore black ankle boots, regulation skirts and jackets, and hats worn angled on their heads.

When we left the Baltic city of Kaliningrad, our cousins Nickolay and Svetlana had urged us to fly, pleading with us not to take the train because they knew it was dangerous, especially for women traveling alone. But my sister Jan, our cousin Lilli, and I assured them that we really wanted to see the countryside, and we had rationalized that three women together were safer than one. For security, we chose to buy tickets for a small first class compartment, which offered a table by the window, two seats on either side, and two long padded seats on each wall and overhead. On the wall across from the window was a glass door that could be locked, a benefit not given to those in second or third class farther back in the train. We could not imagine spending the twenty-five hour trip sitting or standing as the second and third class passengers did, nor could our relatives in Kaliningrad, who warned us to guard our belongings from thieves.

As it turned out, our real danger came when the officials entered the train. One of the older border policemen entered our cabin and asked to see our papers. Since he spoke Russian, my sister and I could only imagine what he was saying, but we knew from the tone of his voice and penetrating stare that there was a problem. Fortunately, Lilli had lived in the Soviet Union for most of her life, and she knew not only the language, but the culture as well. She needed to negotiate a bribe, which she did on our behalf in a mild but matter-of-fact manner.

The border agent insisted that our American papers were not in order. Since I had gone to the Russian Consulate in New York City twice and had jumped through all the appropriate hoops, I knew they were correct, even if they had not been obtained easily. We had wondered, “Don't they want people to travel to Russia?” The consulate officials had not been overly helpful and seemed to disappear whenever they were needed. Now the border agent warned that since our papers were not in order, my sister Jan and I would have to be sent back to Lithuania.

Lilli responded with reassurances that we did not have the time or money to do so, since we were on a tight schedule and would only be in Russia for a week. “Perhaps they could give you something~like thirty dollars~for your trouble,” she cajoled. My sister wasn't as willing to comply. She surmised what was happening, and her anger was apparent on her face and in the veins of her neck. This was an injustice, and she was not going to stand for it. Unfortunately, we were not talking to an American department store manager, and righteous indignation wasn't going to matter on that train.

We were each told to give him twenty dollars, and no rubles, the currency of Russia. He wanted American money. Unfortunately, my money was in a body wallet under my blouse and it took a few minutes under his watchful eye to loosen the bottom of my blouse, turn the cotton wallet around, and open the zipper to withdraw the money he demanded. I turned the zippered opening toward myself, hoping he would not see how much money I did have. As I extricated twenty dollars for him, my sister Jan did the same, but not cheerfully. I started to complain, but he quickly snapped the cabin door shut to silence the protest from any listeners in the corridor. He stamped our passports, but not with the correct information, we noticed later, perhaps to protect him should we report the incident. Then he yanked the door open and turned on his heel to search the papers of other passengers.

As the guard left, our young cabin steward asked Lilli if the border guard had taken money from us. She had been standing in the open doorway of our cabin with her back to the hallway, and he was behind her. As soon as he asked the question, she closed the door behind her without acknowledging his question. I asked her why she didn't tell him what had happened, but she quietly shook her head and said, “Ich weiss nicht.” What didn't she know? Whether he would try to get money from us too, or that he would report the official, and we would all end up off the train? Lilli did not want to say anything that any other Russian ears on that train might hear. The reality was that she didn't know whom she could trust. Fear was creeping in and starting to overwhelm me.

While we sat waiting for the journey to continue, we noticed the four guards and their large dog gathering on the platform just below our window. There was just enough light for a picture, I thought, so I raised my camera, making sure the flash was on. “Nay, Donna,” Lilli advised firmly, putting her hand on my arm so that the camera was lowered. I turned to her with a questioning look, and when she warned me the second time not to take the picture, I heeded her advice. I did not want to lose my camera or have another confrontation with the sour man in green. Apparently, Russian police personnel did not like their pictures taken. I was not told that before the trip.

My mind was a jumble of thoughts and concerns. This leg of the journey was twenty-five hours east, ending in Moscow, to be followed by yet another seventeen hour train ride southeast to the city of Saratov on the Volga River. What had we gotten ourselves into? In spite of my desire to see the land from which my father's family had emigrated, I wrestled with what else might face us as we traveled deeper into Russia, farther away from any security net our American papers might allow.

As scary as my experience had been on this train, Lilli and her extended family, who now live in Germany, had endured Soviet trains to Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. They had also fled from a forestry gulag in Siberia on the top of a train, and with no lights and shot-out windows, crouched in a train to flee from the rebels in Chechnya. These trips were far more frightening than mine, and with less than happy endings. I would learn of those later.