Moscow to the first day on the Trans Siberian (Day 5)

The guy behind reception literally beamed at me when I said I liked his hotel and I would say so on Trip Advisor! It's a big parade in Red Square on Friday to mark the end of the Second World War. Many couples, including some people staying in the hotel, were walking around with bunches of tulips. Rememberance day is clearly something taken very seriously here. In fact we were told that preparations would disrupt our journey and we should set off for the station early which we eventually did by taxi.
The taxi ride was interesting with the taxi driver taking his hands off the wheel to cross himself every time he saw an ambulance! Anyway we got to Moscow Yarolelski station ok but a severe freak blizzard suddenly opened up. We struggled out of the taxi with the drivers money nearly blowing from my hand. Goodness knows what it must be like in winter!
 All luggage is scanned for security in Moscow at most railway stations but  it's all a bit strange as you can walk straight from the street onto a train, it's only scanned if you go into the ticket office. Nevertheless we needed shelter so went through the scanning rigmarole.

Another strange bit is that the long distance platforms are in the open whereas the suburban platforms are under cover. So we waited for it to stop snowing then ventured out to the long distance part of the station.
Russian Railways run thousands of trains over a very extensive network and each has a number. But their most special train is the one we are making for, not called The Trans Siberian actually but The Rossiya (or The Russia in English) train number 1 westbound and train number 2 eastbound. They both run every second day. A source of national pride- Nothing must stop it-that's official.
A lady came up and said "do you speak English"  We looked at each other; yes we did.  "Thank God for that" This lady, whose name was Sonia, became our companion for the next few days.

 She was travelling on her own to Irktusk, a station on the Trans Siberian,
for a tour of lake Baikel and came from Melbourne Australia but had been
visiting her sister in Manchester. She was the only other non Russian we were to see for a few days. and we visited each others compartment from
time to time for a natter.  The train rolled in about 40 minutes before departure. Our coach was in the red, white and blue colours of the Russian flag. The provinistas (attendants) showed us to our compartment. I have to say the train is absolutely spotless inside and out and is cleaned by the Provinistas each day including vacuuming all the carpets. There are two of these people to each coach and one sleeps whilst the other is on duty. They are all women including those we have seen on other trains. Only negative is that the toilet gives a large squeal down the coach every time it's flushed!Sonia had paid to have her meals bought from the restaurant car to her compartment. These turned up at bizarre times sometimes dinner (and I mean dinner, soup for starter ) were served at 0800 in the morning! We had no idea why meals were served at such odd times but while I had wondered at the start of the trip if we should have prepaid for meals it soon became apparent we were better fending for ourselves. Poor Sonia!
We left bang on time at 1350(ten to two). Easing out of the Moscow suburbs we missed the statue to the murdered Tsar which has the inscription that basically says "sorry"!

The samovar was lit and tea was soon on the go. I was pleased to see the train has it's own engineer
on board and actually staff almost outnumbered passengers. No English spoken though. A timetable is posted in each corridor showing how long and when each station stop will be.

Very pleasant passing through heavy woodland out into the country.As night fell we were beginning to rack up the miles behind us. We crossed over the River Volga. The Volga and many other rivers we crossed were very wide. The Volga at this point must be nearly a mile from bank to bank. From 1900 in the evening until 0500 the next day we only paused for 5 minute around 0100.  A good first day on The Rossiya.

Crossing the Volga river on the evening of the first day