What do you do to amuse yourself while sitting hours at the train station in Nogliki waiting to board the 15 hour southbound train to Yuzhno Sakhlinsk? If you have a few spare bucks in your back pocket try entertaining the local kids who come down to the station to beg foreigners for change. They really are good kids and won't try to steal your wallet. Thats the task of the older brother who lurks in the background waiting for an opportunity to lighten your load. Buy the boys a lollipop at the station kiosk and watch their eyes light up as they bite into the hard candy.As you sit in your bright yellow chair and stare at the green walls the steel gray egg carton ceiling starts to make perfect sense. Then you notice that everyone has a warm Baltica beer in hand and a sackful of spares for the train ride. The kiosk sells beer but a better choice is to wander over to the grocery store east of the station for the best selection of beer, wine, and hard liquor. After 6 weeks of sobriety the first beer vaporizes. So does the second. And so on.....
Its time to visit the facilities and today is your lucky day because the state authorities have made significant upgrades to the station bathroom. Keep in mind that everyone who travels north to Chayvo on the train must pass through this station and a good percentage of them use this bathroom. Theres a train every single day of the year so we're talking about thousands of travellers. This is a photo of the co-ed toilet on my first visit to Nogliki. No throne just a trough in the concrete floor that you straddle or squat over. To add to your discomfort is the lack of door and the building has no heat. This is Siberia after all!
Here is the upgraded facility. The tiles are freshly painted and the pink toilet paper bucket is a colorful addition! Nice! Trust me, after a few of those luke warm Balticas this is a welcomed sight! You don't want to walk around in bare feet mind you!
The interior of the Nogliki Train Station is a colorful mix of yellows, greens, and greys. I just love that metal ceiling! I could stare at it all day. I wish I could take that ceiling home, my life would be complete....
After 6 weeks of long hard days Anatoli and Andre are ready to head home to Khabarovsk for some much needed rest and relaxation.
4 comments:
Facility has always been a "special" place that smelled definitely not like flowers.
It seems like you were hanging around while waiting for the train. What I was doing was reading - I had always had a big book to read. Well, anŠ² having some laughs with friends was cool, too.
hahaha!flowers would have helped!Yes a big book is a good idea.I always had lots of music to listen to and my laptop to write. One time interpreter Zhenya took me to the museum in Nogliki and to a lady's house to buy souvenirs. Then we went to a restaurant for a delicious meal. That was fun!
Wow! I've neger gone farer than grocery story in front of the train station building. Lucky you - got to see even the museum!
Yes the museum was good!The caretaker was very friendly and answered questions about artifacts.
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