The Trans Siberian Railroad is the name which refers to three routes which together make up the rail network. All three routes traverse Siberia but diverge in eastern Russia. Starting in Moscow, the traditional Trans Siberian route ends in the Russian city of Vladivostok, the Trans Manchurian passes through the Chinese city of Harbin and ends in Beijing, and the Trans Mongolian stops in the Mongolian capitol of Ulaan Baatar on the way to it's final stop, also in Beijing. I have chosen the Trans Mongolian route because it seems most interesting. Among other stops, I really want to see the Mongolian capitol of Ulaan Baatar, the coldest capitol city on earth with an average high in December of a chilly negative 14 degrees C, or 7 F. The average low? negative 24 C/ negative 11 F. Record low is minus 57 C / minus 71 F.
This trip is going to be BIG - the distance and time commitment is huge - and any big trip takes a good amount of planning. Yup, all these books are (maybe) overkill but with 7 months till December I think a good bit of research will pay off:
I doubt there is much English spoken in central Siberia, and I don't want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere in severe cold without at least knowing how to ask for a hotel room. So I have committed to learning absolutely as much Russian as possible. It's quickly become obvious how different the language is from English. While it's not tonal like some of the Asian languages, it's challenging in that the alphabet is entirely different. Some of the letters are similar but this just adds complication because the Russian letters produce entirely different sounds. For example, the Russian N sounds like our I; the Russian letter P sounds like our R. And so on... After a week I know the Cyrillic alphebet, and I can sound out written Russian words even though I don't necessarily know what they mean. Hey, it's a start right.
I've been wanting to do the Trans Siberian for years now, and I want to share the experience. To that end I will update this at least every month until the trip. So until next time, На здоровье! <- pronounced "na zda-rov’-ye", it means "to our health", and it's the Russian equivalent of our "cheers!"
