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Sept. 14, 2012
The long road less traveled
The fabled Trans-Siberian Railway stretches across 5,753 miles.
BEN G. FRANK
Since I love to travel the unbeaten path, I wanted to see not only the western part of Russia, but the vast eastern part, including Siberia and the Jewish communities that exist outside of the big metro areas of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev. So, I boarded the longest railroad in the world: “The Trans-Sib,” as it’s affectionately called. Indeed, by riding the Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR), I found myself nearer to the heart of the Russia of Anna Karenina or Dr. Zhivago than anywhere else.
This is the “the big train ride,” all 5,753 miles from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean. All the other train rides in the world “are peanuts,” remarked travel writer Eric Newby. The journey took me through European Russia, across the Ural Mountains (that separate Europe and Asia), into Siberia’s taiga and steppes, and onto Vladivostok. Only then did I realize that Siberia makes up three-quarters of Russia.
Needless to say, you don’t have to spend six or seven days to do the whole journey. You can fly to the major cities of Siberia, Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk and Khabarovsk. You can travel the route in sections and you can get off along the way, as your trip will cover nearly a hundred degrees of longitude in Europe and Asia and eight time zones.
All along the way, Jewish communities are alive and well. About 30,000 Jews reside in Siberia, whose population is approximately 40 million. Most of the synagogues and schools in Siberia are sponsored by Chabad.
Conventional wisdom has it that, if you can afford only one stop on the Trans-Siberian, make it Irkutsk, on the banks of the Angora River. A charming, relaxed city filled with art museums, restaurants and cafés, Irkutsk lies 47 miles from the icy blue waters of Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake.
A day trip to Lake Baikal is recommended. I enjoyed a beautiful omul fish, plucked out of Lake Baikal, placed in a smoker and handed over as “smoked fish.” This is a meal to be savored, along with bread, caviar and country-fresh cucumbers and tomatoes. Then take a motorboat ride on the lake; it’s smooth and calm in summer.
About 3,000 Jews live in Irkutsk, known as “the Paris of Siberia.” To meet the Jewish community, I hastened to one of the oldest synagogues in Siberia – a three-storey concrete building at 23 Karl Liebknecht St. Jewish life in Irkutsk coalesces around the synagogue, which contains a community centre, a prayer hall, a meat kitchen, a mikvah, computer rooms, a preschool, a library, meeting rooms for the community, including one for the chess club, a very popular pastime in Russia. The synagogue also plays host to various groups, clubs and organizations.
Getting back to the Trans-Siberian, I learned that the railroad was built for military, economic and political reasons. Before the rail line, people traveled on an old, historic road, known as the trakt. The railway, it was hoped, would build up Russia’s defences on the Pacific and bind Siberia forever to the motherland.
Traveling through Siberia on the rails, one has plenty of time to read. I discovered that Jews were exiled to Siberia from Lithuanian towns captured by the Russians in the Russo-Polish War of 1632-34. By the 19th century, Jews were among the convicts and political prisoners sent to Siberia for settlement or hard labor. They helped found the first Jewish communities of Omsk, Tomsk, Tobolsk and Kuibyshev. By the end of that century, however, Jews were banned from settling in Siberia. Still, they played a prominent role in the culture and economic development of the area, especially in the fur trade. The arrival of Soviet rule in Siberia in 1922 marked the beginning of the end for Jewish communal institutions. In the early days of the Second World War, large numbers of Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Poland, Russia and Ukraine escaped to Siberia and remained there after the war.
One of the destinations of those refugees was Khabarovsk. Situated on the Amur River, founded in 1858, and known as the “Paris on the Amur,” it offers travelers pleasant river cruises. Tourists shop in fine stores on wide avenues. Stop off at the Regional History Museum. Walk around the huge city square with the statue of Lenin still standing. Stroll on Muraviev-Amursky Street – named after Count Nikolai Muraviev-Amursky, who, energetic and ambitious, promoted Russia’s advance in the Amur River area.
Khabarovsk is home to about 12,000 Jews in a metro population of 1.3 million. The city’s synagogue and Jewish community centre are at 76-2 Frunze St.
Located on the main trunk of the TSR is Birobidzhan, “the Soviet Zion” in the former Soviet Union. Where in the world are you welcomed at the railroad station by a huge sign in Yiddish and Russian. Even if you go by car, the Soviet-style, welcoming sign on the road is in both languages.
Birobidzhan is the icon of Jewish settlement in the former Soviet Union. Established in 1934 when Stalin had the “bright idea” of moving Jews to this bleak, lonely swampy area near his vulnerable border with China, the city was to develop proletarian Jewish culture. Yiddish would be the national language, and new socialist literature and arts would replace religion as the primary expression of culture. Jews would forget the lure of Zionism.
Soviet Jews and Jewish communists came from all over the world, including the United States, Canada, Argentina and France, and built a city with a Yiddish newspaper, a theatre, schools and institutions. But they were all duped! In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Jews began to flee and hide from Stalin’s mad purges, which killed 2,000 Jews in Birobidzhan.
Walking around the city, I noticed a tidy, well-kept municipality of about 70,000, with about 2,000 Jews, two synagogues, a community centre and a Yiddish paper. Today, Jews are learning Hebrew.
Back on the TSR, the route runs south, following the Ussuri River and the border with China and onto Vladivostok. The train takes us over hills and down into flat valleys similar to those in Montana in the United States or rural France. The stark Siberian tundra became green scenes with fertile fields pleasing to the eyes.
In summer, it gets dark late at night and that’s when one cries out: “Let the parties begin.” My fellow rail passengers are a gregarious lot, with hearty appetites. Russian train tradition demands passengers share vittles with their cabin-mates. Having devoured my box lunches, I handed out chewy fruit-and-nut bars.
An American professor and his cabin-mate, a stern-looking Russian army officer came into my compartment. I called the military man, “the General.” He offered up vodka, made toasts; and, after a few hearty nazdarovyas, he, too, began to smile. The two brought black bread, caviar and halva. It was past midnight when I retired.
Vladivostok, the largest and most important city in the Russian Far East, is home to about 700,000 people, including 6,000 Jews. This hilly city, founded in 1860, brought Russia to the Pacific Ocean. In the Second World War, Vladivostok was a major port for shipping lend-lease supplies to the front, though Stalin closed it down to foreigners after that war; not to be opened until 1991, when communism fell.
In the 1930s, the main synagogue was taken over by the communists and served as a confectionary shop. In 2007, the house of worship was returned and dedicated.
In researching my recent book, The Scattered Tribe, I called this community, “Jews on the Moon.” After all, Vladivostok, nearly 6,500 miles from Moscow and the terminus of the TRS, remains the first as well as the last place in Russia.
So, as Czar Alexander III said when asked for his approval of the road, “It is time, high time.”
All aboard!
Some clues about traveling on the TSR. Highly recommended is speaking to a specialty travel agent to help you plan your trip. Group travel (or several couples) is best. Some travelers take a security guard with them. Several institutions exist on the train. One is the provadnitza, the conductor-provider. Don’t get on his/her wrong side. They control your tea, meals, snacks, dining-room seat and entrance to the bathroom in the carriage.
Some tips: Don’t leave valuables in your compartment. Do bring books and games. It’s like taking a long cruise. Guidebooks correctly suggest that you bring toilet paper, a plug for the bathroom sink, insect repellent, a bottle opener, corkscrew and a travel alarm clock, plus necessary medications.
Ben G. Frank, journalist and travel writer, is the author of the just-published The Scattered Tribe: Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti and Beyond (Globe Pequot Press), as well as A Travel Guide to Jewish Europe: Third Edition, A Travel Guide to Jewish Russia and Ukraine and A Travel Guide to the Jewish Caribbean and South America. His blog is bengfrank.blogspot.com and he can be found on Twitter, @BenGFrank.
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