Green Train, My Friend

Public transit in Russia is a dreary business. It’s routine for people to look angry and annoyed. A smile, so common here in Canada, is usually taken as a sign of being simple. According to a popular stereotype, non-angry and non-annoyed people do not take public transit for one reason or another: they are either too poor, so they don’t need to go anywhere; or too rich to step onto a piss- and vomit-covered surface of a train. At 6am on the Balashikha-Kurskaya train it’s polite, in a way, for men to have dried toothpaste, a cut from shaving and a healthy suicidal expression on their faces. God forbid your face indicates anything but a desire to put a gun in your mouth.

In addition to the faces, the stench of a regional train is, perhaps, one of the essential parts of the commuting experience in Russia: the smell is made up of sunflower seed husks scattered all over the floor, stale piss, cheap deodorant mixed with sweat, beer, railroad chemicals, sour vomit, hot dogs (that instantaneously evacuate your insides), stale snow or damp coats, pre-revolutionary wool.

Everybody adds to the smell. It’s inevitable. I’m proud to say I did too. Sometime in my university years I was shitfaced drunk, returning home. As a poor student you can’t afford any kind of ride-share (and they weren’t as ubiquitous). To this day I would make this choice again in a heartbeat: I would much rather spend my hard-earned money on refilling a crystal decanter with the cheapest vodka at an establishment called “The Station” than pay for an uncomfortable ride in the back of a white Hyundai Solaris. The last train home was almost empty on a weekend night, but full enough for me to feel shame when sitting down. I lodged myself in a corner of the train car’s vestibule instead. It’s rather spacious, enough to tightly compress hundreds of people inside of it in the morning.

The last train carried me through Kuskovo. The area has just finished developing: an IKEA, a Walmart style mall, all barely 1-year old. A booming area for business was already plastered with a thick layer of predatory payday loan ads. 1

The views, the quality of vodka, the smell all sang me a lullaby. The vodka asked whether it could leave the stomach and I really didn’t want it to, but it’s an offer that one can’t refuse. I was hardly surprised when a tight jet stream of vomit sprayed the floor. The pieces of half-digested pelmeni (aka the cheapest dish at “The Station”) landed at the feet of a horrified man who stood in an opposite corner of a vestibule. His face was all disgust, but also compassion, in a sense; he was tired. My cheeks flushed even deeper and for a moment I thought I was having a heart attack from the sheer embarrassment I experienced. I muttered something resembling “I’m sorry” and luckily it was my station so I escaped without having to hear the answer. It was unbearably hot in the vestibule. As I exited I was covered in cold sweat, shivering in cold wind.

I found myself in a mall that was about to close, in a bathroom, cleaning up, figuring out the ergonomics of using a Dyson air dryer on my pants that now carried a vomit stain. I was almost home. I stumbled into my grandmother’s grey-wallpapered apartment and ignored any and all remarks about “drinking wine again”.

Incidents like this are a daily occurrence for the train. My friend, Green Train, can withstand the onslaught of the decades with ease. Fixing it is usually hitting it with something heavy; cleaning it involves a liquid that is barely cleaner than the surface of the floor. I think that’s the way I like my trains.

Footnotes

  1. I’m queasy at the thought of the payday loan ad infestation even as I’m writing this. ↩