I really do love OUR Russian trains. Only in Russia can you look out the train window all day, go to sleep, wake up, and see the exact same landscape. Only here can the most beautiful nature in the world get boring because of its "persistence".

Seriously though, the train we got wasn't great. The carriage was a bit old, the conductors were a bit cheeky, and as for neighbors, we didn't have any at all since we took the whole compartment. I completely forgot to mention the fourth member of our trip - Andrey. Andrey is my old friend and classmate, a truly unique person with a gift for persuasion who didn't let us get bored on the way. First, he discouraged the conductors from trying to charge us any extra fees. Then, he was charging phones for free with those same conductors and reading free newspapers, and on the second day of the trip, he was plugging his laptop into the train manager's compartment so no one would steal it. It's just that Andrey is a railway worker himself and knows that sugar on a train should cost a ruble, not one and a half; and that charging all kinds of equipment is free, but at the passenger's own risk.

So, one day, Andrey had a brilliant idea. He suggested that I get off at a station, tell our group we were going to the store, and not come back. The idea seemed tempting, but I immediately asked, where would we go? Stay at the station? Andrey just laughed and said, "I'll handle everything!" It turns out that according to his plan, we were supposed to ride in the locomotive for a few stations! I don't know how he arranged it, but we really did ride in the locomotive for about 6 hours! But the funniest thing is that when we returned to the carriage, our friends were peacefully snoring in their seats, never having panicked or even called us once! The plan failed)