Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia by David Greene Page B

flat-screen TVs and heated floors. A one-way ticket from Moscow to the eastern port of Vladivostok costs close to twenty thousand dollars. And there are Russians who can afford that. This is a country with some of the wealthiest people in the world, the so-called oligarchs. They are often shrewd, politically connected individuals who swooped in and grabbed ownership of state enterprises as Soviet times ended. When those state-run businesses—mining, oil, and natural gas companies among them—privatized seemingly overnight, the people in charge became instant tycoons. And yet, fortunes under this new regime can be taken away as quickly as they are made. Just ask Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who once owned a giant energy company, Yukos, and was the richest man in Russia. After he began funding and supporting political parties in opposition to Vladimir Putin, Khodorkovsky was arrested in 2003 on charges of tax evasion and sent to a Siberian prison camp. I interviewed Khodorkovsky, by way of letters from prison, in 2010, and he urged Westerners to see Russia “beyond the window dressing.” Russia is a country, he said, “where a political opponent can be sent to prison for many years and have his property taken from him. You have to see Russia as a country where society views all this with indifference, where the elite keep silent.” Khodorkovsky speaks to Russia’s modern-day identity crisis. The “window dressing”—a nation with elections and foreign investment that’s eager to welcome tourists—hides a nation with all the repression of Soviet times, made even worse by corruption and a race for money.
    I T’S COMPLICATED to consider the Trans-Siberian’s impact on Russia’s economy. In the early days critics saw building the railroad as wasteful. But closer to completion, others thought pouring money into the project was driving economic growth. What’s more, it made it easier for the Soviet government to transport people and resources and industrialize Siberia. But that may now be part of Russia’s problem. In their 2003 book, The Siberian Curse , scholars Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy describe how many remote cities are all but cut off: “They have no railways or major highways linking them to the rest of the country, while airline tickets remain prohibitively expensive.” Riding the Trans-Siberian, you meet passengers who need to reach isolated places—for work, or to see family or friends—and the Trans-Siberian is their only option. They may get off the train in a large city, then drive hundreds of miles to reach their destination. But the question Hill and Gaddy ask: Should so many people be living in these places? They argue that the Soviet government, by relocating people and industries to some of the coldest, harshest, and most remote places on the planet, made “monumental errors” that now explain many of Russia’s economic struggles. In a way, traveling the railway can feel as if you are riding down Russia’s spine, seeing the link that connects so many disparate places. Deeper considerations notwithstanding, today a Trans-Siberian train adventure is a dream destination for travelers all over the world, mentioned in the same breath as the Orient Express and the Queen Elizabeth II .
    Sergei and I are headed for Vladivostok—but not on a famous Trans-Siberian train. We chose train No. 240 because it makes a stop in Yaroslavl, a hockey-obsessed city several hours east of Moscow. Midnight has passed, but our train doesn’t board for another forty minutes. Holding his plastic cup of tea, Sergei is a bit nervous. He purchased our tickets for this first leg from NPR’s travel agent, and for the first time, she offered “electronic” tickets. We have no formal tickets—just a printed-out itinerary. Elsewhere in the world, this would be a welcome, modern convenience. Russia being Russia, the thought of a train attendant happily welcoming us onto a train without a fancy ticket with a pretty stamp—an