Under the sound of the wheels: car with reserved seats Russia through the eyes of an Englishman

• Under the sound of the wheels: accommodation seats Russia through the eyes of an Englishman wagons

Since the company "Russian Railways" gradually ceases to use the car with reserved seats, Briton Tom Clark and Russian photographer Maria Sakirko decided to capture the experience and tradition of rail travel in Russia to understand that the Russians will lose when their favorite way to travel third class will sink in fly.

In Russia, widespread habit of measuring distances travel time to your destination by train. "Vladivostok - six days on the train" - say the Muscovites. A St. Petersburg, for example - it's just one night. Electrified railway lines are no longer a source of pride in Russia, as it was in Soviet times, but they are still securely connect the west to the east of the country. Apart from pipelines, 90% of goods in Russia is transported by rail. From Vladikavkaz in southern Russia to Vladivostok on the Sea of ​​Japan, the cultural space of Russian trains - and especially the second-class carriages - it has long been an integral part of national culture. If voluntary prisoners, passengers are well aware of the rules of travel. They worship the wagon tradition.

Russian station platform - the traditional place for farewells. Turmoil, pushes the passengers, bulky luggage in the narrow aisles, double check the location number of significant crumpled tickets, a last cigarette and grinding mechanism, slowly gaining momentum. It's all mixed in a noise similar to Stravinsky's music, excitement and irreversible.

Although this tradition is disappearing, many Russians still prefer to sit in silence for good luck before a long road, and only then leave the apartment. In addition, it is considered bad luck to go home, if you forgot something. Every time I get on the train, I think about the people who once said goodbye for the last time on these platforms. Perhaps this is the reason why the relatives and friends accompany the travelers not only to the door of the train, but in the very jaws of the car, to illuminated a dull matt amber beds, where they will spend the near future.

Even after the conductors, which only reinforce the curse or blessing of any given trip, ask mourners to leave the cars, they still remain with the passengers in the form of homemade food: potatoes with boiled eggs and chicken, neatly wrapped in foil, vegetables and cookies. The train creaks and moves off. Usually at this point the passengers somehow communicate with each other thoughtful whisper.

Traveling east Russia, across time zones and thousands of miles, you remain roughly at the same latitude, and vegetation outside the window is not very much changed. All mottled green - birch, pine and spruce evergreen. Only the gentle rhythm of the train varies uniformly shaking their passengers, their body and mind. also there is some unspoken code of conduct for the platform.

On the platform intermediate station is important to find the right rack of the most ubiquitous of the grandmothers, which hovers over all people, and to take a place in line for fresh supplies: berries, pastries, ice cream, kvass, beer, cigarettes. All grandmothers are selling the same products, but this habit in people's consciousness has remained since the Soviet times when the queue length spoke for itself. Sometimes on the platform can meet strange, muttered something under his breath sellers who quickly removed by a guard, sometimes - cabinets with drawers that store the strange things that you never would have not bought never in my life did not have a chance at this station at the moment.

But mostly the passengers quietly standing next to each other, breathe fresh air and feed the dogs station. They lazily thrown a few words about anything with the staff station or ask questions about this and your fellow travelers.

is possible to get from Moscow to Vladivostok on the car, but the line can not be called a very comfortable, especially in Eastern Siberia. Therefore, people who are used to move to the rhythm of the modern world, are choosing the plane. However, the train is still the favorite mode of transportation of Russians, a kind of a classic caravan for Russian nomads, the place of performance of rituals, forever imprinted in the collective memory from bringing with them in the car the right things (slippers, tea and crossword puzzles, books, and, of course, vest) to the spreading of linen on the shelves, and attempts to persuade the conductor to share glasses.

These glasses are recognized for all Russians. They consist of two parts: the glass beaker and an iron stand, and many passengers often try to quietly leave them as a souvenir. Their robust design reminiscent of the trains themselves, it is very practical and Soviet and lace pattern on forged coasters suggestive of stories of ancient folklore. Russian trains have been created to drink tea.

You notice that you travel, because passengers are changing. Ethnic Russian alternate Tatars, Kazakhs, Mongols, Buryats. Grandparents traveling with their grandchildren. People passing through the car can stop a chat, while remaining in the aisle. Sometimes, they are invited to sit down to drink tea together. Travel share their stories, create a special atmosphere. People are open and sociable.

"Do you want to lie down?" - I asked my neighbor, suggesting that she would like me to stand up and give her a chance to stretch out on the bottom shelf. "I lie down myself then, thank you!" - she says, and continues to read a paperback book called "The Destroyer marriages." She returned from Moscow, where he was sworn in on his son who serves in the internal troops. My Portuguese friend Guilherme her very funny. "Tell Gleb, so he found a Russian girl, then he sprechen sie Russki okay!" - she tells me. Then Hleb turns into bread, and soon it becomes a bar. "Do not forget to remove the noodles from their ears at night!" - she tells me before leaving the train, thereby admitting that slightly kidding me. People rarely exchanged contacts. train time is not so, as in other places. If it is stuck somewhere between sleep and waking. Outside glimpses of birch and pine. Inside you can travel. Trip softens and socializes you, it spits you to a destination is already prepared for the fact that live among these people. It makes you a little more open and just a little more than Russian, if at all possible for a foreigner, and paperback books a couple of turns you into a fatalist.

For Russian train - it is a second home.