When most people consider crossing Siberia by rail, they think of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the 5,000-mile-long rail line stretching from Moscow to the Pacific, which was finished in 1916. Mila was right there was an undeniable romance riding through Siberia’s vast wilds on this implausible, impractical, yet epically scenic railroad. Occasionally the rail bed lifted us above the trees where we could see snow-topped mountains gleaming above the green horizon. Looking out, I couldn’t imagine another place in the world that could be more pristine, and devoid of human habitation, all within sight of a transcontinental rail line. A day into our trip on the Baikal-Amur Mainline railroad - Russians call it BAM - had become a 2,500-mile all-you-can-eat buffet.įor the last three hours, we hadn’t seen a single road, village or human in this forest wilderness. She gazed contentedly at the ocean of birch trees rolling by our window, and pulled out two jars of home-pickled vegetables from her canvas bag, adding them to the smorgasbord crowding the windowsill table.

“FOR me, a young girl in Belarus, listening to the late-night radio broadcasts of them building this rail line in the Siberian frontier had a romance that made me want to be part of it,” said my newest train friend, Mila Kozlova, 57, as we rocked back and forth in our coupe across the Siberian wilderness.

Trans siberia railroad story