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Travel Advisor
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Our travel expert gives advice on eco-touring in South Florida, safety in Puerto Rico and tipping etiquette at B&Bs.
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[11/09/99]

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[11/06/99]

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The Trans-Siberian Toilet War
Left behind for a surmised breach of lavatory protocol, our correspondent and his two companions lead a desperate, paranoid, all-out car chase in an attempt to cut off the train at Ulan Ude.

Editor's Note:Part 3 of a five-part series. Read Part 1. Read Part 2.

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By Rolf Potts

Nov. 11, 1999 | NAUSHKI to ULAN UDE, Siberia -- Though I'd never be able to prove it in a court of law, I will forever suspect that the reason train No. 263 left me behind at the Naushki, Siberia, border post had a lot to do with toilet etiquette.

This is my only theory, aside from generic rancor, as to why the provodnitsa encouraged me to return to Naushki Station at 4:00 for a train that left at 3:15.

A "provodnitsa," as Russian-rail veterans know, is the female attendant responsible for overseeing the passengers in a given train car. Formally, the duties of a provodnitsa include taking tickets, vacuuming the berths and attending to the upkeep of the toilets. On the surface, this seems like an innocuous job description -- until one realizes that, in Siberia, these duties fall under an obsolete model of customer service.

Years ago in the United States, service industry workers wore lapel-buttons that read "The Customer is Always Right." As far as I know, their employed-for-life Soviet counterparts were never required to display a customer service philosophy -- but if they were, I'd suspect the buttons would have read "The Fact That You Exist Annoys the Hell Out of Me."

Within the confines of train No. 263 to Irkutsk, this old Soviet style of service reigned. It didn't help that the head provodnitsa, who had the demeanor of a pit bull, looked like a breasty, platinum-blond version of Boris Yeltsin. Nor did it help that the assistant provodnitsa looked like a female Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man with support stockings and a perpetually blank facial expression.

For the most part, the melancholy Madame Stay-Puft kept to herself, but La Femme Boris roved the corridors with a petty ruthlessness that would have made Nurse Ratched come off like Kathie Lee Gifford. I soon discovered that the meekest request to the head provodnitsa -- a tea bag, or a roll of toilet paper -- invariably resulted in a spittle-flecked Russian tirade so merciless that I eventually hid out in my cabin in an attempt to avoid her entirely.

The problem with this isolationist strategy, of course, is that sooner or later one has to go to the toilet.

A quick look at an Ulan Bator-Irkutsk train timetable reveals a glaring inconsistency in the schedule. Whereas, say, the 100 miles from Ulan Bator to Zuun Kharaa is listed at a fairly reasonable three hours -- the tiny 14-mile stretch from Suhkbaatar, Mongolia, to Naushki, Russia, weighs in at no less than 16 hours and 13 minutes. This is because the train arrives in Suhkbaatar late at night, and the border customs station doesn't open until mid-morning.

Unfortunately, my cabin-mates and I never bothered to check the timetable while we were waiting at the border. In what seemed like a good idea at the time, Dan, James, Mark and I numbed the boredom of Suhkbaatar by quaffing several bottles of Admiral Kolchak lager for breakfast. This was great fun, until we realized that the train toilets -- which empty directly onto the tracks -- are kept locked for sanitary reasons at all stops. We'd been allowed out of the train for pee breaks the night before, but -- since we were in the middle of a tedious customs process -- we had no such luck in the morning.

By noon, we were all prone in our berths, cradling our bladders in agony.

When the train finally lurched into motion after the 15-hour wait, we stampeded for the toilet. La Femme Boris was there waiting for us -- along with half the other passengers in our car.

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