North to Khabarovsk!

Train Trip to Khabarovsk

On Thursday evening, January 20th, I headed to the Vladivostok Train station to take a thirteen hour overnight train to Khabarovsk, a city on the Amur River, about 650 miles north/northwest of Vladivostok.  This was a long awaited trip that I had hoped to make last April.  Previously I have ridden on overnight trains in Russia and in Kazakhstan, so I knew what to expect.  A week before I planned to leave for Khabarovsk, my Russian friend, Sveta, went with me to the train station to help me buy the train ticket since sometimes it is hard for me to understand what customer service people are saying in Russian.  So it was a big help that Sveta came with me!    

There are several classes of travel, including a luxury class, but the least expensive is a compartment with four beds in it.  I chose that way of traveling!  I arrived at the station about an hour before my train would be called, and it was the first time I had been inside the station, which has a beautifully remodeled Main Waiting Room.  On the vaulted ceiling that reaches across the whole large room is a classical painted mural.  As you look up at it, you see two scenes across from one another.  The heads of people painted on each side are pointing toward the heads of painted people on the other side.  Since Vladivostok is the last stop on the Trans-Siberian Railroad that begins in Moscow, each side of the mural depicts the history and buildings of each city.   

To see a photo of one of half of the ceiling mural in the Vladivostok Train Station Waiting Room (and some more photos of Khabarovsk), see this web page:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57404&id=100000104723008&l=9d04447f92

While waiting for my train to be called, I wasn't sure how to get to the tracks, so I struck up a conversation with a Russian woman named Nadya who told me she was waiting for a friend to arrive.  She was very kind and pointed out the way to the tracks.  We also chatted about our lives.  Several people I have met in the Russian Far East ended up in the region because their husbands were stationed in the army there, and this was the case for Nadya, too.  When my train was called I saw that it was waiting on Track Three, by seeing that posted onlooking at the electronic "Arrivals" sign in the Waiting Room.  Heading the direction that Nadya had pointed me in, I headed down a big staircase inside the building, and then outside it to the area alongside Track One.

In order to reach Track Three, I had to go up some stairs that started on the platform and rose to a great height, to a bridge over all the train tracks with stairways down to each platform between two sets of train tracks.  As I made the trek up and down the stairways, I was sorry I had a small suitcase AND a carry-on.  I have never been accused of "traveling light"!  The worst part was not even the trials of going up and down the steep, high stair cases.  It was the cold, brisk wind off the Sea of Japan that hit me when I reached the top of one staircase and made my way to the other one to head down to the Track Three platform that made the biggest impression on me.   

When I reached the platform, I asked one of the uniformed train car attendants where my car was.  On my railway ticket it stated a particular train car number and a particular space in the car which correlated to a bed in one of the four-bed compartments. The train car attendant looked at me with an expression that made me feel that she thought it was a question I should have known the answer to, and pointed me toward the end of the train.  Finally I reached the right train car.   

At its the doorway, there was another train car attendant, and after checking my ticket, she admitted me, my little suitcase and my carry-on bag.  I walked down the narrow hallway and entered a compartment with four beds in it.  In compartments like the one I stayed in, there are two of the beds one above the other on one side of the compartment, and two more across from them.  There is also a little table connected to the wall of the compartment under the curtained train window.  Under the lower beds are places for luggage to be stowed.  Accessible from the upper beds, in the wall over the passageway outside the compartments, there is also a small, empty space where luggage can be stored.  People can also hang their coats up on coat hangers hanging from hooks alongside the wall with the doorway to the compartment in it.

There are little steel ladders that are folded up and attached to the wall with the door to the compartment on either side of it.  People who sleep in the upper bunks either use the ladders or hoist themselves up and down by putting their feet on the lower berths.  My friend Sveta made sure to request a bed on the lower section of the compartment for me.  My traveling companions were a married couple about my age and a young man in his thirties who told me he had worked on commercial ships and traveled to the U.S.    

When you ride on trains in the former Soviet Union, you can expect to be in mixed company.  In the past I have been blessed to travel with very courteous men who kindly left the compartment when it was time to get ready for bed.  Everyone sleeps in their clothes of course, and I have experienced a friendliness and gracious hospitality from my traveling companions in the past.  This was true of my trips to and from Khabarovsk, too.  On both the way to Khabarovsk, and on the way back, my traveling companions offered to share their food with me and most of them chatted with me in friendly ways.   

On the way back there was a young man from China who was studying Russian at a university in Khabarovsk who shared the compartment with me.  He traveled with us to Ussyrisk, and said he would have a seven hour bus ride from there to the city in which he lived in China. He had the upper berth across from me, and said he was heading home for the Chinese New Year holiday.  One of the other passengers in my compartment was a young Russian woman in her late twenties or early thirties who was going to Vladivostok on business just for the day and slept in the bed above mine.  In the middle of the night a fourth passenger came into our compartment, and took the bed across from mine.  He was a Russian man, perhaps in his late forties, who left the train before we arrived in Vladivostok.

It is not that easy to get a good night's sleep on the train, even with a fairly comfortable bed, and the sheets, pillow, pillow cases and wool blankets or down duvets that are provided.  The problem is that the train stops from time to time, of course.  So sometimes I was awake and just watched the full moon and the stars go by.  For some reason as the train moved fast along the tracks, the moon seemed to keep moving from left to right and then from right to left past the window.  Toward the end of the night, the morning star seemed to do the same thing.  When I sat up to look out the window, I often saw, under the bright full moonlight, the beautiful birch and pine tree forests which are characteristic of that part of Siberia.  

My train reached Khabarovsk around 9:30 in the morning after having left Vladivostok at 6:30 the night before.  One of the United Methodist lay leaders in Khabarovsk, Claudia Parfyonova, had been communicating with me by e-mail, and had promised to meet me at the train station.  I had told her the number of my train car, but even though I waited on the platform outside it for a while, I didn't see her.  Aleksei, the young sailor from my compartment, asked me if I knew where I was going and offered to help me.  I explained that someone was meeting me, but that she had not made it there yet.  Since I had told Claudia that I would be in the Waiting Room of the train station if I didn't see her right away, I tool Aleksei up on his offer.

Of course there was a tall staircase to traverse up to the bridge above the train tracks and platforms, and another long staircase to travel down near the train station.  I was blessed that Aleksei was quite a gentleman and helped me with my suitcase.  He had told me that he was going to Khabarovsk to visit members of his family, and had to head to a bus stop once we reached the sidewalk outside of the train station.  He seemed not to be sure I would be all right, but I assured him that someone was going to meet me, thanked him, and wished him the best.  Then I headed toward the main staircase in front of the train station to go to the Waiting Room.

As I began to head up the stairs, though, there was Claudia coming down them!  It was the first time we met, but the expression on her face was filled with joy, and I was very happy to see her, too.  She told me that we would have to wait until noon to check into my hotel, so we went to a little cafe and spent time getting acquainted.  Later, on the way to the hotel on that bright, calm, cold mid-winter day, Claudia showed me some of her beautiful, snow-covered city.  

Joy's Bible Study

Sometime after noon on Friday, my new friend, Claudia, got me settled into my room at a hotel named for the man Khabarovsk is named after, Erofei Khabar, called The Erofei Hotel.  Well-appointed and beautifully decorated, the hotel had some wonderful amenities including a cafe, a swimming pool, a hot tub, and a sauna.  Unfortunately, I had left my swimsuit in Vladivostok!   

Claudia and I had a snack together in the cafe.  We had a typical Russian soup with meatballs and a typical Russian salad with calamari, cabbage, and carrots with a big dollop of mayonnaise on top.  I also had some grape compote which is a thick grape juice with grapes in it, and I bought a large bottle of water to drink in my room.  After our snack I went back up to my room for a nap until Claudia came back to get me to go over to a friend's for a Bible Study.

It was dark when we left the hotel to head to Claudia's friend's apartment.  She told me that we were going to a monthly Women's Bible Study led by a woman who was a missionary from New Zealand named Joy. (See the photo above -- Joy is wearing an orange, black and white print blouse, and Claudia is sitting to the right of Joy wearing a blue turtleneck sweater.)

When Claudia and I arrived, Joy and two other women were already in Joy's apartment.  A while later two other women arrived.  Joy has lived in Khabarovsk  for seventeen years teaching English at one of the universities there and sharing the Gospel with students and other people she knows. 

I was blessed to be able to talk with Joy and to take part in the Bible study.  It turned out that at one time both Joy and I were each connected with an international, interdenominational missionary fellowship called Worldwide Evangelization for Christ (WEC).  She told she had elected not to go overseas with WEC, though, but has been on her own in Russia with the support of folks back home.  She is my hero!

My time spent at Joy's Bible study with her and the other ladies was really lovely.  When they heard that I am in Russia to share the seminar on traditional Wesleyan spiritual practices, they wanted to know more about it.  So I had a chance to tell them what it entails, and they said they liked it.  I told them that there was a Power Point presentation to go with the seminar, and Joy told Claudia that she would lend us the projector she has for use with a computer at the church we were going to be going to on Sunday.

After some prayer time, cookies, tea and fellowship, we all said good night to one another.  My new friends all embraced me as if we were well known to each other -- sisters in Christ. 

Claudia and I walked back to the hotel under a sky bright with stars, but very cold.  I am not as used to walking on ice as I once was when I was growing up in the Chicago area, or when we lived in Alaska.  So as Claudia and I charged from the sidewalk to cross the icy street, it was too much for me.  Because we were arm in arm (it is common to see two women or two young girls walking that way over here),  when I slipped and fell on the ice, Claudia fell, too.

All together I fell three times when I was in Khabarovsk, but only broke my camera.  I am not as young as I once was . . . either growing up in Chicago or when we lived in Alaska, so I am grateful that I didn't get hurt!

With Sveta and Claudia One of the most lovely blessings of going to Khabarovsk was that Rev. Svetlana Tsoi, the Distict Superintendent  of the United Methodist Churches in the Russian Far East came from a city that is an overnight train ride north of there to see me.  In terms of the protocol involved in bringing my Doctorate of Ministry project to share with the pastors of the Russian United Methodist Church, I needed permission from Bishop Hans Vaxby in Moscow, and from the District Superintendents of the pastors I already knew, and those I met on this trip.  Rev. Tsoi, Sveta, was kind enough to agree to letting me share the seminar.  Beyond that, she went out of her way to come to see me, although she was also in Khabarovsk to visit with the pastors in her charge. Sveta arrived on Saturday morning and stayed in Claudia's apartment with her until the overnight train back to her city on Sunday night.  They came to pick me up around 10  am, and we spent the day on the town!  It was a beautiful, bright, very cold sunshiny day.  Little sparkles of frost caused by moisture in the air danced before our eyes.  We took a bus down to Lenin Square.  Since besides being a pastor and a district superintendent, Sveta teaches English to school children, we went to a book store with books for teaching English as a Second Language not far from the square, so that she could look for some new materials.  Then we had lunch together at a cafe which had a great menu of normal Russian cuisine that I love.  Both Claudia and Sveta were doing so much for me, I wanted to treat them to lunch, so they let me.  We had a lovely time chatting together before heading over to see the beautiful ice sculptures displayed all over  Lenin Square.  I had always seen photos of big ice sculptures in big northern cities, but the only ice sculptures I had ever seen in person were swans or something romantic like them at wedding receptions. It turned out that a new competition was coming up, so we not only had a chance to see the ice sculptures that were already decorating the square.  We also had a chance to watch new sculptures being made right before our eyes. You can see some photos of some of them by going to the following web page: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57404&id=100000104723008&l=9d04447f92 During the rest of the day we were taken on a tour of Khabarovsk by Claudia, who loves her home town very much.  There is an "Old Town" with buildings made before the Bolshevik Revolution.  And the city was built on three ridges, so there are some beautiful views from the top of each hill, looking down one side to the top of the other ridges.    We also went to a plaza overlooking the wide curves of the  Amur River.  Across the river in the distance, we could see foothills in China.  By late afternoon, Sveta was tired from her long night on the train, so we all retired to get a good night's sleep before the busy day that Sunday would be.

Maksim's Ministry in Sinda One of the United Methodist pastors who I was blessed to meet was Maksim Nikanorov, who picked up his District Superintendent, Rev. Svetlana Tsoi, Claudia Parfyonova, one of the lay leaders in Khabarovsk, and me in order to take us to worship at Pastor Elena Sokolova's "Light UMC" on Sunday morning, January 23rd.  His ministry is with people in a small village called Sinda, which is a two hour drive from Khabarovsk.  Sinda is in a region where a group of the indigenous Siberian people live.  Maksim said the region was set aside for them in a similar to the way there are reservations for native Americans in the U.S., although ethnically Russian people lived in the villages, too. The photo above shows Maksim baptizing one of the people who attend the church he serves.   During the drive to and from Light UMC, I sat up front with Maksim and was blessed to be able to hear about his life and ministry.  Later that evening, he and his wife, Natalya, joined Svetlana, Claudia and me at my hotel.  It was lovely to meet Natalya, too.  All together the fellowship with Christian brothers and sisters in Khabarovsk was such a joy! After I returned to Vladivostok, Maksim sent me several e-mails about his ministry and I want to share with you the praises and prayer requests he wrote about in the e-mails: "PRAISES: 1.      Last time, I asked for prayers that my family would find an affordable apartment near the school my son attends.  Praise God, we were able to find exactly what we needed and we are now living in this apartment. 2.      This has been a very cold Winter, with much snow.  We praise God that our people were able to prepare for this season.  And we praise God that He sent our brother Sergei to help our invalid members lay up firewood for the winter. PRAYER NEEDS: 1.      Our sister Anna, whose home has been our meeting place, needs to rebuild the floor of her home.  So, we have moved our meetings to Ivan's home until the repairs are completed.  We ask for your prayers for this need.  Anna and her husband are in their 80's, they are poor, and the floor presents a significant safety hazard. 2.      We ask prayers of healing for Natasha and her mother.  Galina is suffering with dementia.  Praise God that she was still thinking clearly at the time of her baptism in January.  We believe Galina may be nearing the end of her time on this earth. 3.      We ask prayers for Ivan, who we told you about in our last letter.  He had no feeling at all in his hands or arms.  He now has some feeling!  We are praying for a healing miracle. 4.      We ask prayers for our fellowship, that we would have the strength to continue meeting in the face of considerable difficulties.  As part of this, please pray that my vehicle will continue to work well enough that I can continue to visit the village regularly." He also included some photos which you can see on this web page: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=885040&l=7574927d4d&id=100000104723008 Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2012 kwharris777@gmail.com