During the day, the night and the morning we passed 60 stations… Gala and me. She is the best conductor I met on Russian railways: helpful, informative, clean, kind and… she smiles! I was really sad to say her bye-bye in Arkhangelsk station.
The city – famous as a destination of convoys during WW2 lies on huge North Dvina river some 45 kms from the White Sea. 350 000 people live here. The nicest buildings are located on the river promenade or very close to the rivefront. They build at the moment many modern buildings in this area including a new, huge orthodox temple. In 2 years or so this quarter will look like a modern metropolis made of concrete and glass. They have already MacDonald, Subway and other western brands. But out of the central ring you will see quite different landscape – 2 storey old, grey timber houses surrounded by weeds and sorry – the garbage too. Are the locals so poor that they cannot buy a paint and made their environment nicer? It is probably because the houses are property of the state… People are nice and helpful. It is easy to travel around using the cheap city buses (21 rou for ride). In every bus you will find conductor, so no need to buy tickets in advance. They will tell you where to get off…
