Saint Petersburg to Murmansk by train

I got my driver to drop me off at the railway station by 8.30am. The Ladozhsky Station is a new station but is airy but lack historical charms. The large sing say Saint Petersburg in Cyrillic forthise that can't read it.

The announcement board...only in Cyrillic.

a general internal view.

My locomotive on the left.

My provodnista in the centre of the photo or the person in charge of the carriage who is queen of her domain and you must make sure that you treat her well as she has unheard of powers over you a a mere passenger. Her name is Elena and she is actually quite sweet.

We had to change locomotives en route and this was our replacement.

My carriage...nice clean and smart and relatively new.

At our first major stop the platform was swarming with hawkers selling their wares whatever they may be, sweets, soft drinks, fruit and vegetables form their allotments.

A strawberry seller from whom I bought a panel of strawberries.

A train of cement wagons going past.

A more enterprising hawker with a larger trolley with a greater range of supplies on offer.

It doesn't show up so well on a small picture but this was the white trucks of the bark of the silver birches...

 contrasting with the light brown of the bark on the pines.

 The main station building of Petrozavodsk on Lake Omega.

 And I have only seen this first in Dr Zhvago and in Russia since where a worker uses a hammer to hit the wheel to see that it isn't cracked and if there is a high pitched singing sound then everything is okay.

 A 0-10-0 locomotive that was part of the Lend Lease Agreement between Russia and America during the Second World War...and it is a large piece of loco...see how small the people are in comparison.

The restaurant carriage.

 My borsch...and a Sibirskaya beer in the background.

 I was so eager to tuck into my veal risotto which translated back into Russian was a chicken breast that I had half eaten it before I had taken the photo. I ordered the veal by pointing to the menu but I knew from the Russian that it was chicken but I was just interested to see what I would get. The translated version was totally wrong....but then how would you translate Chicken Kiev into Russian for them to understand why it was?

 Much of the area is forest with wetlands and lakes.

And a quiet sun set around ten pm which moved around the horizon northwards until it reached the et and the sun came up again...all because we were so far north and only eight weeks away from the summer solstice.

i had a bad night and there was only more trees to see until we reached Murmansk that I completely forgot to take photos until it was too late and I was heading to my hotel on foot.