Day 13:

Rumbling along to Chita, right now. This ride will be about 27 hours... at the moment, I am dealing with hour number six.

Sleeping at the train station wasn't so bad. I was really only unconscious for two or three hours. And I wasn't alone, as quite a few locals had the same idea.

Tynda was actually quite neat. Though very small, it's the headquarters of the famed BAM (Baikal-Amur Mainline) railroad, which is a sort of second Trans-Siberian line, that runs to teh north of the main line and is intended to provide access to more of the bountiful natural resources of Siberia and the Far East.

The local museum in Tynda is dedicated mostly to showcasing BAM's (sometimes rather sorry) history. When construction began in the 1930s, BAM was declared a "Hero Project of the Century" by the Soviet regime, but it was not finally completed until 1991, just as the soviet union came undone. The Tynda museum sums up the construction history quite nicely - one delay had to do with the fact that during the Second World War, the line was dismantled, and the rails were used to build a support line into Stalingrad, during the German's long siege of that city.

Exhibits at the museum also spotlight the culture of indigenous Russian people. Not surprisingly, those cultures seem very similar to those of indigenous people of Canada's north. I think those links demand a trip to the library for further research when I get back home.

Also: Tynda sports some rather cool graffiti on the footpath near the train station:

"Punks not dead" and "Sex Pistols" and (curiously) "Art School!"

8:05 pm, on the train