WM Russia 2018!

Flo
Traveller
10724 comments

Hi Kris!

Yes, I indeed have read about the visa-free travel during the WC and the free travel with the fan ID. Nice thing. :)

Unfortunately I dont have time to go and I also didnt apply for tickets - did you easily get your match tickets or was there some kind of lottery/waiting list/... involved?

Regarding the issue with the transfer through Belarus; I have not received any particular information about a lighter visa regime during the World Cup - even though I have also read the rumours about a possible visa free transit for WC ticket holders.
Anyway, since there are still issues with the border crossing for non BY/RU citizens at the border between the two countries (apparently there never has been an "official" border checkpoint for non BY/RU citizens and any border crossing actually is considered to be illegal at the moment - still, passengers from abroad using the trains from Europa via Belarus to Russia are tolerated) you may look into getting into Russia from Riga or Tallinn instead of using one of the direct Kaliningrad - Moscow services.
On the other hand, this would require more expenses to get to Riga/Tallinn in the first place so you may just pay the extra €€ to fund Lukaschenko and travel through Belarus...

Flo

PS: At least someone else seems to be going too: [ux]https://rail.cc/en/como-viajar-moscu-saransk/f13787#58797[/ux]

Pleasexplain
Traveller
24 comments

Servus Flo!


Vielan dank fuer Ihr antwort!

Yes, there was indeed an application process for tickets that started back in September and there has been several sales phases since. I applied for a bunch of matches and sadly got rejected for all but a few in the second phase in January, but as I said the visa free regime alone is makes it the best ever opportunity to visit. Its now at the final "last minute sales phase", those still looking for tickets will have to be quick to snap up remaining cat 1 tickets or hope for the best with ticket resale..

Haha, I don\'t think Ill be funding liebe Genosse Lukaschenko on this trip! If it was still only GPB15, I probably wouldn\'t mind, but EUR60 is just a bit too steep if I\'m not going to be stopping off in Belarus again. I\'ll save that for another time and get the whole 48 hours in the country and see a bit more like last time.

The Baltic route is one possibility to see Kaliningrad and possibly return overland via Ukraine and the new direct through car to Wien via Zahony, completing a circle around Belarus. Or I may fly back from Moskva if I find a cheap-ish flight, not decided yet but will have to soon as time is running out!

Leider, Ich spreche kein Spanisch!


Tschuess!
Kris.

Flo
Traveller
10724 comments

OK...so you still think about going to Kaliningrad and then...? Riga - Moscow?

The Kyiv - Vienna night train is quite nice; I travelled there in December; had a T3 booking but the compartment all to my own (although the coach was quite well booked back then). Seven hours non stop to Lviv through flat Ukrainian fields and forests to Lviv, looking through the back door on the tracks beside the coal oven...
Then sleeping very well until Chop - I dont remember much of changing bogies or the border checks. In the morning, just after leaving Budapest I went to the ZSSK restaurant car for some hearty breakfast... :)

Pleasexplain
Traveller
24 comments

Ja.. I have always wanted to see Kaliningrad Oblast so it really is a "must stop" for me! Then, I think transit train to Vilnius -(stop off there again as it was much fun last time at your recommendation actually Flo!), then up to Riga for the Moskva train. I believe that train is bookable through the RZD website? I know the Kaliningrad transit trains can be booked through to Moskva on there but dunno about Vilnius..? The part from Vilnius to the border and onto Riga can be bought locally from the Lithuanian / Latvian railways I believe and is pretty inexpensive and easy to do so in Vilnius.

You have sold that to me with that bit about the Ukrainian sleeping car! I really hope to do this train soon. By the way Flo, do you happen to know why the EuroCity that this through car hitches a ride with from Zahony through to Wien uses ZSSK Slovak cars and not MAV or ÖBB?

Also, do you happen to have any experience with the mythical "SuperCity" tickets?? I have heard much of these over the years, particularly from one Herr Helmut Uttenhaler of ÖBB and the legendary Wien-Pyongyang blog who had a separate blog about these supposedly dirt cheap Slovak ZSSK issued through return tickets to Russia.
However, from what I have read recently elsewhere on the net, I believe that these now may no longer be available or no longer offer the same value as the RZD has made several trains "Global Price" tariff.
Any info on these would be most welcome.

Danke nochmal!
Kris.

Pleasexplain
Traveller
24 comments

Apologies for the error there by the way, I meant CityStar ticket and NOT SuperCity which is of course the premium high speed train service of the Czech CD!

Flo
Traveller
10724 comments

Yup...Kaliningrad definitely is a very interesting destination - I hope there would be a less strict visa regime to visit...

I think I will plan to visit the Baltics and maybe St Petersburg around this time next year, the area was so nice in winter but I guess during the "white nights" its a totally different experience again. :)

About the transit trains - I am not quite sure at the moment whether you can book or even use them for travel to/from Lithuania. Will check on that.
Vilnius to Riga would be no problem and since recently there are train services again via the border on weekends. More in the blog (comments): [ux]https://rail.cc/blog/baltics-train-bus-ferry/[/ux]
However, the direct Riga to Moscow train is said to be quite expensive (but has some nice renovated cars even with restaurant and delxue cabins).

I can only imagine that the ZSSK trainset is operating 140/147 since ZSSK is "owing" MAV money/"coach kilometers" as more MAV coaches are running services on services in Slovakia than vice versa.
Another reason can be shortage of appropriate rolling stock of MAV and a surplus of ZSSK since they do not operate as much IC trains on the Bratislava - Kosice route as they used to.
BTW, the ZSSK trainset as a quite nice schedule: IC 520 Kosice - Bratislava, REX 2519 Bratislava - Vienna (via Marchegg, and yes, this is a regional train and yes, the restaurant car is open), EC 147 Wien - Zahony, then retour EC 140 - REX 2520 - IC 513 :)

As you said, CityStar tickets of ZSSK are not available anymore (to Russian destinations) since most/all RZD trains are now operated as global fare trains... :(

Pleasexplain
Traveller
24 comments

Sehr Gute infos wie immer Flo!

Very helpful blog post there, thanks for posting that.

That\'s certainly interesting about the Slovak train on that EuroCity, it makes me want to ride out on that from Wien to Kyiv all the more with the Slovak resto Wagen! I have heard they are very good and inexpensive too!!
That\'s crazy about the Wien-Bratislava REX connection with the resto open for such a short hop over the Danube, I guess they are trying to maximise revenue there, with the Hungarian restaurants being cut last year to just a handful of international trains -(now jest the EC\'s to Warschau und Hamburg left I think?), I guess they need to pay their way to survive now. I seen that those two connections have a restaurant in HAFAS and always thought it was a bit strange, but it of course makes sense now that\'s its actually the set off the back workings of the IC to/from Kosice and the EC two/from Zahony...

Yes, it is indeed schade about the CityStar ist nicht mehr! :<


Danke,
Kris.

Flo
Traveller
10724 comments

Hi Kris,

just returned from a quick trip to Hel yesterday...

The Slovak restaurant cars are indeed very good. Sadly, I have heard rumors about Slovak Railways thinking of withdrawing them but in the drafts for 2019 schedule they are still there...so lets see. :)

This was breakfast and lunch on the way from Kosice to Vrutky on a "Rychlik" in a vintage restaurant car last month:

[p]https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/903/41957916912_2b13a43d49_o.jpg[/p]

[p]https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/982/40194983510_9febf4edf9_o.jpg[/p]

[p]https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1729/41490658145_bcbf279213_o.jpg[/p]

[p]https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1750/27523062817_0eda0e1f08_o.jpg[/p]

Hungarian Railways are now only operating restaurant cars on the direct Budapest - Warsaw and Budapest - Berlin EC trains, correct.

Pleasexplain
Traveller
24 comments

Servus Flo! Servus zusammen!!


Sorry I have not posted back here in WAY TOO LONG..

That ZSSK / Wagon Slovakia Mittagessen looks awesome! Pity the Slovak trainset is not running on EC 140/147 anymore...

Well I made it to mother Russia in the end and all I can say is that it was one hell of an experience and then some!

Although the weekend before I headed off, I stupidly ended up making another crazy, last minute "drinking trip" down to München / Augsburg courtesy of "Riotscare" delayed flight from hell via Stuttgart Flughaven, S-bahn nightmare and a mega late IC, arriving around midnight with a date right out of die fenster! -(not a fun trip at all!), then had to get back to Glasgow for an interview through the week, finding myself on the wrong side of the French border during the SNCF cheminots strike -(Wenn die Franzosen streiken.. STREIKEN SIE..!"), so it was an NJ up to Koblenz, RE to Luxembourg, IC to Brussel where Eurostar told me the worst I expected to hear that they had no FIP quota on any of the trains to London that were running, so plan B it was to head for Zeebrugge for the boat but P&O told me it was too late to check-in! Activate plan C then, for BeNeLuxTrein naar Rotterdam, Sprinter one stop to Schiedam Centrum for the replacement bus -(still no sign of the metro ever starting to Hoek..) to Hoek van Holland Haven for Stena to Harwich..
Then GA to Cambridge for XC to Birmingham New Street and finally VT on the last leg up to Glasgow..
So München Hbf - Glasgow Central took about 48 hours -due to the cheminots strike and my stupidity of being dozy and leaving my bag on the GA train at Cambridge and having to go back to pick it up from a heroic conductor who had found it in Ipswich!

Well it was worth it in the end but if that was not enough "rail drama" then the trip back out towards Russia for the WM would be even more crazy! I had planned to head back off a couple of nights later on the "sleeper" night train CS 1M11 down to London and in theory get lucky and booked onto the first available ES to Brussel Zuid for ICE onto Köln, IC to Berlin, EC to Warschau, picking up the EN 10 "Polonez" from there on to Moskva.. What could go wrong..?
The answer..: EVERYTHING!

Firstly too much time was spent in the pub watching Deutschland\'s opening game against Mexico and saying my goodbyes to my fams / friends with much: "you are crazy, going out there to Russia!", "you\'ll get yourself killed!" "its DANGEROUS!!" etc..
Ended up missing the train from Central Station and chased it to Motherwell -(in the south-eastern suburbs of Glasgow) in a taxi and made it -just!
Enjoyed some last Scottish food and drink in the lounge car as I anticipated the long journey ahead from Scotland to Rusia by train -(or so I thought..).
Arrived into Euston on time next morning, round to Saint Pancras and straight to the Eurostar ticket sales desk, only to be told all FIP quota on ALL trains running ANYWHERE has been pulled for the next two days due to the SNCF strike again, nightmare!
Activate plan B again and loaded up the Flixbus app on my handy and found there was a Flixbus for about GPB20 leaving Victoria in around an hour to Brugge via le Shuttle, so I booked it and headed over there on the tube (U-bahn). Fun it was not, great way to start a rail trip with a bus... Can\'t really speak highly FLX buses as Pete has of their trains!
I found it a cramped and uncomfortable few hours with everyone off to walk through the French Passkontrolle before the tunnel at Cheriton too..
Anyway, I got to Brugge on time and had just about enough time to stock up for the epic journey ahead at Carrefour before the IC 517 to Welkenraedt for the last L-Trein over the border to Aachen to pick up an RE to Köln in time to make the Nacht-ICE 949 nach Berlin, Hauptstadt der Republik!
All was well again, or so I thought.. Got as Far as Brussel Zuid and ran into problems and waited there for sometime due to some ops issues -(insert random railway made up delay excuse here..!) or another and cant really remember now. I seeked out the Zugchefs and told them I needed the connection at Welkenraed -BAD. They assured me it would be held for us, it wasn\'t.. Anarchy ensued!
Got off with about a dozen others as the IC disappeared off for Eupen and it looked like we were stranded with no more trains over the border until morning, -way too late for me to make Moscow..
Then the SNCB Chef de Gare showed up on his own with a bunch of stranded angry passengers -(I had to feel sorry for him as it was not his fault the L-Train was not held for us and I\'ve been in his shoes when I used to work on stations). He told us that he would call for "un taxi", I polity told him that he would obviously need a few more than one -"au plus vite SVP monsieur!!".
Eventually one Deutsche taxi aus Aachen showed up and the small international group started to fight over it! Fortunately the taxifahrer thought with his head and said he would prioritise who needed it the most first and I shouted: "ICH FAHR NACH BERLIN!" -(should have said Moskau!) and jumped in with 4 others!! Fortunately he floored it to Aachen and I even had time to grab ein paar Bitburger to have with my Jupiler on the ICE!
Panic over and made Köln in plenty of time for the Nacht-ICE 949 that has now partially "replaced" the EN 447 "Jan Kiepura", such a pity this popular night train connection was deleted in 2016 as it would have been a godsend for me that night.. 949 is not a fun train to attempt to "sleep" on, its an ICE2 and only two abteil.. I don\'t know why they had to change it from IC to ICE operation, some old Bm / Bmz / Bimz etc ex-InterRegion wagens would be far better suited to that train so people can sleep in the compartments, surely DB have plenty now sitting idle? I got very little sleep that night and was pleased I\'d came prepared with biers! Fortunately the EC wasn\'t too busy when it rolled in at Ostbahnhof in the morning and I found an abteil, reclined the seats, shut the curtains, got my head down and slept for the duration in those very comfortable old school PKP wagens, before waking up with a nice fresh WARS coffee in the resto on the last leg into Warschau.
I found the new Siemans built RZD RIC cars to be very luxurious and comfortable -(I had a good idea what to expect already from the excellent blog you and Pete wrote on your trip from Strasbourg to Moskva), I shared my compartment with a very friendly Byelorussian guy from Minsk and a nice couple from Switzerland who sadly got removed from the train and detained by the Byelorussian border guards during the Passkontrolle at Brest, due to their Belarus transit visa being expired by one day..
This would be a taste of what was to come for me some month and a half later..!
After Maxim left the train at Minsk Pass in the dead of night I woke up and enjoyed the abteil to my self for the remaineder of the trip into Moskva Byeloruskii Vokzal and celebrated finally crossing the Russian frontier with "zaftrak" -(Frühstück!) in the restaurant -which I also had to my self!
Moscow was/is an amazing city and I had a blast there.
I went on to Volgograd before heading "way out east" on the trans-siberian, stopping off in; Samara, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, Ussuriisk, Khasan -(an experience I will NEVER forget..) and eventually Wladiwostok, before heading back to Khabarovsk for an Aeroflot back to Moskva...

I really hope to write up a prober full blog on all of my time in Russia during the WM last summer and what became my extended two month misadventure into Kazakhstan, Back to Belarus and Estonia!
I\' now back in Scotland permanently with a lot more time on my hands, so I will have to get stuck back into my BlogSpot that I have sadly neglected for almost two years due to work commitments back in London. I actually meant to just write a brief summery of my trip to Moscow when I started to type this reply to you here Flo but I guess I have now more of less started writing a blog post in itself here!

Anyway, I hope you and Pete are both doing well, I just read his recent blog posts about the circular Stuttgart-Berlin-Wien-München-Stuttgart trip he made with interest, those new NJ/EN connections could not come soon enough since the deletion of the EN "Metropol" from Berlin. Also happy to here from him that a new version of the site is to be launched soon! Hopefully with all existing functions carried over?
I will try and post more often here in future as well as out UK railway forum at: www.railforums.co.uk where I\'m known by the same silly user name, but with a space in between: "Please Explain"!


All the best,
Kris

Wouter
Traveller
102 comments

I\'ve enjoyed reading your semi-blogpost! What an experience! Very sad for the Swiss couple to be honest..
Just to reply on your Hoek van Holland, they ware testing with some metro\'s last week, so there is definitively some activity going on. They are in the last building phase with testing the safety systems. When that is ready there will be a 4 week period testing trains and training drivers. To be positive, I hope that it will be ready this summer.
What was your way of travelling? Interrail? Switching so quick from plan A to C?

Wouter

Pleasexplain
Traveller
24 comments

Hi Wouter,

Yeah, it was a pity for them, we kept in touch and they spent the night in detention in Brest, put back on the next train over the border to Warschau next morning and had to FLY to Moskva!
C\'est la vie...

The whole Hoekse Lijn metro saga is really quite ridiculous to be honest.. It was supposed to reopen back in late \'17 but has since dragged on and on. I heard that the problems lie largely with the level crossings. See our thread on it here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/hoekse-lijn-metro.165192/
Apparently funding for the bus replacements runs out soon...
I wish they had left it alone, the old Sprinter service was just fine.

I travelled within Europe to/from München and from Belgium to Poland on the way to Russia on FIP -(the free and heavily discounted international travel scheme for railway personnel), so changing plans at last minute was no problem. I used to quite often make spontaneous trips to France and Belgium and the Netherlands by Eurostar and the Ferries -(travel is free, you just pay the port tax, as they used to be run by Sealink, the international joint operation between BR, SNCF, NMBS/SNCB, NS, CIE & NIR before it was privatised) when I lived in London.
I am often silly and leave things to the very last minute though and as Eurostar is all reservations compulsory it can and often does get full so the old fashioned way by rail-sea-rail is a very useful alternative when it all goes wrong!
It\'s also very annoying that since the breakup of BR back in 1996/97, the only station in GB that you can by Eurostar tickets and reservations in personnow is at Saint Pancras international.. Unlike in FR, BE & NL where it can be done at just about any ticket office in the country, the joys of rail privatisation....

Within Russia & the rest of ex-UdSSR I used point-to-point tickets that were not too expensive even when bought a few days in advance alongside the ones thatI had pre-booked online, as RZhD and the the other SZhD successor countries are not members of FIP.

Anyway, hopefully I will find the time to write up the whole story of the Russian trip soon on my BlogSpot over at: le-Vauban.blogspot.com .

Cheers,
Kris.

Flo
Traveller
10724 comments

Hi Kris!

Great read, than you very much!
It\'s funny to hear that those "dont go to that country it\'s dangerous"-myths are common everywhere and usually turn out to be total garbage if you just actually go there... :D

Such a trip probably would be too stressfull to me. Reading about having to check a Flixbus last minute, then the troubles at Brussels, then going overnight on the ICE...hell no!
Why did you have such a tight schedule? I understand it wasnt planned like that but wow, if anything had gone wrong or not turned out in your favor...

Funny thing about Belarusian immigration: Friend of mine travelled something like Finland > SPB > Moscow > Prague (with the Vltava) and DID NOT THINK OF GETTING A TRANSIT VISA for Belarus! Can you imagine? :D
Since there are no checks at the RU <> BY border it was quite a funny situation at Brest when he was just about to leave Belarus and couldnt show a visa at all. In the end he was quite lucky since he had to pay a kind of fine which only equalled about the price of the transit visa. I was quite amused when he told me this story...

The Siemens WLABmz are indeed great and really comfortable. Seems that RZD is using them for domestic services as well, otherwise it would be interesting if some European operator would want to rent them.

Would be great to read a few proper blog posts about your journey indeed. Maybe get in touch with Pete?

Flo

Pleasexplain
Traveller
24 comments

Haha, yeah always the same stupid "hear-say" from people who have never even been to the place they claim is "dangerous" or "dodgy" etc..
It was the same with the PMR -(Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic), all I heard was "Europe\'s black hole" and "its like North Korea" and other such nonsense from people who believe everything they read in western newspapers and watch on ZDF, ARD, BBC etc...
I made some really good friends in Tiraspol and have since been back and can honestly say there is no trouble at all down there, in fact I found it safer than London!

There was no concrete plan in the end on getting to Moscow! As I decided to make a last minute "mission to München" the week before instead when I had originally planned to head off for Kaliningrad via Berlin and Elbing after I heard the last minute announcement that the Byelorussian Innenministerium would accept FAN-ID to transit their country. Then having to make the trip back up to Glasgow for the interview with just 48 hours notice..
So it was lots of crazy last minute planning made possible with the luxury of spontaneous flexible travel with FIP!
There was also the annoyance of not being able to make the FIP booking for the Eurostar a couple of day in advance in Glasgow, this can only be done in person with Eurostar in London due to the fragmented nature of the privatised UK rail network.. -(thanks Thatcher!), so Flixbus from London at the last minute was the only way to cross the channel in time.

I can indeed imagine.. I do not envy your friend one bit there, as I found myself in a similar nightmare scenario back in Belarus some moth and a bit later due to getting caught up in some corrupt practices on the border with Lithuania when I was attempting to get out to Kaliningrad.
It makes for quite a story in itself.
Sounds like he had more luck than me, did they actually let him out into Poland through Brest or did he get turned around?
Like I say, its a long story but I briefly found myself stuck in Belarus, before getting back across the open border with Russia into Bryanskaya Oblast, then things got just a bit too crazy, but I\'ll save that for another post..!

That would be cool! I\'d love to write a "guest blog" or two here for you guys!!
We\'ll see...


Kris.