(Photo: Carolina Voigt) Train rideWednesday 16.7.2014

Greetings from the train, dear readers!

 

My name is Magdaleena, and I joined the Seida crew this year for my master thesis. I'm on my last year on the master programme of environmental sciences and now writing my thesis about the gas emissions of thermokarst lake walls. I'm excited to see Seida and the field site soon!

We have been travelling now for almost two days and Seida is still far away. This is my first time in Russia and I'm slowly getting to realize how big the country truly is! Somehow our destination Seida didn't seem so far away on the map...

 

After short stops in Kouvola and St. Petersburg, we spent one day enjoying the sights and suffering with the boiling air of Moscow before heading to the North. The city was interesting, but after walking our feet into blisters and sweating our clothes wet, we were more than happy to enter the train and start our two days long train trip towards tundra.

As a first-timer in Russia, traveling by train is quite an experience. Views with old wooden houses and burned forests are passing by, samovar is bubbling in the corner providing hot water for tea, old ladies are selling berries, pies and handcrafts on the stations, and fellow passengers are always trying to start up a conversation in Russian.Too bad that my Russian skills are limited to "hello" and "thank you"!

The air is cooling down on every train stop, so let's see how cold it will be when we arrive to Seida tomorrow!

Cheers,

Magdaleena