Help comes from unexpected places and unexpected people.
As I considered my situation, feeling pretty low, alone and unprepared, a young man from my carriage joins me night gazing out of the corridor window. He engages me in conversation with broken English and I attempt to explain my predicament,. Though I'm not sure he understands the detail, he understands things are not going my way and offers me a cup of tea. The sweet, hot, fragrant fruit tea is wonderfully revitalising and my mood picks up immediately. My rescuer is called Roman and he is a car mechanic and re-sprayer traveling with his wife and 4-year-old son to visit relatives in Almaty. At the next station we get down to share beers. The station is one of the few on this route where you can buy good fish and Roman excitedly buys two sides of smoked fish, each about 60cms long, and insists one is for me! I feebly protest, mainly because there's enough meat on it for one person for a week, but inevitably cave in and gratefully accept as I have no other food. Once the train is on its way again, we share his Metallica emitting headphones and chat away the darkness until the weak light of dawn insists we try and sleep.
Roman and his young family.
Enthusiastic 11-year-old Russian acrobat-in-training and drum and bass afficionado (!), whose enthusiasm was a big help getting through the unexpected additional 24 hours on the train. Unfortunately I've misplaced his name – probably on a piece of paper that I've sent home – and so can't credit him properly.
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