Hanno's blog

The well-known way of getting from Europe to China overland is the transsiberian railway. However, I noted that the route through Kazakhstan I took is the quickest way to get to China by train and bus. I thought I'd write that up:

• Take train EC 43 from Berlin Hauptbahnhof (09:37 on Monday, Berlin time) to Warsaw Wschodnia, change to train D 10SZ (15:28). If you - like me - feel that the time to switch trains is a bit risky in case of delaqys, you can take the earlier Beriln-Warsaw-train EC 41 (06:37 until 12:08). There's also a direct Berlin-Moscow-train D 50472 (Berlin 04:28, Moskwa Belorusskaja 10:33), but it's often sold out early.
• Spend some time in Moscow and then take the Metro Line 5 (Circular Line) to Komsol'skaya (Metro of Kazasky railway station)
• Take train 090У from Moscow Kazansky (18:48 on Tuesday, Moscow time) to Petropavl/Petropavlovsk in Kazakhstan (09:46 on Thursday, Astana/Almaty time). Note that this only works every second Tuesday - you may choose other days where this train goes, but then other options may not work.
• Take train 152T from Petropavl (13:48 on Thursday, Astana/Almaty time) to Almaty (22:28 on Friday, Astana/Almaty time).
• Take bus number 100 to Sayran bus station and hope that they'll sell you a ticket late in the evening for the bus next morning. Find a place to sleep (but not very long).
• Take bus from Astana Sayran bus station (07:00 on Friday, Astana/Almaty time) to Yining (approx. 21:00 on Friday, Beijing time). You're in China.

With the transsiberian, you can leave Berlin on Monday (same options as above until Moscow) and take the D4ZJ direct train from Moscow to Beijing. You will enter China in Erlian on the next Monday at 00:47. So this makes almost 7 days vs. about 4 and a half days.

I wouldn't recommend anyone doing that. Better spend some time on the way and see some places in Russia or Kazakhstan. Also it should be noted that one obvious reason for being faster is that you'll enter China at a place much further in the west. And getting to the main part of china (the western part is much less inhabited than the eastern part and all big cities are in the east) can be somewhat troublesome. Still, I thought it might be of interest to document the fastest overland way from Europe to China.

I always assumed the starting point Berlin, obviously because I live there, adapting that to other starting places should be trivial. For example you can usually easily (and for a comparatively cheap price) reach Berlin by Eurolines bus in a day from other major european cities like Paris or London.

I had about six hours time in Moscow before entering my next train. A bit too much time for getting from one train station to another, eating and sitting around. So I looked for something to do while being in Moscow. I already visited the basic sights like the Red Square last time I was in Moscow, so I was looking for something more unusual.

I checked the Wikivoyage page of Moscow and one of the first things it mentions is the Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines. That sounded like it's worth a visit. I checked the location and it is quite centrally located, only a few minutes walk from the Metro station Baumanskaya. (If you exit the metro, you're already on Baumanskaya street and the Museum is in Baumanskaya street 11.)

As the name says, the museum features arcade machines from the soviet aera. You get a couple of real soviet 15 Kopek coins when entering that you can spend on playing. So I played some rounds of Magistral (Магистраль) - seems something like the soviet answer to Pacman - and others. Honestly, for many of the games I failed to understand how they were supposed to be played. What was interesting that there were a couple of "games" that featured non-virtual content. For example, there was a game where you could control a little toy tank called Tankodrom (танкодром), but I didn't really understand how to play that game either. Obviously there were quite a number of games with cold war references. The Museum also includes some tables where you can have a coffee after playing. If you ever happen to be in Saint-Petersburg, the museum has a branch there, too.

After that I went to Kazansky railway station where my next train was leaving. Moscow has several train stations and some of them are named after the countries where their international trains are heading. So for me that meant I entered Moscow at the Belorussky railway station (because I came through Belarus) and I left at Kazansky railway station (because I was heading to Kazakhstan). (someone in the comments told me this is wrong and Kazaksny station refers to the city Kazan - so I was probably wrong on this naming)

Pictures from the Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines in Moscow

After a 30 hour train trip, we arrived at Moscow Belorussky Terminal (Москва́ Белорусский вокзал). We stayed with some very nice Couchsurfers.

We stayed in Moscow for about two days. It'll mainly leave me with two impressions. First, Moscow is the most car-dominated city I've ever been (I've always considered Stuttgart and Berlin to be very car-dominated, but it doesn't compare). Big roads everywhere, loud and smoggy.

We stayed in Moscow at the 9th may, which is the most important holiday in Russia. It is the day that is known in middle europe as the 8th may due to timezone shift - the day the red army finally defeated Nazi-Germany. Since a few years, in Moscow there's a big military parade, which ends with a presentation of Russia's nuclear missiles. It gave me very mixed feelings. It's probably the best reason to celebrate that one can think of, though it seems wrong to me to celebrate nuclear missiles.

I read a lot that it's difficult for foreigners without russian language skills to get tickets at the station's offices. The offers you'll get if you book through travel agencies in Germany are usually totally overpriced and it's often impossible to book the 3rd class at all. We booked our tickets through Real Russia, a UK-based company selling tickets online. It's webpage is very useful, you can check train tables, fares and free space. We had no need to go anywhere or get the tickets via mail, as they just register our passport number and the train staff has a list with them, so your passport is your ticket. However, it seems this only worked for the first train and they don't offer that for the further trains.

Then we headed for the first part of the Transsiberian Railway - a 25 hour trip to Yekaterinburg (Екатеринбу́рг). While you can read in many travel guides that middle european tourists usually don't travel in the 3rd class, I was positively surprised by the quality. Everything was clean and nice. The only drawback: The bed was a bit short for my long legs. Luckily, I had the opportunity to get some more hours of sleep in a bed with an open end. Language was difficult: It seems nobody on the train was able to speak English or German. Everything went smooth, so there was no need for communication, but it may become difficult when problems arise.

While we're at it, a nice weblink: Google has the full transsiberian route on video with a map showing where you are.

Now we're in Yekaterinburg, shortly after the european-asian border. My first time in Asia.

Pictures from Moscow
Pictures from Berlin-Moscow train trip