Mad Mongolian Traders

Back on the train, we had to pass through Mongolian, then Russian customs. Our train attendants tried valiantly to help us fill out the forms that were written in Cyrillic – Mongolian also uses that alphabet, but they were in no way fluent in Russian. The Mongolian immigration came through, graciously stamping our passports, and moving on. Then came the Russians.

To be fair, it was only one woman, hair bleached to a brilliant red-blond, fierce power blazing from her eyes. “Shachumk Miesotk Plustokas” she said (or something that sounded like that at one in the morning. We blinked. Joplin jumped out of bed and handed her all the passports and both the forms. She glared at him, waved the papers away, and shouted “SHACHUMK MIESOTK PLUSTOKAS!” with the tonal implications of “YOU IDIOT!” Joplin got flustered, embarrassed, and held the passports out like a peace offering. Once again she shouted at him, then hissed a sigh, grabbed all the papers, whipped them out, handed him the WRONG ones (immigration, not customs, moron!) then pointed out our unforgivable error filling out the immigration paper – We didn’t write in the visa number!!! The number is printed – in Cyrillic only – on our passport. All I can say is that it’s a good thing that Joplin studied Russian in high school, because copying Cyrillic letters in the middle of the night in front of a furious immigration officer was beyond me.

Along comes the customs officer. This was a tall man, gracious, who spoke gently, and looked quickly through our things. Nothing to declare. What we didn’t know was that we were the only cabin with nothing to declare, so we must have been a relief for him. McKinley opened her sleepy eyes for one moment, looked at him, and said, “Russian men are so handsome!” and went back to sleep. She’s infatuated with Russian classical music, and he must have fit right into Swan Lake for her. Good thing she missed the first woman, or she’d have an image for Baba Yaga as well!

Well, then began a circus nearly as exciting as the one in Beijing. The customs officials had to ransack every Mongolian trader’s room, pulling out their stash of goods for sale. Pile after pile of Chinese jeans, camisole shirts, blankets, were thrown off the train, and the traders followed. Someone whipped open our door and shoved a suitcase inside to hide it. We freaked out – we didn’t want to be deported for smuggling, and we didn’t have the language to argue. But the elegant Russian man saw the woman, and came and took the bag. Phew. Half an hour later, our cabin attendants opened our door and stuck in bags of blankets. Joplin said that their own car (that doesn’t get inspected) was full to the brim with blankets.) We didn’t dare make a fuss, or we would be having a miserable trip for the next five days. You don’t alienate the cabin attendants! But the blankets went unnoticed (second phew!) Hours and hours later, the traders returned, the customs officers went home, and the goods came back on. We were told that the Mongolians had friends who drove over the border with cars filled with stuff, and the things that were confiscated were replaced so that there was enough to sell.

And sell they did. First thing in the morning, even at 6am, the stations in Siberia were crowded with throngs of people out to buy the cheap Chinese goods. These are things that are ‘made in China’ and sold in Europe or the US, but the Mongolians were able to buy up extras and sell for ultra-cheap. No marketing needed, when the train pulls in, the Russians are there, ready to haggle, to hold up to their ample bosoms and see if it will fit, and to walk away, arms loaded with great stuff. The fuzzy blankets were a big hit.

Three days into the journey, the attendants came in and took our soft blankets, and we realized that they didn’t belong to the train – we’d been smuggling them all along! That explained why the Mongolian guy kept randomly opening our door and looking in. We’d thought he was checking to see if we were away, and might want to take our computer, but he was just counting inventory!