The Train Game

Yesterday (Friday), Julie, David and I took an electric train down to Moscow in order to spend the weekend with the Smith family, as well as to meet the other missionary Matt Heise. So, we took down our regular electric train, which takes roughly 3 hours and costs a bit under $5 per person.

Well, ironically enough, as we sat down in our compartment, we sat one row in front of a very pregnant lady who we remembered from the last time that traveled down to Moscow. We remembered her for two reasons: first, she looked last time like she was about to burst at any moment (which she still did 3 weeks later), and second, because we noticed that she had to "leave" exactly when the conductors came through the car looking at peoples' tickets.

This is, in fact, a very regular occurence on the electric trains (this doesn't happen on the "real" trains because they don't allow you on the train before you show them your ticket)--every time the conductor comes through the cabin, at least 5 people suddenly get up, and move to the car ahead of the conductor. At first, I wondered if these people did, in fact, plan to get off the train at the next stop (the electric trains stop very frequently, as they are the local, small town-stopping trains) until I saw a whole bunch of them get off and literally sprint past the car where they knew that the conductors were, thus saving themselves the 136 rubles that it costs to take the train in its entirety from Tver to Moscow. I do not know what the pregnant woman did, however, as she was not one of the people running by. Perhaps she was getting off in a bit, and simply stayed ahead of the conductors until she was at her stop.