The Trans-Siberian Railway: The Russian Route East

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Пікірлер: 1 500

  • @megaprojects9649
    @megaprojects96494 жыл бұрын

    Thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring! The first 500 people to use this link will get a 2 month free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/2CihHb0

  • @andljoy

    @andljoy

    4 жыл бұрын

    I have done the north to the south of Vietnam, they where all old Russian trains, some re-fitted and lovely, some ...... not :P. It was an amazing experience tho.

  • @brianoconnor406

    @brianoconnor406

    4 жыл бұрын

    Took it in 2015, The Trans Mongolian Express, starts in Moscow But heads down in to Mongolia and leaves you in Beijing. I stopped in Omsk,, Irkutsk, Ulaanbataar and finally Beijing. Amazing Journey. This was part of a bigger journey from Dublin to Kuala Lumper. All by Trains, Busses and some boats But London to Vietnam is all very doable by just trains, Visas a fun. Also Even today you can make it to Japan across Europe and Russia by train, then get boats and busses to Japan, Its something I've been looking in to for another time.

  • @polester

    @polester

    4 жыл бұрын

    Thanks for the 2 month free trial! :)

  • @brianoconnor406

    @brianoconnor406

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@andljoy Amazing website

  • @mkkr3056

    @mkkr3056

    4 жыл бұрын

    Dont get your promo speech thb here. If I use your promo link, i can get 2 months free membership at skill share... But do I after have to pay for a year subscribsion to get the 2 months?? Or what are you meaning with 1 year subscribsion in the speech???

  • @bosburyhillrail
    @bosburyhillrail4 жыл бұрын

    Enjoyed the video. In 1986 I travelled from Hong Kong to London by train, all the way, it was a 21 day tour. It was an organised tour group of 8 people + guide. We did stay in motels at various places, like Beijing, Ulaanbaatar, Irkutsk & Moscow. We also did day trip to various sights like the Great Wall & Lake Balkal. This was when the USSR was still in in charge, and gave us many stories of their determination to control everything. The crossing from East Belin to West Berlin was very memorable.

  • @youngestbuck7071

    @youngestbuck7071

    Жыл бұрын

    Man I wish I could've done that and witnessed the soviet union. I was born in Russia in 95, adopted by US citizens. I'm happy about my life but always wonder how different my life could've been had my biological parents kept me

  • @TheArtofFugue

    @TheArtofFugue

    5 ай бұрын

    That is an amaazibg story. Wish I could have experienced it! Very memorable indeed

  • @robertcrane1341
    @robertcrane13414 жыл бұрын

    In 1903, International Harvestor sent my father, who founded the Agricultural Engineering program at U of Illinois a few years earlier, to travel the Trans Siberian Railway to its termination point at that time, Irkutsk on Lake Baikal. His job was to inform International Harvestor what agricultural machinery was in use and what opportunities for IH equipment might be. Czar Nicolas was the ruler and military a constant presence. Steam engines powered the trains same as in U.S. His trip consumed most of a summer before he returned to the University. Dad was born in 1875, was 65 when I was born, died in 1960 when I was 20.

  • @ekevanderzee9538

    @ekevanderzee9538

    3 жыл бұрын

    What equipemt was sold?

  • @herzogsbuick

    @herzogsbuick

    3 жыл бұрын

    @Robert Crane thank you for sharing that! maybe you could do a video on that or some oral history?

  • @katherinekinnaird4408

    @katherinekinnaird4408

    3 жыл бұрын

    Amazing story thanks for sharing.

  • @ndlsjk

    @ndlsjk

    3 жыл бұрын

    My take away is that your dad was still makin babies at 65. Absolute legend.

  • @jonahkrys7698

    @jonahkrys7698

    3 жыл бұрын

    Top shagger

  • @DannStephen
    @DannStephen4 жыл бұрын

    I did this trip 4 years ago, amazing. It was late winter, March, and most of the route was snow covered. Vladivostok is a great city well worth a visit. In fact i went all the way from my local station in Mid Kent, UK via London and Paris to Moscow and then on to Vladivostok by 5 different trains. The Trans Siberian is something everyone should try at least once in their life.

  • @LouisHansell

    @LouisHansell

    4 жыл бұрын

    How did you travel from vladivostok?

  • @Lyle-xc9pg

    @Lyle-xc9pg

    4 жыл бұрын

    2 days and the worst traveling experience of my life, by FAR

  • @cianakril

    @cianakril

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@Lyle-xc9pg cool story. Russia is shut down for travel for several months and you couldn't finish this journey in 2 days no matter what.

  • @DannStephen

    @DannStephen

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@LouisHansell I flew to Japan, then on to the USA. Travelled across the USA by train and then flew home to the UK from NYC

  • @cr10001

    @cr10001

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@DannStephen Nice trip!

  • @jjlegend3922
    @jjlegend39224 жыл бұрын

    Can I say, ever since you started "Business Blaze", your mood has become more playful on your other channels and I love it. 👍

  • @wugzig

    @wugzig

    4 жыл бұрын

    I'm enjoying laid back Simon

  • @626games

    @626games

    4 жыл бұрын

    Yes he seems a lot happier being able to make the videos he wants to make

  • @lucasrem

    @lucasrem

    4 жыл бұрын

    JJ Legend playful on your other channels??? What is it you do here, why the weirdo profile????? You sell cars here??????

  • @leahfairs2392

    @leahfairs2392

    4 жыл бұрын

    I love the sarcasm, it’s great.

  • @christophermerritt2714

    @christophermerritt2714

    4 жыл бұрын

    No, no you can not say it!!

  • @lesleyvids2610
    @lesleyvids26104 жыл бұрын

    I think you could go London-Wladivostok fairly easily: London-Paris Eurostar Paris-Moscow Nighttrain Moscow-Wladivostok Trans-Siberian Only two changes to cross nearly all of Eurasia, thats rather impressive.

  • @GenialHarryGrout

    @GenialHarryGrout

    4 жыл бұрын

    Don't Eurostar run a service from London, stopping at Ashford, Brussels and Vlladivostok? lol

  • @UberGrunk

    @UberGrunk

    4 жыл бұрын

    You won't get from Paris to Moscow in one night, more like 2-nights-and-1½-day-train :P

  • @tobiasjost1244

    @tobiasjost1244

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@UberGrunk The train takes less than two days. Travel time is ~39 hours and IIRC, it is scheduled to start early in the morning in Paris and arrive late evening in Moscow. Only one night on board!

  • @madmetal75

    @madmetal75

    4 жыл бұрын

    Start your journey with Aberdeen - London on Caledonian Sleeper ;)

  • @southyjd

    @southyjd

    4 жыл бұрын

    Turns out Google maps can do it. Apparently 3 changes and 8 days 13 hours travel

  • @benangel6831
    @benangel68314 жыл бұрын

    1. My recommendation: Bring entertainment (i.e., a long book), and don't be scared to take it in mid-winter... (the route is worlds more dramatic, and considerably less crowded with tourists). 2. There is a superstition that you will add a year to your life if you wash your feet in the waters of Lake Baikal - Listvyanka is a wonderful place to do this. 3. The private train is much like your description of the early first class, and some travel agencies (like Travel All Russia) offer the option, but it is crazy expensive (I seem to recall something like $24K for a week's journey). 4. The alternative train route through Central Asia has been operating for over a decade already, but I'd imagine that you'd be heavily screened before being allowed to take it, as it passes through the middle of the police activities against Uighur "separatists" in Xinjiang. 5. Extensions also exist going up to the town just across the Lena River from Yakutsk, and then there is the Baikal Amur Magistral, or BAM (a line worthy of its own episode). Supposedly travel along these is possible to book, but it requires a bit more logistical planning than just taking the Rossiya or other Trans-Siberian route. 6. Gauge changing seen at the border of the Russian system and the Chinese can also be seen closer to Europe. When you take a train from Prague to Kyiv, for instance, you will go through a gauge changing facility at the Ukrainian border. Usually you hit it in the middle of the night. They disengage the wheel casings, jack the whole train up, replace the casings with the new gauge, and then reattach the casings. It's interesting to watch if you can stay up for it. 7. Another Megaproject episode I'd agitate for is the idea of putting a tunnel under the Bering Strait... efforts toward building this are dormant right now, but plans by some ambitious someone have caught the attention of media and dreamers from time to time since William Gilpin first proposed it in the late 19th century. (Completion of an extension of the line between Alaska and the Canadian rail system will likely spur further effort toward this ultimate railroad megaproject, one that would dwarf anything like a London to Tokyo line... I mean, imagine a London to New York or Tokyo to Los Angeles bullet train journey...) Make the effort to take the trip, Simon. It's worth it...

  • @aiferapple1246

    @aiferapple1246

    4 жыл бұрын

    I really want to do this :) Thank you so much for the information

  • @thomaswateren3967

    @thomaswateren3967

    4 жыл бұрын

    Yeeees Listvyamka. Baikal. Lake fish. Nature. Quiet. Loved that too yes. Also Irkutsk is a nice city!

  • @Azivegu

    @Azivegu

    4 жыл бұрын

    He should also, at least, look at the renewed plans for the building of a rail connection between mainland Russia and Sakhalin. There isn't much information that I could find of Stalin's attempt at it, but it would be quiet the endeavor if Putin should pull it off.

  • @cianakril

    @cianakril

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@Azivegu Transpolar Mainline, or the Northern Latitudinal Railway as it's called nowadays, is far more realistic project than Sakhalin bridge. Although, regauging whole of Sakhalin island's 2500 kms of railroad to 1,520 mm is a megaproject on its own.

  • @rb89509

    @rb89509

    4 жыл бұрын

    I did some minor research into taking this journey a few years ago. The biggest problem I found with it, is once you're on there, you're on there. Some of the stops along the way are quite short and obviously don't allow time for lunch, photography or anything else. Is there a pass you can buy so If you wanted to get off the train and spend a couple of nights in Perm for example, then catch the next East bound train on the same ticket? Instead of a seven day ass numbing trip, turn it into a two or three week long adventure.

  • @MissElemmire
    @MissElemmire3 жыл бұрын

    You shouldn't give up on that dream so soon, Simon. It had been a lifelong dream of my parents (particularly my mother) to take that trip, and they had all but given up on it, until we managed to make it their thirty-years anniversary gift. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw my mother cry, and I am quite happy to say that, on this occasion, those were tears of joy. They took almost four weeks to go from Vladivostok to Moscow, in January, and they came back home with the burning desire to go back and do it again. I'm counting it as a smashing success ! :-) The photos, videos, and various stories they brought back are absolutely amazing, and maybe, one day, I will follow in their footsteps...

  • @toinebles
    @toinebles4 жыл бұрын

    We took the Trans Mongolian from Moscow all the way to Beijing, an epic journey. We got of a number of times, visited Lake Baikal and did a week in the Goby desert, to top it off we did a bit of extra highspeed train in China. I don't think we'll ever top this adventure. Nice video to give more background!

  • @idiotengineer7494
    @idiotengineer74944 жыл бұрын

    My wife and I were planning on going from Moscow to Vladivostok and then ferry to either Japan or South Korea for our 20th anniversary. From Atlanta, GA, a trip literally around the world! But then 2020 happened.

  • @mihan2d

    @mihan2d

    4 жыл бұрын

    Don't use 2020 as an excuse to not do something you planned dude! Let it be for 21st anniversary, what a big deal :)

  • @shaunmattice6413

    @shaunmattice6413

    4 жыл бұрын

    @EmperorJuliusCaesar What's wrong. Did Simon make fun of Trumpf? Poor baby.

  • @UAHFAN

    @UAHFAN

    4 жыл бұрын

    You should definitely do it! Vladivostok is a gorgeous city (I've lived here for 7 years). I also like Moscow, so definitely worth a few days. I convinced my dad (a hillbilly Alabama guy from Talladega) to finally visit Vladivostok last year, and he loved it!

  • @triadwarfare

    @triadwarfare

    4 жыл бұрын

    @EmperorJuliusCaesar There's a video clarifying where his finances are coming from. It's not from NTD. Where are your finances coming from, wumao?

  • @N3bulAura

    @N3bulAura

    4 жыл бұрын

    Feels bad my man hope you get to do it eventually :)

  • @julianperkins81
    @julianperkins814 жыл бұрын

    I live in Tyumen, a Siberian city on the Trans Siberian - whenever I'm crossing one of the railway bridges I'm always amazed by how much freight this line carries. And |I've done "platzcart" - 3rd class - on a couple of sections of the line - a truly sociable experience!

  • @JuniperBoy

    @JuniperBoy

    4 жыл бұрын

    I lived there for five years. Platzcart may be sociable, but the 'aroma' of those carriages in the summer is something that never leaves you. Doshik, feet, and fish!

  • @Cockdonut

    @Cockdonut

    4 жыл бұрын

    Platzkart is only ever used by people who can't afford anything better. Nothing like having smelly middle-aged men socks in your face, mmm.

  • @UAHFAN

    @UAHFAN

    4 жыл бұрын

    I live in Vladivostok, and I've gone as far as Belogorsk (around 27 hours from Vlad) in both platzcart and kupe. Platzcart was.......interesting, especially for an guy from Alabama. As far as kupe, it was even worse, as I felt claustrophobic. I've also done 1st class to Birobidzhan, but it's awkward in a compartment with just 1 stranger.

  • @HalfgildWynac

    @HalfgildWynac

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@Cockdonut There are also situations where you do not see a point in having anything better. E.g., a 8-12 hours train from Saint Petersburg to Moscow or the other way round. Or maybe Saint Petersburg to Tver, which is 5-6 hours (I once was in a train full of middle schoolers who literally were up all night until about an hour before Tver).

  • @Lyle-xc9pg

    @Lyle-xc9pg

    4 жыл бұрын

    Worst traveling experience of my life, by FAR

  • @archstanton6102
    @archstanton61024 жыл бұрын

    Some friends of mine went around the world in 80 days purely by train and plane. Seattle train to Vancouver to Nova Scotia by train and flew to New York. Flight to Lisbon, trains to Madrid, Paris, Berlin and to St Petersburg. Train to Moscow and then Trans-Siberean to Vladivostock. Flight to Seoul and flight to West coast of Australia. Train across whole country to Sydney. Flight to LA and train to Seattle.

  • @GenialHarryGrout
    @GenialHarryGrout4 жыл бұрын

    According to "The Man in Seat 61" London to Vladivostok can be done by 3 trains. London to Paris via Eurostar, then Paris to Moscow and finally Moscow to Vladivostok. Journey takes about 10 days and cost varies depending on class of travel and cabin sleeping arrangements,

  • @seraphina985

    @seraphina985

    4 жыл бұрын

    @EmperorJuliusCaesar Inverness to London would be the furthest origin point north with a single train I think (if doing it for the experience consider the caledonian sleeper for this leg). But you can get a train from the UK's northernmost station Thurso to Inverness also.

  • @seraphina985

    @seraphina985

    4 жыл бұрын

    When I looked it up some years ago there were more changes than that, Paris, Zurich, Vienna, Warsaw, Minsk, Moscow was the least changes at the time. Granted I was looking for regular scheduled normal service trains there might be special services that have less changes or maybe things changed since I looked. Guess it depends on the goals of your trip though for me if I were to do something like this I'd prefer to use regular service trains local people use even if some of the tour ones do sound cool, you lose the chance to meet and share stories with local people if you do the trip on a tourist trap like that.

  • @BenDover-do4bk

    @BenDover-do4bk

    4 жыл бұрын

    EmperorJuliusCaesar yes, but it’ll cost more to get to London than it will to get to China. We take the piss in this country

  • @marcvandyck8052

    @marcvandyck8052

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@seraphina985 that Paris to Moscow train only runs once a week. If you want a daily departure, then indeed more changes are needed. The easiest route from Paris is to Koln by Thalys, then to Berlin by German ICE, then to Warsaw, and then a sleeper to Moscow.

  • @BillCameronWC
    @BillCameronWC4 жыл бұрын

    I took much of this line, but in the opposite direction, in the early-mid 1980s, travelling from Beijing to Moscow on the “International Train” & joining the classic Trans-Siberian line at Ulan Ude. I had arrived in Beijing from Hong Kong (where I lived at the time) by air, the Beijing-Moscow journey took 5 1/2 days. A few days after arriving in Moscow I left again by train for London, crossing the Channel from Hook of Holland to Harwich and on to London by train, the whole Moscow/London trip took just over two days. One amazing experience was the change from Chinese gauge to Soviet gauge with the carriages being hoisted off the track so the Russian bogeys would be fitted, the whole process took about 1 1/2 hours for the lengthy multi-carriage train. The same process in reverse happened when we crossed from the USSR to Poland on the Moscow-London sector. A very interesting journey. Apart from that the longest rail journey I ever took was from Athens to Istanbul, that took about 36 hours, although for eight hours of that we stopped in no-man’s land on the Greek/Turkish border with one single carriage being shunted there by a Greek locomotive and the following morning we were pulled into Turkey by a Turkish locomotive and on to Istanbul.

  • @BillCameronWC

    @BillCameronWC

    4 жыл бұрын

    EmperorJuliusCaesar At the time (1983) there was no diplomatic representation for the USSR in Hong Kong, so it my USSR visa was obtained from the Soviet embassy in Tokyo. However, when I arrived in Beijing I had to visit the rail office to get my actual tickets (the travel agency in HK could issue only travel vouchers) & luckily the lady at the railway office who exchanged the vouchers for my tickets noticed that the entry date for my Soviet visa was the arrival date in Moscow (about 4 1/2 days after we were due to cross into the USSR from Mongolia), so I would not have been allowed to cross the border, luckily I had time to visit the Soviet embassy in Beijing to get the entry date adjusted. Obviously a whole lot of things have changed since 1983, but I had to visit the Polish and East German embassies/consulates in Moscow to get the relevant visas for my onward trip to London. Good luck if you take a similar trip in either direction 😂👍

  • @simoc24

    @simoc24

    4 жыл бұрын

    Wow you travelled

  • @jwenting

    @jwenting

    4 жыл бұрын

    Been to Ulan Ude by accident. Was on a plant to Irkutsk but had to divert because the airport there was flooded, we landed at Ulan Ude instead and were ferried to Irkutsk in old rickety Soviet busses with wooden seats. Most uncomfortable journey ever, but stunning sights along the shores of Lake Baikal. From Irkutsk we took the trans-Siberian west for several days before catching another aircraft to I think Leningrad or Kiev. That was in the late 1980s.

  • @johnkeepin7527

    @johnkeepin7527

    4 жыл бұрын

    I did a similar journey just before Hong Kong became part of China, in 1996. Hong Kong to London by train, so it was Guangzhou - Beijing - Irkutsk - Yekaterinburg - Moskva - Brussels Midi - London (by Eurostar to Waterloo then). The Beijing - Irkutsk service would have continued to Moskva, but me and my friend had a couple of breaks en route. One of the items that I can remember was how ‘European’ everything looked at Ulan Ude, after a period of time in China, even though it’s a long way east, as it were. On the trip from Guangzhou - Beijing, it was probably the last time I saw a pair of steam locomotives working a freight train in service. The other fact that’s not all that well understood is that one can travel ‘under the wires’ all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific on this continent (and the little island!), with a large chunk of it being at 25 kV ac 50 Hz, as much of the Trans Sib route under Russian Railways is like that now. All right, you’d use the metro in Moscow, but that’s electric as well. Note that when I travelled though China it was on the old route via Wuhan etc; 2 nights on the train then, but there is a relatively new high speed line north - south now.

  • @MaegnasMw

    @MaegnasMw

    3 жыл бұрын

    I remember the train you spoke of in Greece, it was a regular service, I think once a day, from Athens to Istanbul, a single carriage that was added to the regular "fast" train that ran from Athens to Dikaia (northernmost Greek rail station, close to the border to Bulgaria). I believe the "exchange" to Turkey happened at a station called Pythion, about 50 miles north of where I live!

  • @FNLN6446
    @FNLN64464 жыл бұрын

    I took the train crossing from Mongolia into China in 2010. They lift you in the air inside the carriage as they change the wheels. Then off to the official border you go, with several hundred Chinese soldiers saluting the train whilst a loudspeaker says something in Chinese followed by “Welcome to China. How are you?” over and over again before they board the train and joylessly check your temperature and question you on whether you intend to sell goods inside the country. Surreal. Unforgettable.

  • @jonnunn4196

    @jonnunn4196

    4 жыл бұрын

    Ten years later and many countries are welcoming those arriving by checking their temperature; which they also had the airlines do before you boarded the plane.

  • @donaldfedosiuk1638
    @donaldfedosiuk16383 жыл бұрын

    I'm hardly an expert on this subject, but from what I've seen and read, you can (or at least could until 2020) take the Chunnel train from London to Paris and from there use a twice-weekly, three-day service run by a private Russian company to Moscow, via Berlin and Warsaw. From Moscow, of course, it's a mere seven days to the Lord of the East. Great video, not incidentally. Loved it!

  • @DreadMerlot
    @DreadMerlot4 жыл бұрын

    I'm an American, but I've done it from Moscow to Novosibirsk, three times, and back. Never made it to the end of the line, but since my first trip was in 92, I've almost been knifed, I once bought the entire restaurant car for twenty bucks, and was once escorted aboard by a troop of Cossacks, in large hats, and then made to chug moonshine while biting it back with a dill pickle..

  • @matthewcane0
    @matthewcane04 жыл бұрын

    $617 for a 7 day first class ticket. That is unbelievable value compared to rail in the UK.

  • @MyCatFooed

    @MyCatFooed

    4 жыл бұрын

    Thanks man! I was curious about the costs...

  • @cianakril

    @cianakril

    4 жыл бұрын

    UK can fit into Russia 70.62 times. How much is $15.4 for the 1st class in UK?

  • @zerockraut
    @zerockraut4 жыл бұрын

    "fancy train" is called the "golden eagle" (Золотой Орёл). It's very expensive, stylized to royal time train. The journey from Moscow to Vladivostok will take 14 days on it, mainly due to long stops for excursions.

  • @ignitionfrn2223
    @ignitionfrn22233 жыл бұрын

    1:50 - Chapter 1 - The lines 2:45 - Chapter 2 - The routes 4:30 - Chapter 3 - History 6:20 - Chapter 4 - Construction 10:45 - Mid roll ads 12:20 - Chapter 5 - Effects 14:20 - Chapter 6 - Trains 17:05 - Chapter 7 - War 20:20 - Chapter 8 - Today 21:30 - Chapter 9 - A mammoth extension to a mammoth line

  • @allonan8856
    @allonan88564 жыл бұрын

    i need to support this man's channels instead of wasting so much money paying for crap i never watch like amazon prime, and HBOmax.

  • @CAST77

    @CAST77

    4 жыл бұрын

    You definitely need to do that...!!!

  • @17irod

    @17irod

    3 жыл бұрын

    Simon approves this message, also who pays for stuff like that? Don’t you have friends or relatives?

  • @C2K777
    @C2K7774 жыл бұрын

    The Trans Siberian is on my bucket list which is something i'm firmly committed to fulfiling & this whole travel ban thing is rudely getting in the way of!( due to medical issues I only have about 6-8 years max left as my immune system failed a couple years back and my body is now slowly shutting down). It's not cheap to do but i'm determined to cross it off my list and your video was great. Also used your link to sign up on SkillShare so thanks for that as well. Keep up the great work.

  • @terriesmith8219

    @terriesmith8219

    4 жыл бұрын

    That's a great bucket list. What is wrong with your body, if you don't mind me asking? Just curious.

  • @Hobinator17

    @Hobinator17

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@terriesmith8219 it's AIDS dummy

  • @BazilRat

    @BazilRat

    4 жыл бұрын

    Good luck! Keep us posted

  • @fettywap1738

    @fettywap1738

    4 жыл бұрын

    hope you get your wish 🙏🏽

  • @C2K777

    @C2K777

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@Hobinator17 It's not but thanks for the assumption eh ;) I have lupus and a cascading immune system caused by the long term use of several drugs throughout my life for various other health issues which themselves need other drugs to counteract them and my body simply reached a point where it no longer knew what to do with all the drugs or which messages to ignore or act upon so unfortunately decided it would essentially stop doing anything. It's just one of those things it is what it is. On the upside every so often they will have me in hospital to cut so new piece of me out which makes for a great weight loss system. I go to sleep and wake up several pounds lighter everytime ( gallows humour is sort of how I deal with the whole things So far i've tuicked 67 countries off the map and will get through as many as I can before I cant which is why im about ready for this whole travel ban to to be done with. Even as an at risk person im done with all now.

  • @Alex-kb8oo
    @Alex-kb8oo4 жыл бұрын

    I just love seeing Simon in such a fun and casual setting

  • @stevenwallace773

    @stevenwallace773

    4 жыл бұрын

    You'd like Business Blaze then

  • @GumusZee

    @GumusZee

    4 жыл бұрын

    You should check out Business Blaze

  • @This1Person

    @This1Person

    4 жыл бұрын

    I'll be the 3rd, Business Blaze. I wonder how many more will reply...

  • @LtColShingSides

    @LtColShingSides

    4 жыл бұрын

    Just gunna slide in and be the 3rd person to tell you to check out Business Blaze. MegaProjects is business casual and BB is real slap-stick.

  • @user-me8hc3bs7i

    @user-me8hc3bs7i

    4 жыл бұрын

    Hey bud, business blaze is a complete shit show of zero prep and memes. 11/10 do recommend.

  • @danieljob3184
    @danieljob31843 жыл бұрын

    War and Peace was written to be read on this train! Introduction in Moscow, epilogue in Vladivostok.

  • @John_Fugazzi
    @John_Fugazzi3 жыл бұрын

    The Trans-Siberian luxury train is the Golden Eagle. It's journey takes two weeks with many stops along the way including a detour to Lake Baikal and Ulaan Baatur, Mongolia. It also includes a short stay at a five-star hotel on either end.The train has its own laundry service and an English-speaking doctor. Prices begin at $18,000, higher than most luxury trains (usually around $4,000-6,000, but it's a much longer trip than most.

  • @malcolmrowley1444
    @malcolmrowley14443 жыл бұрын

    You should do Tokyo's flood prevention system. It's truly amazing!

  • @raypitts4880

    @raypitts4880

    2 жыл бұрын

    there is already a video made saw it last monday.

  • @c.l.7525
    @c.l.75254 жыл бұрын

    Does the Trans-Siberian Orchestra ever ride on the Trans-Siberian Railway?

  • @skizzik121

    @skizzik121

    4 жыл бұрын

    They God damned better or im calling bullshit!!!!

  • @nerfninja661

    @nerfninja661

    4 жыл бұрын

    These are the real questions we should be asking

  • @rideswift

    @rideswift

    4 жыл бұрын

    They take the trans Siberian road (road of bones)! LOL

  • @JohnnyTromboner

    @JohnnyTromboner

    4 жыл бұрын

    I also came searching for this

  • @fredricunderhill204

    @fredricunderhill204

    4 жыл бұрын

    Chuckle chuckle!!

  • @louisenanchen1594
    @louisenanchen15944 жыл бұрын

    I live in Moscow and I can get back to sunny Dorset by trains. Moscow - Paris 30 hours, change Paris -london 4 hours . Then lastly London Waterloo to Gillingham Dorset 2.5 hours. Return ticket 2 class around 600 pounds. If you time it right you can leave Moscow Wednesday evening and catch the 5.50 from Waterloo.

  • @JaycobSirduke

    @JaycobSirduke

    3 жыл бұрын

    Just get a plane ticket dude

  • @hartmutbohn
    @hartmutbohn4 жыл бұрын

    I was very lucky to travel a large part of the route in summer 1988, when I returned from studying in Shnaghai, China for a year, and taking the Trans-Mongolian from Beijing via Ulan Baator to Moscow, and on to Berlin, Stuttgart. Wonderful memories!

  • @WildStar2002
    @WildStar20024 жыл бұрын

    I had friends that took the Moscow-Beijing route in the early 1980s. Very frequently a conductor would come tell all the foreign passengers on their train, "Dear, friends! You must change your clocks now! Russia is biggest country in world - many time zones!" They were several hours ahead of *actual* local time when they got to the Chinese border. :-) Also, the trucks on the train-cars had to be changed at the Chinese border because the rail gauge was different in China. :-) Ha! You covered that! 16:44

  • @cr10001

    @cr10001

    3 жыл бұрын

    In 2017 I did Vladivostok-Moscow. The train left Vladivostok at 12.00 midday Railway (Moscow) time, 7p.m. local time. Yep, 7 time zones. (Apparently since ~2019, Rzd timetables are now in local time)

  • @leeharamis1935
    @leeharamis19354 жыл бұрын

    Great video. Suggestions for future videos: 1. Development of the Boeing 747 2. Haussmann’s renovation of Paris 3. Edwardian castles in Wales

  • @markschippel7974
    @markschippel79744 жыл бұрын

    I have ridden a small part of the railway from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk. My wife and I had a first class cabin which was pretty nice. We traveled in the spring and the view was beautiful with wild flowers and birch trees everywhere... and marsh. This was not an express trip. The train stopped in every village where you could buy some bread, cheese, dried fish, kvass and, of course, vodka. My wife and I hope to take the whole trip in the near future.

  • @williamdonald274
    @williamdonald2744 жыл бұрын

    Last year 2019, I took the trans Mongolian from Moscow to Beijing . Leaving Moscow at 23.55 on a Tuesday night and arriving into Beijing on the following Monday and 14.35. I took the journey in early March so Siberia was still covered in Snow. The train was not very busy and it was an amazing journey

  • @TheGreatSteve
    @TheGreatSteve4 жыл бұрын

    I was just about to click on another video but, "I like trains!"

  • @--enyo--

    @--enyo--

    4 жыл бұрын

    I really enjoyed the Geographics one on the Orient Express as well. 🙂

  • @jg63776

    @jg63776

    4 жыл бұрын

    Nyoom

  • @lucasrem

    @lucasrem

    4 жыл бұрын

    why you like trains, can't drive?

  • @ianrobinson8974
    @ianrobinson89743 жыл бұрын

    Thanks for the (reinvigorated) memories Simon. I undertook this trip with 4 (5?) siblings quite some years ago travelling from Moscow to Beijing under the care of an Intreped tour leader named Baata, a lovely Mongolian woman who was 24YO at the time. Most enjoyable...overnight and several 2 day stops along the way to check out the "neighborhood" eg Ulan Baatar (also living in a Yurt). Lake Beikal was spectacular! Talk about mega; it holds about 20% of the world's fresh water! Living there are a number of species of sea animals which have evolved to live in fresh water. The trip was very worth while, particularly as it enabled you in gain knowledge of and access local peoples and cultures.

  • @Niiikh23
    @Niiikh234 жыл бұрын

    Nine years ago I went from London to Saigon by train (and bus and ferry) London to Paris, Paris to Brussels, Brussels to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Hamburg all by train. Hamburg to Copenhagen by rail replacement bus, ferry and train, Copenhagen to Stockholm by train, Stockholm to Helsinki by ferry, Helsinki to Moscow by train. Trans-mongolian to Beijing. Beijing to Nanning by train, bus to Hanoi and then a mix of trains and buses down Vietnam. Surprisingly easy if a little long-winded!

  • @omegaman1971
    @omegaman19714 жыл бұрын

    A number of years ago I traveled on the Trans Siberian Railway from Moscow to Abakan on my way to Tuva. It was a great trip both there and back. I have many good memories of that adventure.

  • @timgooding2448
    @timgooding24484 жыл бұрын

    I was waiting for this one. Just knew it had to be coming. Cheers Simon.

  • @ben3364
    @ben33644 жыл бұрын

    I used to make a goal of riding every Eastern European and Stan line. The Trans is awe-inspiring and great for rest/relax. Start at St P, go to Irkutsk or all way to Vladivistok (West to East). Don't buy tix all at once. Instead, just plan your stops before you arrive to Russia. Then, buy your next length at each station. This gives great flexibility and takes the pressure off. Segments are rarely sold out! Ride Platzkart if you wanna meet folks, not speak ANY ENGLISH and drink a lot. Go Kupe if you want some lovely solitude, reading time, etc. Oh yeah...memorize Russian alphabet first so you can at least sound out words. Aaaaand, know counting to 100!!! This is doable in like 4 days of hard study.

  • @cr10001

    @cr10001

    3 жыл бұрын

    Agree about 'learning' Cyrillic, and it's amazing how many Russian words have English or French origins once you can read them. 'Servis tsentr' for example. I found 'driving' through Moscow on Google Streetview and reading all the signs an excellent way to practice.

  • @arthas640
    @arthas6403 жыл бұрын

    2:20 that's nothing, I now a guy who went on a plane trying to go see pretty beaches and kangaroos in australia and when he woke up and the plane had landed everyone was shouting in German because hed wound up in Austria

  • @hellermartialarts1518
    @hellermartialarts15184 жыл бұрын

    In college we had Henry Rollins come by on a spoken word tour and he did about 2/3rds of his talk just retelling his recent journey on the Trans-Siberian, he did it in the winter as well.

  • @cobeyoyo766
    @cobeyoyo7664 жыл бұрын

    These videos are some of the coolest on the platform

  • @browneof
    @browneof3 жыл бұрын

    I did this in the other direction. These were my stops: Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, Ekaterinburg, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Minsk, Brest(change of gauge), Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Koln, Brussels, London. This was part of my “grand” project: leave Pittsburgh heading West and arrive back from the East, only using trains and ships(no airplanes). My most difficult problem was getting a ship across the Pacific. Eventually found a repositioning cruise from Vancouver to Yokohama. Entire journey was about 2 1/2 months.

  • @guillaumeromain6694
    @guillaumeromain66944 жыл бұрын

    Loved the video. Content and delivery. Top notch!

  • @pistolen87
    @pistolen874 жыл бұрын

    When I was little, I loved looking at my earth globe. I was amazed by the sheer seize of Russia and imagined what those places looked like. That was my motivation for taking the trip later on, which I did (Mosow - Beijing), right after high school, with two friends, we had a great time. So, what did it look like? First a lot of from Moscow Birch trees, then a lot of spruce and pine, then lake Baikal, then step, then mountains, then Beijing. Totally worth it, but probably won't do it again.

  • @megaprojects9649

    @megaprojects9649

    4 жыл бұрын

    Very cool.

  • @cr10001

    @cr10001

    3 жыл бұрын

    And a hell of a lot of trees :)

  • @BIGJATPSU
    @BIGJATPSU4 жыл бұрын

    The Napoleon cut was genius! 😉😂😂😂

  • @marksandstrom4248
    @marksandstrom42484 жыл бұрын

    For those in the US and Canada curious about trains carried by ferry boats, you can ride on the SS Badger across Lake Michigan between Manitowoc Wisconsin and Ludington Michigan, a 4-hour trip, today (summer only). I did it in 2017 and 2019. The Badger doesn't carry actual trains anymore but you can still see the rails on the docks and the main deck of the ship. The Badger is also the last passenger-carrying coal-powered steamship operating in the US. Another strange sight on the Badger to those like me who live near an ocean, is the dock setup for a location without tides.

  • @snarkyguy
    @snarkyguy3 жыл бұрын

    I live in Shanghai. I now a few friends (here in Shanghai) that have taken a train all the way from Hong Kong to London. They took a direct bullet train, the CRH, direct from Hong Kong to Beijing, then transferred to another train. I believe they had to transfer once before getting to Moscow, where they had to change at Warsaw, again at Lille, and finally arrived in London.

  • @ivanb4816
    @ivanb48163 жыл бұрын

    "All these railway lines are connected, incredible" - yeah, who would have thought.

  • @rikkeholmberg
    @rikkeholmberg4 жыл бұрын

    Travelled the Moscow-Beijing route in 1994. Still one of the highlights of my life.

  • @kennethbolton951
    @kennethbolton951 Жыл бұрын

    My room mate, the grandson of a Tombstone silver mining family told me of his grandfathers tour of duty in the American expeditionary force 7500 troops(one of many foreign armies there) in Russia's Civil war period and they were there guarding a trans section for the purpose of safeguarding the American engineers and Engines there and as the cook and an experienced prospector he was out looking for specimens and when he returned all his fellow soldiers, about twenty were dead , ambushed by red army Bolsheviks. He hiked to the next camp, reported, and later the American army force there killed about 300 red army insurgents. He brought back some amazing specimens of gold laced white quartz the size of a soccer ball. What an amazing journey. I met him , he and his wife, The Escapules were quite interesting to listen to. Think of it, a young man from Az, goes all the way around the world to guard the Trans Siberian railroad , faces unimaginable things brings back rock specimens in his duffle bags by ship, took months and they are there on his fireplace shelf.

  • @anthonyhicks9201
    @anthonyhicks92019 ай бұрын

    Thank you I have always enjoyed your documentaries. They are always educational, informative, educational and not to mention very engaging although not in person. Thank you

  • @mikehydropneumatic2583
    @mikehydropneumatic25834 жыл бұрын

    Simon, did you fall asleep on a train and ended up in the Czech Republik this way?

  • @tiffinyharrington9307

    @tiffinyharrington9307

    4 жыл бұрын

    It was romance, I believe, that landed him in Prague. I only know this through his old vlog channel.

  • @SigEpBlue

    @SigEpBlue

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@tiffinyharrington9307 Romance, on a train, after a night at the pub, and the end of the line just happened to be in Prague. ♥ Now he lives in his office, keeps two writers chained to his radiator, does a LOT of coffee & cocaine, and runs half the channels on KZread. :D

  • @lucasrem

    @lucasrem

    4 жыл бұрын

    Czech Republik, Sars? bad job? it killed him?

  • @UncleAbdul
    @UncleAbdul4 жыл бұрын

    OK, first off, a correction -- "Standard Gage" for most railroads in the world is 4-foot, 8-1/2 inches (56-1/2 inches or 1435.1 mm) not the 4-foot, 11 inches that Simon mentioned in the video. Russian railroad gage is 5-feet (60-inches or 1524 mm). Until the Trans-Baikal and Amur valley sections of the line were completed, the Trans Siberian line went down into China at Ulan-Bator and through to Harbin, China and on to Vladivostok via a ferry from China. China was a weak country back then (...Boxer Rebellion and many civil wars back then), so Chinese concessions to Russia were a lot easier at the time. I've made 7, one-way journeys on the Trans-Siberian (Khabarovsk ...where I lived and worked for 6 years... to Moscow). I've also circumnavigated the globe almost in its entirety by train in 1997. The longest overland leg was Khabarovsk to Moscow to London (via St. Petersburg, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, across France (Flanders), and on to London via the Eurostar). Another line you might want to cover in a future episode is the BAM (or БАМ, The Baikal-Amur Magistral, a more easily, militarily defended line north of the Trans-Siberian. Also in the 1930's ...in anticipation of war with Japan and/or Germany... a secret railway tunnel was built under the Amur River into Khabarovsk ...in the event the bridge was destroyed. Also in the 1990's, road transport highway lanes had been added atop the Amur River railway bridge. Great video though. I enjoyed it very much. It was a touch of "home" (...for the 6 years I was there), and brought back many memories. Good job Simon, et al.

  • @idontwanttopickone

    @idontwanttopickone

    4 жыл бұрын

    Yeah, but how many barleycorn is that? Actually, can you list it off in twip, please? Thank you good sir.

  • @CurmudgeonExtraordinaire

    @CurmudgeonExtraordinaire

    4 жыл бұрын

    @EmperorJuliusCaesar -- I'm an engineer (retired), so I can use either system, but there is nothing special about the metric system -- it is just another ARBITRARY systems. "Standard Gauge Rail" is 4 ft 8 12 inches (or 1435 mm). The US won that war and even most of the metric countries use it. You can look it up on wiki, they have a good article on the different railroad gauges in use around the world and it even goes into why the decisions were made for some of the countries. I'm not saying that the US system is perfect, but it works and it's not like we are going to change anytime soon. Most people in the US think that we only have a single definition of the "foot". That would be wrong... There's the "international foot" which is what most people think of when they are referencing their rulers or tape measures and there is the "survey foot" which is what is used for surveying your property, state borders, etc. Some people know that there is a difference between the capacity measurement units for dry items vs fluid items, but a lot less know that there is an "international foot" and a "survey foot". And to make it even more interesting, some states mandate the use of the "international foot" in their surveying and others mandate the use of the "survey foot".

  • @augustvonmackensen9785

    @augustvonmackensen9785

    4 жыл бұрын

    Grumpy OldMan Once you get accustomed to both systems it is easy, but Imperial system is “more” arbitrary than metric. At least metric system is defined by some sort of constant, unlike for example, Imperial foot ( who’s foot anyway ? ) In the beginning 1m was defined as 1/10 000 000 of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole, recently it was changed to a distance that light travels in a vacuum over time ( billionth of a second or something like that ). But depending on your perspective, you can argue that on a cosmic scale even that is arbitrary - unit of measurement selected by beings living on the 3rd rock from the Sun. Btw, did you know that 4 degrees of temperature is not double of 2 degrees of temperature ?? 🤯 I’m confused 😁

  • @CurmudgeonExtraordinaire

    @CurmudgeonExtraordinaire

    4 жыл бұрын

    @EmperorJuliusCaesar -- And where are *you* located that it makes you think that the metric system is any different than any other arbitrary measuring standard? Just look at the history of the definition of the meter and you'll see that it is not based on any intrinsic constant, but rather a rough approximation and then a bunch of redefinitions to try to make it more uniform. I don't care what measuring system you use, it is still based on arbitrary units. Unlike you, I'm willing to recognize this and deal with whichever unit of measurement I happen to have to deal with at that time. And by the way, your 97% figure is totally crap (87.628% of all statistics are made up on the spot)... Just the US makes up a bit over 23% of the entire world and that doesn't count the other countries that use the US system. And then there is the UK which seems to use the Imperial system and the metric system, basically whichever is convenient at the time. Not that I mind since the pubs are required to sell beer in *Imperial pints* (20 Imperial ounces, which works out to be a bit over 19 US ounces). In fact, I'm sitting here right now drinking a bottle of Guinness which states that it is "22 oz". I'm not sure where that size comes from though. In Imperial Ounces, it works out to be around 22.9 and in liters, it is 0.650618, so no nice even number seems to show up. It's all arbitrary units of measurements, so just admit it, grab a cold brew, and deal with it...

  • @TravelingTulleys
    @TravelingTulleys3 жыл бұрын

    2016 we went from Beijing to St. Petersburg on the train. Stopped for a week at a time along the way. In November. Loved every minute. Highly recommend traveling westerly, the accommodations improve along the way! Ulan Bator, Lake Baikal, Krasnoyarsk, Ekaterinburg, Moskow, and SP. Everyone was super friendly and helpful.

  • @stevemarethyu3003
    @stevemarethyu30034 жыл бұрын

    I went to Siberia with a group in 1995. We flew into Khabarovsk and boarded the train there. We almost missed the train, which was a lot of fun! Some of the highlights were buying food from people at the train stops, seeing Lake Baikal, though we only passed the narrow part of it so it wasn't that impressive, and having the conductor threaten to unhook our train car when we wouldn't pay for "ticket upgrades". The dining car was also fun the one time we went there. After several weeks in Krasnoyarsk, we took the train the rest of the way Moscow. It was a really amazing experience! Also, it was summer so it was hot the entire time we were there and only rained once. Not the Siberia of popular imagination, though Krasnoyarsk is fairly south for Siberia.

  • @TheBurg229
    @TheBurg2293 жыл бұрын

    The story of the Czech Legion on the Trans Siberian is amazing too.

  • @davidcool140
    @davidcool1404 жыл бұрын

    always wanted to learn about the trans-Siberian railway!

  • @hudsoncampbell5064

    @hudsoncampbell5064

    4 жыл бұрын

    I don't believe you.

  • @debbiekerr3989

    @debbiekerr3989

    4 жыл бұрын

    I've heard about the line, but this is the first time I've seen any video concerning the full account. I think Simon skimped a little on the history, but going into that much detail would have turned this into a 1 hour video.

  • @cpt7486

    @cpt7486

    4 жыл бұрын

    What a strange thing to want.

  • @cianakril

    @cianakril

    4 жыл бұрын

    Or buy a ticket.

  • @vixendoe2545

    @vixendoe2545

    4 жыл бұрын

    Wonder no more! Crack on!

  • @dougbourdo2589
    @dougbourdo25893 жыл бұрын

    Excellent video Simon. Tremendously intriguing.

  • @DonniSkattered
    @DonniSkattered4 жыл бұрын

    Great video! The history of rail transportation for both goods and people ha a always been super interesting to me! Thanks!

  • @nashthebaker9338
    @nashthebaker93384 жыл бұрын

    This railway is the beginning of Snowpiercer.

  • @alexrossouw7702
    @alexrossouw77024 жыл бұрын

    Tsar Nicolas: "Build my train" Soviets: "...our train"

  • @MrWhangdoodles
    @MrWhangdoodles4 жыл бұрын

    We've done it from Vienna to Vladivostok and then all the way to Seoul. Obviously the last part of the journey was on a ship, but it took me 6 weeks. We did loads of sight seeing in Europe using Interrail and basically saw all of the Northern East with Belarus as the exception. I wouldn't recommend 3rd class, I took 2nd class. Don't forget to bring plenty of booze, your companions won't and hangovers are better than being sober for a week with a bunch of drunken idiots. The journey from Vladivostok to Seoul was adventurous as well, but we did loads of sight seeing, with one stop for some explosive diarrhoea (don't go drinking with Siberian Russians, and then eat their pickled fish.). We went from Russia to Japan and from there to South Korea. It was the journey of a lifetime and it cost less than 2k in euros including food, transport, shelter and booze and THANK GOD FOR GOOGLE TRANSLATE AND MAPS. The return trip was done with an airplane. As fun and harrowing at times as it was the 11 hour flight back felt weird. I'd traveled through almost all of Europe and Asia on land and flying back was kind of magical. I recommend this for people in their 20s and adventurous people in their 30s. For all Middle aged people, use a plane.

  • @mattjohnson8644
    @mattjohnson86444 жыл бұрын

    I love the way you end your videos. They give a meaningful reminder of how big a world we live in and how many great things can be done, all in a way that still sheds light on the topic while giving due respect to the matter. Keep it up!

  • @brianmacdonnacha1
    @brianmacdonnacha14 жыл бұрын

    I've gone from Pyongyang (NK) to Beijing (China), to Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), up to Irkutsk, on to Moscow and finished in Saint Petersburg. Quite the train journey. I wish I'd taken it to London. That would have been epic.

  • @afischer8327
    @afischer83272 жыл бұрын

    The Czech Legion's control of the Trans-Siberian Railway during the Russian Civil War. If you haven't covered this already, it's an incredible story.

  • @morenofranco9235
    @morenofranco92352 жыл бұрын

    Thanks, Simon, for another great video. As always.

  • @michelleschmidt2425
    @michelleschmidt24253 жыл бұрын

    Honestly never seen you so animated. Your enthusiasm for this topic made it that much more interesting.

  • @faisalhalim
    @faisalhalim4 жыл бұрын

    Hi Simon. You might like reading: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux The author details his journey in the early 2000's (this was his second, the first one being in the1970's) of just such a trip -- London to Tokyo, and back. Have fun!

  • @MahraiZiller
    @MahraiZiller3 жыл бұрын

    The reason millimetres is used officially is just down to the precision required by the project. You can use meters, as long as you’re not an engineer working on the system.

  • @nortonhatfield7312

    @nortonhatfield7312

    3 жыл бұрын

    in America, it would be dubbed in feet and inches.

  • @MahraiZiller

    @MahraiZiller

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@nortonhatfield7312 personally, I prefer feet and inches - they make more sense mathematically and can be divided more precisely.

  • @michaelstewartthepianoplay8078
    @michaelstewartthepianoplay80783 жыл бұрын

    Brilliant, Simon! One of your many thoroughly enjoyable videos. Given all the absolute rubbish available to watch on television these days, your videos are a breath of fresh air in my life. Thank you, Simon.

  • @alexanderasadullah5253
    @alexanderasadullah52534 жыл бұрын

    Great job as always

  • @bryanbatz2987
    @bryanbatz29874 жыл бұрын

    I know this wasn’t built but the concept is interesting to say the least. The Maga City of Germania. This mega project is something that has interested me as a historian. You think you could do a video on it please.

  • @cordellselman1116
    @cordellselman11164 жыл бұрын

    Holy shit, never been this early. Cheers mate. Keep up the great content.

  • @WilliamTurk
    @WilliamTurk4 жыл бұрын

    London to Tokyo via rail vs. car/ferry sounds like the ultimate Grand Tour challenge.

  • @matti1595
    @matti15953 жыл бұрын

    I love playing your videos while I do homework Love your work man

  • @Wppk765
    @Wppk7654 жыл бұрын

    One thumbs down, really? Musta been a disgruntled gulag worker...

  • @holdadoor722

    @holdadoor722

    4 жыл бұрын

    Really, who would thumb down this awesomeness?

  • @artur7301

    @artur7301

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@holdadoor722 a ukrainian nationalist

  • @GM-xk1nw

    @GM-xk1nw

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@artur7301 or an American nationalist

  • @JeffDeWitt

    @JeffDeWitt

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@GM-xk1nw I'm an American nationalist (which isn't a bad thing) and not only did I give this a thumbs up if I had the chance I'd LOVE to take this trip. Just because I believe the US to be the best doesn't mean I can't appreciate the accomplishments of other countries, and this railroad is an amazing accomplishment.

  • @jaw0449
    @jaw04494 жыл бұрын

    "Can't I just say meters instead of mm?" lol...story of my life as physicist

  • @peterwilhelmsson4168
    @peterwilhelmsson41683 жыл бұрын

    Hands down the best episode to date. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

  • @granarybread8766
    @granarybread87664 жыл бұрын

    I went from Shanghai to London by rail, pretty amazing journey. The Gobi Desert was stunning, seeing the Great Wall in silhouette against a sunset amazing, and Lake Baikal fabulous. Rather dull Irkutsk to Moscow, lots of pine trees!

  • @gold-818
    @gold-8184 жыл бұрын

    We need a bridge between Russia and Alaska imagine being able to go from South Africa to Argentina on a train.

  • @timothykeith1367

    @timothykeith1367

    4 жыл бұрын

    Its technically possible to bridge. The Bering strait reaches 160 feet depth, but it would connect with a remote part of Alaska.

  • @Poctyk

    @Poctyk

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@timothykeith1367 aka bridge from nowhere into nothing

  • @MarloSoBalJr

    @MarloSoBalJr

    4 жыл бұрын

    It would be fascinating but possibly dangerous as well. Plus, the section of Alaska this railway would bridge is in icy remote areas.

  • @freeculture

    @freeculture

    4 жыл бұрын

    That proposal has seen decades in planning, and the Russians, at the very least the current gov showed signs of interest and even started extending the line to reach the farthest city in that direction. To be decided if its a bridge or a tunnel or a combination, similar to the one connecting UK and France, or the impressive ocean bridges made by China and elsewhere. In America they would need to make a line from there into south Alaska and Canada. Its literally a "megaproject", I think it was covered in one of those tv shows bearing that name... But perhaps the current US administration isn't that interested in opening yet more routes to foreign imports (exporting is overrated), so there might be a delay on this side... It will probably be just cargo route, alternative to sea shipping, because moving passengers over there would take a lot of time. Not impossible, but not cheap. Think of a "hotel on wheels" which why its so "expensive". In a way, its connecting the last piece of what used to be Russia, and in another, the last continent to connect directly by rail with the rest of the planet; so its not just north america but south america as well possibly wanting to move cargo across all continents and back.

  • @timothykeith1367

    @timothykeith1367

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@MarloSoBalJr Ah! Climate change!

  • @geniumme2502
    @geniumme25024 жыл бұрын

    AMA: I Took the Railway from The Netherlands, all the way to trough russia, mongolia and china to Hongkong.

  • @stevepittman3770

    @stevepittman3770

    4 жыл бұрын

    This is something I'd very much like to do someday. How much does it generally cost? How much Russian do you need to know to not get on the wrong train? Is there much English spoken by passengers or staff? Cyrillic hurts my brain so I don't think I'll ever learn Russian. :/

  • @geniumme2502

    @geniumme2502

    4 жыл бұрын

    @Mark Gaiennie Hey :) Yes! i loved it! i travelled a lot in my life but that one is absolutly in the top 3! Uhm well im German, and i had not been in germany for a while before so getting my visa in time was quite a pain. It depends on you wanting to do china as well, both of those countries require me to send in my passport with a clear list of where i will be staying - so i had to do one after the other and both had to happen after the reservation of the train and with me not being in germany. all a little difficult but easily doable under better circumstances haha. i have spend 1500euro in my 5 1/2 weeks on the trip. you be the judge :) any trip can be done cheap and expensive this is no different. overall i would say its very cheap if your fine with sleeping on the train and only going for night trains and then spend a day or two or three in each city you stop in :) for us the trip was the goal :) i had some work to do in Shenzhen and then took the plane back from honkong to the Netherlands. If you do this for fun i wouldnt recommend staying on the train 7 days straight :D

  • @geniumme2502

    @geniumme2502

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@stevepittman3770 cost: see my answer a min ago :) i did the trip for fairly cheap. train is about 600+ euro but depneds alot on time of year number of stops and of course the class you want. i wouldnt recommend lowest tier if you want to have a relaxed trip. but i also dont think first class is worth unless money is no objective. I know 0 russian. my chinese is very very bad as well haha. you can do it without. but i strongly recommend getting apps for autotranslate and a camera one for translating writing. people around you wont speak english be prepared for that. again depends on class. in first class most people are foreigners and they will know english. but anywhere else there are few and far between. again time of year dependent. But i also got a tendency to not got to touristy spots so yea. Russian 95%. and some students and kids wanting to practice their school english with you :D im not dedicated enught to learn it either :) translation apps are your friend. and unless you get stranded at a train station in the middle of nowhere its 100% fine without any Russian knowledge at all :) (make sure your app can read train tickets cause you certainly wont be able to xD)

  • @davidbarrett590
    @davidbarrett5904 жыл бұрын

    Fantastic! Thank you SImon.

  • @BillViall
    @BillViall3 жыл бұрын

    That was really great. During the Yeltin’s years, I twice took the Trans-Siberian to Baikal, one of those trips to Ulan-Ude, the capitol of Buryatia. I also road a train to Vorkuta, beyond the Arctic Circle, at the top of the Gulag Archipelago. Russian trains are remarkable as the country itself. I lived there five years under Yeltsin. The Russians are a remarkable who are greatly misunderstood. You do great work. I really appreciate your sense of awe, curiosity & enthusiasm. Thank you.

  • @adambethel9613
    @adambethel96133 жыл бұрын

    Could you imagine going to the pub with Simon and falling asleep on the train and ending up in Pyongyang

  • @aaronseet2738
    @aaronseet27384 жыл бұрын

    "I happened to doze off on the train and ended up at the opposite end of Russia."

  • @barrytschirpig9328
    @barrytschirpig93283 жыл бұрын

    Back in October 2019, I did the Trans-Siberian Railway as part of a three week trip from the UK back to Australia. By rail, I managed to go from Gloucester, UK (where I was living at the time) to Vladivostok. Along the way, I had multi-day stopovers at London, Cologne, Sulechów (Poland, near where my great, great, great grandfather Tschirpig was born) and Moscow. The Trans-Siberian Railway portion of the trip was done in a first class cabin, which I shared with a friendly Russian lady. Each day by rail offered a different set of scenery; with a mix of farmland, forest, mountains, waterways and snow. The highlight of the Trans-Siberian Railway trip was passing along the storefront of Lake Baikal between Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude. Once in Vladivostok, I had an overnight stay in the city before catching a flight home to family in Brisbane (via an layover in Toyko).

  • @barrytschirpig9328

    @barrytschirpig9328

    3 жыл бұрын

    Also, I did a blog to chronicle my international adventures. The post for my day traveling around Lake Baikal is: barryoperationuk2019.wordpress.com/2020/04/12/nightly-roundup-15-10-19/

  • @harryhack6870
    @harryhack68703 жыл бұрын

    Thanks. Enjoyed this.

  • @LoPhatKao
    @LoPhatKao4 жыл бұрын

    Business Blaze is leaking into Simon's other channels, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

  • @wietzepost
    @wietzepost4 жыл бұрын

    Yes, you could go from London to Vladivostok/Beijing by train: London - Amsterdam - Moscow - Vladivostok/Beijing. You could probably go via Kiev too, instead of Moscow.

  • @theshadowman1398

    @theshadowman1398

    4 жыл бұрын

    Why on earth would anyone skip Moscow in favor of Kiev ?

  • @ramseykiven2080

    @ramseykiven2080

    4 жыл бұрын

    I think he’s saying go to kiev before moscow..right?!

  • @antonkarpov6196

    @antonkarpov6196

    4 жыл бұрын

    I don't think there is direct train from Amsterdam to Moscow. There was Paris-Moscow (via Berlin and Warsaw), but it canceled due virus.

  • @mihan2d

    @mihan2d

    4 жыл бұрын

    Paris instead of Amsterdam. There's a direct weekly Paris - Moscow train, but obviously it will resume only after the pandemic situation is settled more or less.

  • @kentcourtney5535
    @kentcourtney55354 жыл бұрын

    Super coverage of an incredible realign!

  • @nhoover
    @nhoover3 жыл бұрын

    Nice video! In June, 1992 I was living in Tokyo and it was time to move back home to the US. So we took the ferry to Vladivostok, then the Trans-Siberian to Moscow. During the cold war the western terminus was in Nakhodka but in June 1992 Vladivostok was reopened - we took the second ferry from Japan and then had quite an adventure on the Trans-Siberian, including getting left behind in Novosibirsk (with our 4 month old!) We had a nice stop in Irkutsk for a couple of days too - Siberia is beautiful and friendly in June. The plans for extending to Sakhalin and then to Hokkaido sound amazing.

  • @MrDoYouKnowMe2211
    @MrDoYouKnowMe22114 жыл бұрын

    Is it just me or has Simon kind of 'loosened up' since he started doing Business Blaze? I feel like he used to be a lot more solemn and professional. I.e. soulless. Certainly a welcome change.

  • @holdadoor722

    @holdadoor722

    4 жыл бұрын

    I find his personality changing between his different channels.

  • @brando8086

    @brando8086

    4 жыл бұрын

    Beard is slowly changing

  • @SigEpBlue

    @SigEpBlue

    4 жыл бұрын

    Allegedly.

  • @MrDoYouKnowMe2211

    @MrDoYouKnowMe2211

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@holdadoor722 I think it's changed overall. Seems a lot more playful. Sure, not to the same extent on TIFO and Bio/geographics, but still.

  • @SteRDLK

    @SteRDLK

    4 жыл бұрын

    Torkil he understands his audience better, the audience will accept the Whistler banter even on the serious channels

  • @chethu69
    @chethu694 жыл бұрын

    Hi Simon, can you cover a Megaproject from India: "Polavaram Project" - the largest irrigation project in the world. It would be great if you can cover megaprojects from India as well.

  • @tuguldurbaatar
    @tuguldurbaatar3 жыл бұрын

    I’ve done Ulaanbaatar to London in 1991 using mix of train, car and ferry. The journey started Oct 10 departing from Ulaanbaatar to Moscow for 5 days on the train. Then 1 night in Moscow followed by 2 days train ride to Prague. From Prague drove to Rotterdam and then ferry ride to Dover. The most memorable part of the trip were the lunch/dinner on the Trans-Mongolian train and encountering sellers/buyers at each stop.

  • @impeccable3003
    @impeccable30034 жыл бұрын

    Next pls the "Semmering Railway" constructed by Carl Ritter von Ghega, which was the first mountain railway ever built

  • @rgeorgek42
    @rgeorgek424 жыл бұрын

    Maybe you could do a “Rail-graphics” or “Megaprojects Mobile Edition” and film all the channels from a rail car.

  • @MakovskiyRodion
    @MakovskiyRodion3 жыл бұрын

    1:06 - it's Trans-Mongolian Railway or Manchuria Railway - only one track and no catenary. (Trans-Syberian fully elecrificated and minimum double-tracked. 1:12 - it's Circum-Baikal railway - there are more than half century not a part of Trans-Syberian. 1:45 - again Trans-Mongolian or Manchuria Railway - no catenary and single-track. 2:51 - really old photo - there are no green carriages, all Russia passenger trains have white/grey-red livery 9:15 - it's not 1903 - it's about 1980 photo. 12:15 - finally - Trans-Siberian railway... 14:18 - it's somewhere in Ukraine or Moscow region in Soviet era. Blue and yellow stripe is Ukrainian livery. 15:41 - it's private "Golden Eagle" train only for tourists and have no schedule - by order only. www.goldeneagleluxurytrains.com/trains/golden-eagle/ 15:51 - again - it's no TS raiway. 15:55 - old photo - there are no those livery, all carriages "Rossiya" train repainted in red ang grey a lot of years ago. 19:20 - Circum-Baikal railway and tourist retro train, not TS. 20:14 - it's no today, it's about 15 years ago... Today Russian Railways State company have no green carriages and Belorussian train (Blue with white stripe). 20:27 - "Belorussian" line in Moscow and Belorussian train - it not TS.

  • @rohannock

    @rohannock

    3 жыл бұрын

    You forgot to say that he is Gay ! hahaha...

  • @emilkarpo
    @emilkarpo4 жыл бұрын

    Several years ago I flew from LA to London and then spent the next almost 4 months traveling from London to Singapore by train except for the gap across Cambodia. That trip I took the Trans-Mongolian route. The next year I did much of the trip in reverse via the Trans-Manchurian. When the world settles down I'm going back to ride the BAM.

  • @thesylance
    @thesylance3 жыл бұрын

    Skillshare link used, worked like a charm. Thx for your great content Simon!