26-27 June Tran Siberian / Trans Mongolian - Second stop - 2 days in Moscow

26 June, Sunday

A jolt on the rail woke us up at 5am and we found ourselves photographing a sunrise.  Then we back to sleep at 6 am and did not wake up again until 7.30 am when the hostess came with our breakfast.  That was great in-cabin service.  A lightly fried egg (local version of omelette which we actually like better it did not contain milk), cultured milk and a cup of coffee.  It was just the right amount of food for that hour of the day.

Sunrise over a misty valley

The corridor of our train

The train arrived early, at 8.20 am.  Our room mate dressed in a quick hurry and was already out with her handbag in no time at all.  We got out of the cabin and on to the tracks where we found our driver waiting.  All 6 of us now were now piled into the mini van which took us to our hotel which appeared to be some distance away from the city center.  Compared to St Petersburg, thus far, Moscow appeared more drab and grey.  We were too early to check into our room so we left our luggage with reception.  They were really nice, placing our camera bag in their front office so that it would not damaged.  The ladies at reception were really nice.  They even opened up the gym for us so that we could have a shower.  It was a pity that it would be so rushed … that we will only have one night there … as there is a sauna and a whirlpool in the gym that was open to guests.  We could do with a visit to both.  We showered and changed into more sensible clothes to handle the 33 deg C heat.

We were now a large group of 19.  Some of the folks who were coming from Beijing and on their way to St Petersburg.  Others would join us later on the Trans Mongolian.  A mini bus came for us and there were two guides, a slightly older lady who was a fuddy duddy like Natalia and the other, Marina, who is dynamic.  The fuddy duddy appeared to be the senior guide.  They would work together to get us to the places that we needed to go.   This was just the English speaking group.  Suzy and Wolfgang would join the German speaking group.

We figured out the way Go.Russia work.  Every day at each of the stops, there would be a day activity which any group that happened to be in town would join.  One could stay longer a day or more in a stop place provided that there was a train to the next stop on the day of desired departure.  It did not matter if one was travelling the Trans Siberian or the Trans Mongolian and whether one was going eastwards or westwards.  That explained the sudden increase of number of folks that met in Moscow.

GOM

The mini bus took off and our first stop was the Red Square.  Red means beautiful and had nothing to do with the colour associated with Communism or the Red Army.  On one side of the Red Square is the Kremlin.  Opposite it is GOM.  At one end was St Basil and at the other end the Museum of History.  

Lenin's mausoleum & Museum of History

Outside the Kremlin walls is the necropolis of Soviet leaders and Monument to the Heroes of Soviet.  And along this same wall is the mausoleum of Lenin.

Kremlin with necropolis of Soviet leaders

We would first visit Lenin’s mausoleum.  There was quite a queue outside and it was terribly hot standing in line in the sun.  Entry was free but security was tight.  We were advised to leave everything we did not need to carry with us on the mini-bus.  Even water bottles were not permitted.  

Inside the mausoleum, we were not to move our hands or talk.  In silence, we walked around embalmed body of Lenin, tilted slightly at an angle so that his head is higher than his feet.  He was in a suit with his left hand open and his right in a fist.  His expression was as if he would wake up any minute and said boo to scare his visitors.  He looked like he was having a dream that gave him a wry sly sinister smile.  Martin walked with me and we paced as slowly as we could.  Many still visit this mausoleum.  Even today, there are Russians who leave flowers for him.

Model of St Basil

Coming out from the mausoleum, we visited the Heroes’ Memorial outside.  Then we walked towards St Basil.  We walked along the walls of Kremlin from the outside to St Basil’s - now a museum church - to look at all the various churches inside of it.  There are an unbelievable number of churches inside St Basil - it is a conglomerate of 10 churches.  Built originally by Ivan the Terrible, the deeds of St Basil who was later interred in one of the churches within the Cathedral resulted in the church being colloquially referred to as St Basil.  Eventually that becomes its name.  St Basil was a hermit born to serf who was brave enough to rebuke Ivan the Terrible and shame the miserly; he was some kind of a Robin Hood in his days as well as a fakir.  The inside of the church dedicated to him tell of his deeds. 

Inside one of the churches in St Basil

A decorated corridor

Almost every inch inside the Cathedral is highly decorated.  We walked through a warren of tunnels and corridors that linked each of the churches to the others.  In one of these, a gentlemen choir gave us a performance, singing the prayers of Simon.  Their a cappella performance could rival professional groups like El Divio. 

Exiting the church, we had a look around Red Square where various market stalls had been set up for the festivities associated with summer.  We finally understood that Kremlin meant a fortress within a city.  The use of the word predated Communism and KGB.  Kremlin was the original fortress of Moscow.  Moscow is referred by the locals as Moscova.  Its name came from the river running through it and it means associated with waters.  

Inside GOM

Our next stop was GOM, the largest shoping centre in Moscow.  We would all have lunch there.  Pots of colourful live flowers appear to cover all possible spare space to celebrate the spring festival.  Toni and Rob from Minnesota whom we had just me that morning was going to show us the Russian buffet restaurant they had found on the third floor the night before when they were at GOM.  We followed.  They must have taken a wrong turn somewhere as we were walking around for a while without finding it.  We got too hungry to go on looking.  So when we next stumbled on an Italian buffet, we decided that was where we would have lunch.  It was run like a milk-bar in Poland.  We opted for cold tomato soup to increase our Vitamin C intake, a slice of mushroom pizza, a Danish and some fizzy water.  The weather that day had been increasingly hot and energy sapping.  Lunch came up to 470 roubles (less than 10AUD).  All our original travelling companions from St Petersburg sat together at a table to eat and rest.  We were a little too drained energy wise to explore the mall, even though it looked like it could be interesting.

At the appointed time to meet the rest of the group for continuing the activities for the afternoon, we went to the designated meeting place but no one was there.  Suspecting that we may be at the wrong spot, we went outside to check and found that we were waiting at the wrong exit.  There were three identical looking exits.  We found the others and went back to fetch our travelling companions.  Once the group was complete, our guides walked us to the car park of the Kremlin, where our mini bus picked us up to continue the sightseeing.

University of Technology

We drove past the University of Technology, one of Stalin’s 7 skyscrappers.  He was going to have 8 in Moscow but only 7 were built.  There are two apartment buildings, two government departments and two hotels besides the University.  They were sometimes referred to as Stalin's seven sisters.  The University building was huge and reminded us of the building by the same name in Riga.  
  

Looking at Moscow from Sparrow Hill

Opposite it, quite a distance off was Sparrow’s Hill lookout.  We stopped there a while to take in the Moscow’s skyline.  We were happiest when Rob showed us his find : hvass, cold and refreshing Kbac as it is called here.  We got one and introduced Martin to it.  It was great to have something cold and refreshing to drink.  

Novodevichy Monastery

Back in the bus, we almost nodded off from the heat.  We called shotgun so that we could take advantage of the space to take city scape pictures.  We drove past Novodevichy Convent (aka New Maiden Convent) where we were told that Peter the Great sent his wife so that she can become a nun to path the way for him to marry his second wife, Catherine I.  Tsars often built monasteries that were fortified fortresses around Moscow to protect Moscow as they can be turned into battle fortresses if the necessity arose.  We were looking at the Monastery from the garden opposite it where there are ducks swimming.  In this garden is also a statue of a mother duck with 8 ducklings – a present from Barbara Bush to the children of Moscow, we were told.  Wikipedia said that it was given by Barbara to her Russian counterpart as part of the START (Strategic Arm Reduction Treaty) and that it is a duplicate of the original in Boston Public Garden.

Mother duck with ducklings

By now, even as our fuddy duddy guide pointed out every building of significance as we drive by them, we were hot and tired and nodding off.  The tone of her voice and her presentation of the facts were not such that we would remember anything.  The guides of the free walking tours elsewhere were all much better at this.  They did not do data dump but addressed only the salient highlights.  

We got back to the hotel at 2pm, checked in and proceeded to do some laundry straight away.  Martin was not going to do his laundry but changed his mind later and did some too. We are becoming a great brother - sister team.  Our room was quite huge with a large window as well.  We let him choose his side of the room first this time; he chose the side near the windows.  Our hotel was not as far out of town as we thought but it was still some 10km away from the Red Square.  Katerina City is located opposite the Moskva River from Moscow International House of Music, its performing arts center.

The fuddy duddy said that we had some issues with our tickets to the Krelim the next day. We could not understand a word she said.  They must have made some mistake somewhere.  The receptionist that spoke great English and Marina then said everything would be taken care of, so there was no problem.  It appeared that my travelling companion require a different ticket from the rest of the visitors the next day. 

The godwit that surprised us

While Martin was doing laundry, we did a little blogging and FB.  After laundry, we decided to go for a walk around our area before we fell asleep from the heat.  At 6pm, we walked out of our hotel, went across to the lake on the other side of the Moskva River and tried to check out the Monastery whose domes we could see.  The Novospassky Monastery was actually the first monastery of Moscow and one of those fortified fortress.  The Romanov's family were patrons of the monastery long before they were imperial family.   However, that did not work out, as there was no visible entry.  We walked around the lake instead.  We were surprised to see a godwit near the lake side where local men and their pet dogs were swimming in the lake.  It was such a beautiful bird too.

Novospassky Monastery by night

A little tired, we decided to look for a pub to grab a drink.  Martin wanted to see watch the Euro Cup.  We decided that we would go to dinner together that evening.  We explored the side of the Moskva River where the Music House is.  Everything was closed except for this pub looking place which turned out to be a fish restaurant.  We decided that it was a good place for a rest but not for dinner.  So we had a drink, a Kiwi soda for 150 roubles (50 being tip, ~ 3 AUD) and watched Germany vs Slovakia where Germany led by 2-0, then went back to the hotel to get some recommendation for dining places.  

At reception, the young lady, who took such good care of our camera bag and also let me into the spa earlier suggested Oblomov, siggested a Russian restaurant which she marked on the map for us.   We put Oblomov into Maps.Me.  It was somewhere near the main drag where we had seen some restaurants and retail stores earlier.  We found it after some convoluted walk using Map.Me.  We walked along some streets that looked neighbourhood-like and others that were quiet.  We were not sure if it was Sunday or something else.  We found this restaurant that looked like a beer garden outside.  It was a little chilly so we decided that we would sit inside rather than outside.

The inside was super posh with velvet giant arm chairs.  It looked like something one would imagine in an Agatha Christe's novels.  They brought us little stools for our backpacks. Martin ordered beer and beef stroganoff and we ordered hvass and duck leg in berry sauce. Both mains would be cooked on Russian stove.  We had no idea what that meant.  They brought us some black and brown bread with butter when they brought our drinks.  We nimbled on these and enjoyed the atmosphere.  But when our dinners had not arrived after 30 minutes, we got hungry and antsy.   We made the hungry gesture with knife in one hand and fork in another followed by psycho hand with knife in right hand.  Martin made like he was falling asleep.  We were just clowning around, as we were hungry and really wanted our dinner.  Outside in the beer garden, we could see that some other locals had turned up for dinner.  In the saloon like place, we were the only guests.  A waitress approached us and said dinner will be ready in a few minute, explaining that Russian stove was slow cooking.  They must have been able to see our gestures!!  They brought the food a little later.  It as delicious and fresh.  It was great atmosphere with easy listening music in the background.  They lit candles around us.  We felt like really rich upper class folks sitting there except we were in shorts, travel gear and backpacks.

Moscow Performing Arts Center
opposite our hotel

After dinner, we watched our waitress stroked the back neck feather of the residential pet parrot, Romu.  We started to do the same but she stopped us before the parrot nipped our fingers.  We were really happy when we left … the price was not too bad … 1000 roubles, double the usual Russian standard but barely 20 AUD.  It was a great experience.  We sauntered back to the hotel.  We stayed to take some night photos as finally the nights were blue for a change.  The lights came on around 10pm.  Martin was going to take some pictures too and panicked when he could not find his camera as he had me taking a picture of him earlier in the restaurant.  He was almost going to have reception call the restaurant when he found it at the bottom of his bag.

We fell asleep shortly after coming back to the room, too tired after the night before of not long enough sleep.  The heat had taken a lot out of us too.

27 June, Monday

Woke up with a start at 7 am with the cock crow and did a bee line for the bathroom.  We showered and then we packed while Martin showered.  We went down to breakfast and shared a table with Paul and Wendy.  After they left, Wolfgang appeared and shortly thereafter, Suzi appeared.  We left to finish packing, checked out at 8.30 am and placed our bag in luggage room with computer bag at the care of front desk. 

Kremlin with Lenin's mausoleum;
Putin's office peeking from behind Kremlin

The rest of the folks appeared and we all took the Metro with Marina to the Theater Stop outside the Kremlin.  We found out that we could not get to the Kremlin by the usual way through the gardens because it had been closed off.  Later we would find out that there was a political event there.  As the German group was late, they were further delayed by this event.  We had to walk a long detour to get to the Armory Museum of the Kremlin.  And in that heat, it was not a pleasant walk.  We were glad when we got to the Armory.

This Armory museum only had two rooms of armors in its 11 rooms.  Instead it held most of Russian treasures, including gifts from foreign dignitaries.  Anna, the young lady at reception earlier in the morning yesterday came with special tickets for my travelling companion.  She had two special tickets.  Anna made sure that she got in.  Anna became her special guide.

The first room we visited was that of Carriages that were used by Catherine the Great.  Because she was born to Peter the Great and her mother before they were properly married, she was considered illegitimate and could not inherit the throne.  She managed anyway by way of a cue de tat.  She was quite good empress in that she preserved a lot of culture.  We saw the costumes and thrones of Ivan the Terrible and the double throne when Peter the Great was crowned at 10 together with his older brother Ivan at 15.  Peter’s throne had a window where servants would help him perform his duties.  Eventually, Ivan died of small pox and Peter went on to be Peter the Great.  The same Peter that made St Petersburg, the capital of Russia.

There were costumes, coronation crowns, and gifts to and from other countries to Russia.  Catherine I was the first to be crowned as a woman and with a crown.  Before that, it was a special hat.  Peter the Great, the great innovator replaced the hat with a crown.  Peter was also a skilled craftsman and made his own boots.  Imagine an emperor making his own boots.

The Cathedral of the Annunciation
within the Cathedral Square of Kremlin

After the Armory Museum, we visited the most important Cathedral of the Kremlin, the Cathedral of Assumption.  There are 7 cathedrals within the Cathedral.  Apparently, silver roof domes meant that male members of Tsar's family or important patriarchs were buried in those churches.  None of the churches permit photography inside.  

Tsar Bell

Tsar Canon

Kremlin also required that we walk only on the paths, no short cuts through the grass or even step on it accidentally.  Policemen were watching all the times.  Whistles were blown every time there was an infraction, however, small it might be.

We walked to the Grand Kremlin Palace, which is now the official resident of the President of Russia.  We visited the various towers within the grounds.  There was a Tsar Canon - the largest in the world but has never been used.  There was also a Tsar Bell which has never been hung or rung.  Near one of the entrances is a beautiful garden with a peacock fountain.  The group then headed out to GOM again for lunch when the visit to the Kremlin was done.  Martin and I decided to do a runner, getting something to eat from the kiosk in the garden and sat there instead. Then we went to look for and found Putin’s helipad inside the Kremlin.  We actually head out just in time to join the others at the meeting place at the appointed time.

Helipad in Kremlin

Our next mission was to visit some of the very special and exotic metro stops.   There are many metro stations in Moscow which looked more like lavish hotels, palaces or opera houses.  They were not merely metro stations but were real work of arts.  However, due to the time when we would have to leave to catch our trains for Ekaterinburg and the delay earlier that morning due to the political event near the Kremlin, our time for this activity was strictly limited.  

Although in the morning, we were originally assigned to fuddy duddy group, we somehow migrated to Marina's group.  The four of us were on tight schedule so we decided to move with Marina as her group moved much faster so we could see more station.  We managed to get a taste of the metro stations, visiting Ploschad Revolyutsii, Arbatskaya and Kievskaya stations.

Ploschad Revolytsii

Ploschad Revolyutsii contain a large number of bronze statues of both soldiers and ordinary people in every day life positions.  Arbatskaya is also a bomb shelter (including nuclear bombs) as well as a metro station.  

Arbatskaya

As a result, it is larger and deeper than most other metro stations.  Kievskaya is the station honouring Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet bloc, contributing to its food supply.  

Kievskaya

Earlier in the morning, we had been to the Theatre Station and our home station was Paveletskaya.  

Paveletskaya

Paveletskaya

We arrived back at our home station shortly after 3pm for transfer pick up.  We had been running late.  Mariana left us at the station and fuddy duddy walked us back but she was so slow so Martin and I and Paul and Wendy broke from the rest of the group.  We found Suzi and Wolfgang waiting for us, and we were already 15 minutes late.  We loaded our bags in a hurry and the driver rushed us to our station.  This one was better than our driver in St Petersburg as he walked us on to our platform.

Our train was not exactly ready for boarding.  The rest of us wanted to go and get some food and drinks so Wolfgang was left guarding all the luggage.  We got him a beer for that. We got ourselves some Kbac and introduced it to Wendy and Paul. Wendy shouted us the drinks; she loved that drink while Paul hated it.  We found Suzy who told us to check out the VIP lounge, which we did not do as we did not want to have to re-scan our camera bag again.  

We boarded our train and found that we have a Russian lady travelling with us.  Before long, we discovered that she was the auditor of the train service and folks were already in trouble before too much elapsed.  It was cute watching her changed from her red stiletto to jeans and T-shirt.  She spoke only some German and no English.  She started auditing the service and found some things wanting so poor ladies and gents were called in for review sessions.  We offered her charging ability as we had taken over the power.  She was quite pleasant.   Shortly after the train left station, she moved into another cabin, leaving us to ourselves in our cabin.  She probably needed more privacy and space for discussion with the train staff.

Suzi came over for a chat as Wolfgang was napping.  He had been not feeling great that day, complicated further by the dehydration from the super hot Moscow day.  Their group was delayed longer than ours had been.  They had to wait longer than we did in the sun.  The nap was making him feel a little better.  He had something to eat so he was ok.  Suzi tried to make reservation for dinner for all of us at 8pm.  It was difficult since the staff spoke no English and limited German.  In the end it was done in French.  We spoke no Russian but the lady in the dining car was very helpful.  She said no German, Italian, Spanish or anything, only Russian yet we managed to learn from her our schedule as well as the fact that we should wake up for the Karzan Pass at 5am.  Gregarious personality and great attitude win everytime
.

We went for a visit with Paul and Wendy and learn that we have hot meal coming as well as the ability to buy souveniers.  We ordered our souvenirs and then went to look for Martin and found him rooming with a family of three with the wife and kid being able to speak Spanish and some English.  We stayed for a bit, and then went back to our room.

Sunset on the Trans Siberian

All six of us met for dinner at the Dining car.  Our dinner of veal with risoni was not too bad washed down with Pepsi.  Some drunk Russian from Class 3 carriage heading towards the wrong carriage was man handled back to his coach by the hostess.  The hostess seemed to have authority of the highest order as even the drunk heeded their instructions.  One of the hostess was sorting out berries … black berries are good for the eyes she indicated.

Suzi shouted us a Pepsi.  We sat drinking in the dinning car, watching the sunset at 10pm before we all headed back to our cabins to have a sleep.  We tried to take photos of the beautiful sunset but each time our cameras focused, a train would whisked by and the view we focused on would be history by the time that train passed.  We joked : the best view was the one behind the train that just whisked by.  

In our cabin, we switched on the TV and watched a documentary on Trans Siberian destinations on a bad screen.  We were not expecting anyone tonight to join us.  It would be good to catch the sunrise tomorrow.  And we can sleep later … we guess … after all we won’t get off this train before 6pm the next day.  We would barely have one night in Ekaterinburg as we start the longest leg of train journey the night after that.  However, if they are as nice as the train we were on, we should have no issue at all.

Thus far, we have observed that Russians in general can be grouped into two sub-groups, the still in the Communist mentality with the need to do their work and could not adapt to unexpected situations, and the very adaptable and very friendly younger ones.  Marina for example gave very clear instructions on using the metro -  how many stop, stand on the right to prevent ourselves from being run over, how to get in and exit and where to meet.  I could not believe how discipline we looked as a group under her leadership.  She said that she had experienced with the most disorganised tourist groups – they were from India.

Around midnight, some stretches of the tracks were a little rougher … more like the rest of the train trips that we had been on in Eastern Europe.   Unlike the Grand Express from St Petersburg to Moscow, Train 16 from Moscow to Ekaterinburg has no internet.  We were not sure how our friend from our Arctic adventure last year, Christine, managed to get internet earlier.  She was trying to meet up with us in Moscow where our paths crossed on the same day.  Unfortunately her arrival there and our departure were separated by two solid hours. 

Now to bed so that we can rise for the Karzan Pass at 4.30 am …. 

28 June, Tuesday

Woke up "reluctantly" at 4.30 am but was greeted by a glorious sunrise.  It was going to be difficulty here today with all these photo taking as the tall birch trees and other plants often get in the way between us and our desired subject matter.  There is also the matter of the reflective, double glazed windows and passing trains.  We are going to have to look for a different angle, look at things differently or do a different technique.  

Passing cargo trains

We saw a large number of trains for cargo.  From where we stood, Russia does not appear to depend on roads or trucks, just trains to do the heavy lifting.  We saw a large number of train tracks going in all directions and trains seemed to be constantly passing.

Suzi was worried about Wolfgang, so she came in for a chat.  She was telling us his medical history which got us a little concerned as well.  We roped in Wendy who cares for such people in her day to day life.  It was great that she could offer some good coping advice. After Suzi went back to her cabin, Wendy stayed to chat.  We were dozing after a while since we only had had a few hours of sleep, so we had to ask everyone to excuse us.  We went back to sleep until Wendy came to wake us up at 8.30 am as agreed to earlier for breakfast.

We had breakfast at the Dining Car.  Coffee cost 200 roubles (4AUD).  It looked a Turkish coffee, watered down but with grounds at the bottom.  It tasted reasonably good.  With it we had pancakes with jam (200 roubles).  Food was expensive in the dining car.  We hung out with Wendy and Paul for a while, but left when Wendy left.  Paul decided to spend a little more time in the dining car admiring the passing views.  The dining car had larger windows than our cabins.

After breakfast, Suzi came for another visit followed by Martin.  Our cabin was the visitor center as we were all alone in that cabin.  We ended up going for a tea with Suzy and Martin and shouted all of us (500 roubles(10AUD)).  Time for another a rest after that.

A town not so near to the tracks

Time flew by quite quickly.  We did not feel any desire to read anything heavy.  We tend to sit and chat since we were a nice number travelling together and watched the world going by outside.  One thing we noticed a lot were little hamlets with unpainted wooden houses where only the roofs and window frames are painted brightly.  We also saw groups of dachas.  We wondered how the folks living there managed because the roads leading to these places appeared smallish and unsealed.  We wondered also what they did for a living in some of these rural communities as we did not observe any other industries nearby … only some small herds of cows and what look like subsistence farming.

We also passed towns.  These would usually not be near the railway tracks that we were travelling on.  Our train route was one that did not pass through the middle of so many towns as we were travelling on an express train.

 

Hamlet

The landscape changed constantly.  Taiga and wet temperate bog, lakes and streams danced before our eyes interrupted by viaducts here and there, curves in railways, seemingly isolated hamlets, clusters of dachas, and the spires of church bell towers.  It had been raining on and off all day thus far.  We were glad that we were in the train and not outside.  At one of those whistle stops, villages hawked their wares to us – little cups of berries – black and Siberian strawberries, some warm prepared food wrapped in saran wrap, crystal chandeliers and even fine carved vases (yes, that was how they appeared to us).  We did not get out of the train to procure any of these items.  We just watched from our cabin's windows.

Dachas

At around 4pm, Moscow time (6pm local time), Suzi suggested that we get something to eat as it would otherwise be too late for dinner.  Wolfgang joined us.  He looked a little more cheerful that earlier in the day.  We ordered that spicy minced meat and mixed vegetable soup ("mixed meat solyanka") that Paul had for breakfast in the morning with a slice of bread.  Wolfgang did the same.  Afterwards, he and I would have a chat about the difference between his perspective of Islam Muslims and my experience of them.  We had an interesting chat until it was time to pack our bags for disembarkation into Ekaterinburg.

Notes : Trains in Russia run on Moscow time to avoid confusion.  ETAs and ETDs are denominated in Moscow time.  ETDs in a place are also denoted at the local places in local times, such as in Ekaterinburg which is 2 hrs behind of Moscow.  So our 6pm ETD in Ekaterinburg was 8pm local arrival time.

A peek into our cabin on Train 16

Notes : This leg of the Trans Siberian / Trans Mongolian cost USD 85 (Second Class) vs USD 240 (First Class).  Train 16 which we were on took the shortest time to travel between Moscow and Ekaterinburg, a little more than 25 hours (including three stops of more than 20 minutes each).  It did not have wi-fi or the richness of red velvet and damask but the first class cabins had couch like seats, no upper bunks and large mirrors.