rail workers

As the train started moving again, I went back to drinking more beer in the restaurant cart and listening to Andre about the railway. Oddly but pleasantly, Hotel California was playing in the background.

He told me more about the building of the rail in between serving some Swedish customers. ‘Vat you vant?’ he always said this to his customers.

One of the Swedes gave him a badge of Swedish national flag. They then took a picture with him, and made fun of his English. Andre didn’t seem to mind. He came back to his working table with the badge, throwing a comment: ‘Vat I need this for?’

When the Swedes left, Andre sat down to have a cigarette. He turned to me: ‘You want to know Siberia? must know it’s tough to work here! Siberia has many, many high terrains and valleys in this part of rail. Too many forests. Imagine how difficult to find people to build the railway – there are too few villages to find workers from.’

Andre gave out a long sigh. ‘Life is tough and dull here.’

‘Is that why you are sighing so much?’

‘Ay…What I can tell you?’ he sighed again, shaking his head, ‘Siberia is new to you. But for me, it’s like we’re old couple. Siberia is a lot of work. She’s my only woman. The bad thing is she’s the only one I have. And I’m so tired of her. So tired! Ay…What I can say? What can I do? Three more months, I will have a long break.’

‘What d’you mean?’ I asked. He didn’t have time to answer me, as another table of three European customers were waving at him, signaling for him to take orders. He dragged himself there exhaustedly. ‘Yes? Vat you vant?’

When he finally came back to his working table where I sat, after twenty minutes, he said to me: ‘Work on the train is seasonal work, you see. It’s not bad weather now, from April to October. But too much cold in the winter. Too much. Very small number of people travel and so not many trains. I take a break then – from 27 October, I stop work for the winter. Long break, for 150 days, till next April when spring come.’

‘Wow, that’s nice,’ I said naively.

‘Nice to have break - I work 180 days a year, that is, seven months, you see. But not nice to have no enough money in winter. My winter break is not paid.’

‘Are you making enough money in the busy season to afford such a long break in the winter?’

‘I’m making 30,000 roubles (£666) per month. Not good money for such long hours. But not bad for Russia, you see. Everyone’s worried about jobs now and people think I’m lucky…And I drive a taxi in Moscow to make money in winter. Not every day, but I need some cash to live, you know.’

I realized what a harsh existence it could be for him, to make a living on the rail. I began to understand, little by little, what had led him to adopt a cynical outlook on life.

A much harsher existence for those upon whom the construction of the railway depended – as Andre likes to tell me, the railway workers created the lifeline of Siberia, with their hands. They made the rail possible. They were not only interested in demanding higher wages but also wanted the right to organize.

Those workers played an indispensable role in helping to end the tsar rule. In January 1905, when peaceful protesters were shot down in what’s known as the Bloody Sunday - in front of the Winter Palace of St Petersburg, many railway workers knew that the autocracy was too rotten to reform. The massacre led to more protests all over the country. The railway workers knew they had the power to halt the economy – 27 lines of railway workers went on strike in the first two months of 1905. That April, they formed the All-Russia Union of Railway Workers. They were indeed the most radical workers who took part in the 1905 Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power.

When I turned to look at Andre and saw his exhausted, seen-through-the-world smile, I saw a deep sadness, not only about him, but a long lost revolutionary legacy.