Crossing the Urals

On the third morning, the train stopped at Yekaterinburg. Galina had already left it. She had gotten off in the small hours at a station Polly had slept through, with a hug and a small wave that Polly had only half-registered through the haze. Pavel was still asleep. Two new passengers had taken the empty bunks in the night: a soldier of perhaps twenty in a uniform that was too clean to have been worn yet, and an older man with grey-yellow hair and a fishing tackle box.

På den tredje morgen stoppede toget i Jekaterinburg. Galina var allerede stået af. Hun havde forladt toget i de tidlige morgentimer på en station, Polly havde sovet sig igennem, med et kram og et lille vink, som Polly kun halvt havde registreret gennem søvnens tåge. Pavel sov stadig. To nye passagerer havde taget de tomme køjer i løbet af natten: en soldat på måske tyve år i en uniform, der var for ren til at have været brugt endnu, og en ældre mand med grå-gult hår og en fiskekasse.

Polly hopped to the window.

Polly hoppede hen til vinduet.

Yekaterinburg is the largest city in the Urals. The Ural Mountains divide Europe from Asia. They are not high, more a long worn ridge than a wall. But they are old. Five hundred million years ago, when the supercontinent of Pangaea was forming, the Urals were already a major mountain range. They have been worn down for half a billion years and are still there. They are some of the oldest mountains on Earth.

Jekaterinburg er den største by i Uralbjergene. Uralbjergene deler Europa fra Asien. De er ikke høje, mere en lang, slidt højderyg end en mur. Men de er gamle. For fem hundrede millioner år siden, da superkontinentet Pangaea blev dannet, var Uralbjergene allerede en betydelig bjergkæde. De er blevet slidt ned i en halv milliard år og er der stadig. De er nogle af de ældste bjerge på Jorden.

The Trans-Siberian crosses the Urals through Yekaterinburg. There is a small marker at kilometre 1,777 of the line that says EUROPE on one side and ASIA on the other. Every Russian passenger Polly had met that morning had told her about this marker. Some of them got off the train at Pervouralsk, the station nearest the marker, and walked to it for photos. The conductor told her, with a small smile, that the marker was a tourist invention. The actual border, geographically, was not at a clean point on a map. The dividing line runs roughly along the watershed of the Ural River, which is itself a long arc rather than a line.

Den Transsibiriske jernbane krydser Uralbjergene gennem Jekaterinburg. Der er en lille markør ved kilometer 1.777 af linjen, der siger EUROPA på den ene side og ASIEN på den anden. Hver russisk passager, Polly havde mødt den morgen, havde fortalt hende om denne markør. Nogle af dem stod af toget i Pervouralsk, stationen nærmest markøren, og gik hen til den for at tage billeder. Konduktøren fortalte hende med et lille smil, at markøren var en turistopfindelse. Den faktiske grænse, geografisk set, lå ikke på et klart punkt på et kort. Skillelinjen løber omtrent langs vandskellet af Uralfloden, som i sig selv er en lang bue snarere end en linje.

But the symbolic crossing was the point.

Men den symbolske krydsning var pointen.

The train pulled out of Yekaterinburg into low hills covered in pine and spruce. The forest had changed since the day before. The white birches were still there, but mixed now with darker conifers. The land was more wrinkled. Small rivers ran in shallow valleys.

Toget kørte ud af Jekaterinburg ind i lave bakker dækket af fyr og gran. Skoven havde ændret sig siden dagen før. De hvide birketræer var der stadig, men nu blandet med mørkere nåletræer. Landet var mere krøllet. Små floder løb i lave dale.

The new passenger with the tackle box opened it and laid out his lures on the small table. He arranged them by colour. He did not appear to need any of them at the moment. He just wanted them out.

Den nye passager med fiskekassen åbnede den og lagde sine lokkemidler ud på det lille bord. Han arrangerede dem efter farve. Han så ikke ud til at have brug for nogen af dem i øjeblikket. Han ville bare have dem frem.

"Where do you fish?" Polly asked, carefully.

"Hvor fisker du?" spurgte Polly forsigtigt.

He looked up. He did not seem surprised that a parrot had spoken. "Lake Baikal," he said. "In three days. Omul. The salmon of Baikal. You will not find it anywhere else in the world." He pointed at a particular green-and-silver spoon. "This is what I use."

Han kiggede op. Han virkede ikke overrasket over, at en papegøje havde talt. "Bajkalsøen," sagde han. "Om tre dage. Omul. Bajkals laks. Du finder den ikke andre steder i verden." Han pegede på en bestemt grøn-og-sølv ske. "Det er den, jeg bruger."

Polly tilted her red head. The man closed the tackle box.

Polly vippede sit røde hoved. Manden lukkede fiskekassen.

A few hours later, near Pervouralsk, the train slowed past a small white obelisk in a clearing. The obelisk had a metal plate on one side reading EUROPE in Cyrillic. The plate on the other side read ASIA. A small group of three tourists were taking a photo. They waved at the train. Pavel, now awake, lifted a hand from his laptop and waved back.

Et par timer senere, nær Pervouralsk, sænkede toget farten forbi en lille hvid obelisk i en lysning. Obelisken havde en metalplade på den ene side, hvor der stod EUROPA med kyrilliske bogstaver. Pladen på den anden side læste ASIEN. En lille gruppe på tre turister tog et foto. De vinkede til toget. Pavel, nu vågen, løftede en hånd fra sin bærbare computer og vinkede tilbage.

The obelisk slid away behind them. The pines closed back in. The train had crossed a continent the way you might cross a small street.

Obelisken gled væk bag dem. Fyrretræerne lukkede sig igen. Toget havde krydset et kontinent, som man kunne krydse en lille gade.