In 1901, British Journalist John Foster Fraser travelled from Moscow to Vladivostok, and back again, mostly by rail. On his return, he recorded his experiences (and prejudices) in “The Real Siberia”.
In today’s excerpt, Fraser tries to keep track of railway time:
There is one thing to be said for the Trans-Siberian Railway – that hardly ever does a train arrive, behind time. Indeed, I have known the train run into a station twenty minutes before time, and as a rule it is five minutes in advance.
At first you find the time-table a Chinese problem. It took me a whole morning to grasp it. First you find your watch doesn’t tally with the obvious time of day, and when you look at the station clock that clock is unmistakably hours behind. You see the train is down to arrive at a particular place at a particular time, say half-past seven; but you know it is actually mid-day. There is confusion, which is due to the line running continuously towards the sun.
To keep things in order, however, the railway authorities ignore the sun, and keep Petersburg time. So in Eastern Siberia, when the sun is setting, the station clock will indicate lunch time. Therefore, first of all, the time-table shows Petersburg time. But as every station is about ten miles from the town it is supposed to serve, intending passengers cannot be expected to make a special trip to find railway time. Accordingly, on the time-table is printed in red the local time as well. You personally want local sun time, and, when you have mastered the time-table so far, you set your watch in the morning by the red figures. But when you glance at your watch towards evening you find something wrong, that your watch is quite ten minutes behind local time. You marvel, think your watch has got out of repair, and what a nuisance this is in a country like Siberia. Suddenly, however, you condemn yourself as a dunderheaded idiot for not understanding before that local time is continuously changing.
It is endless worry trying to keep pace. I didn’t try. Each morning I just put my watch ten minutes ahead of the local time, and was content with its being correct, there or thereabouts, for the rest of the day.
This post is one of a series of excerpts from John Foster Fraser’s “The Real Siberia”. Further excerpts can be found in the Siberian Light archive.
The full text of The Real Siberia is available online at Friends & Partners.
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