From Russia with love

Ted Curtis takes a ride on the Trans-Siberian Express from Moscow to Vladivostok and finds that if you’re going to travel to end of the world you might as well do it in exquisite style.

If travel for the sake of travel is your thing than riding the Trans-Siberian Express is just the ticket. The longest continuous railway track in the world takes you from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean.

As you nibble on caviar and sip ice-cold vodka you'll travel through seven time zones and see the vast expanses of steppe and taiga of Siberia unfold from the comfort of your carriage. So hop aboard the Trans-Siberian Express to travel to the end of the world.

With 5,773 miles of track, this is the longest continuous railroad in the world. Built by the tsars to connect the European part of the Russian empire with the port city of Vladivostok, the tracks were carved out of the permafrost with dynamite and pick axes, guided through thick forests and across rivers and lakes. Work could only be done during the four summer months and was carried out mostly by foreign railroad workers.

Chinese coolies, Mongols, Turks, Italians and some Russian convicts were called in for this thankless and often dangerous task; some were carried of by thugs, others succumbed to the bubonic plague or were eaten by tigers that used to roam the Siberian forest.

But the task was completed in 25 years and the first Trans-Siberian Express chugged along these tracks in 1916. Since then this train has been the stuff of myths. It's been a setting for films and a veritable fantasy for those who care more about being in transit than arriving.

Still, the Trans-Siberian Express makes more than 90 scheduled stops and getting off at some of them is almost a must.

Take Irkutsk, already four time zones away from Moscow and deep in Siberia. This is not the grim, grey industrial city that one might expect but rather a cosmopolitan city with wide avenues lined with silver lampposts, over-the-top mansions and a theatre hall painted scarlet.

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