Three days on a train in a small compartment, crossing three more timezones, can be a long time, but not with Telman from Azerbaijan, who is a professional wrestler. Not the fake American kind or the Mexican variant with funny masks. Classic wrestling where anything goes as long as it stays below the waist. Telman or short Timur or Mr. T as we called him is a huge fella.
Then there was Pavel “call me Pasha” who coined the line “I don’t need beer, it’s the beer that needs me”.  A Russian engineer.  Go figure…
The ride from Irkutsk to the Island was one of the scariest things I have ever witnessed. A minibus “marshrutka” with loose axles, just hammering down on dirt roads with the needle in the red zone… But we’re here. In one piece.