When the Champion’s League Final comes to a close in Moscow tonight, half of the travelling English fans will want to party that little bit longer. Two of my friends are taking the Trans Mongolia from Moscow and it sounds like an amazing excursion to extend your holiday. Afterall, it seems a shame to go to Moscow just for the day. The chartered flights from each club are leaving immediately after the game, giving fans almost no chance to soak up Russia’s unique culture and atmosphere.
Trans-Mongolian Route
This is their planned route to Moscow. They’ll fly from London to Tallinn (Estonia), then catch a train from there, over the border and into St Petersburg. It’s an easy bus or train to Moscow once you’ve made it into Russia.
The interesting part is once you board the a train on the Trans-Siberian Railway, which runs all the way across Russia, splitting at Ulan Uday to offer a route through Mongolia. This is the Trans-Mongolian route:
- • Moscow [Russia]
- • Kirova
- • Tyumen
- • Omsk
- • Novosibirsk
- • Irkutsk
- • Ulan Bator [Mongolia]
- • Datong [China]
- • Beijing
You need a visa for all three countries, so in advance you’d need to get a Russian visa, Mongolian visa and Chinese visa, which can all add up. You also have to decide in advance legs of the train journey and how long you want to spend in certain places. So for example if you want to spend a week in Mongolia before heading onto China, then you’ll need to book separate trains, rather than just being able to buy once all-inclusive ticket.
It sounds like a reasonable amount of planning, but I can imagine it being totally worth it. There’s also the case of needing three different types of currency, as onboard the train, when you cross the border into Mongolia from Russia, they stop accepting Rubels. Which means it’s worth getting Russian Rubels, Mongolian Tugrük and Chinese Renminbi in advance for use on the train. Obviously though, if you’re stopping off somewhere, it’s easy to get access to cash machines or exchangers for the local currency. The rates might not be that great if you leave it until then, though!
So, you’re essentially living in a train for a few days, but you get to see so much and the trip is definitely one of those experiences that isn’t really comparable to anything else.
Helpful Links
Fancy taking the Trans-Mongolian route for yourself? Here’s a few links to get you started:
Russian Visa
Mongolian Visa
Chinese Visa
Trans-Mongolian on Wikipedia
Trans-Siberian on Wikipedia