

Google co-created video of an entire ride of the Trans-Siberian Railway - mcantelon
http://www.google.ru/intl/ru/landing/transsib/

======
jasonkester
Ah, shame. It's in the wrong direction for me. I did the Trans-Siberian a few
years ago, but heading from east to west.

This really captures the feel of the thing. It's just like sitting on a train,
except for an entire week.

Of course, for the full experience, you'll need some Russian businessmen who
don't speak any English (but understand a little German+) filling you with
inexhaustible quantities of really good vodka and crushing you at chess, and
you'll need to step outside for ten minutes each day to buy potato cakes and
liter bottles of beer (to dillute the vodka).

Highly recommended!

(+ Evidently when a group of people keeps repeatedly showing up in your
country uninvited every few dozen years, you eventually get to know their
language. Hence you can get by pretty much anywhere in Russia if you speak
German.)

~~~
d_c
Their knowledge of German would be more likely to be a result of the
relationship between the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic.
Likewise people that went to school in the former GDR all speak a basic or
even advanced level of Russian.

~~~
jhg
Foreign language was a mandatory class in all Soviet schools. Vast majority of
schools taught English, few schools had German and even smaller fraction had
French.

~~~
mahmud
Can't speak for Soviet era, but in Tsarist Russia, French was the status
language of the upper classes.

The allusions to French influence are everywhere in "Fathers and Sons". The
novel itself is a meditation on Russian society at the time, specially the two
leading intellectual camps, the established landed gentry and the young
nihilists who rejected the status quo. Turgenev subtly highlights their shared
francophile elements, both types usually educated in France or French schools,
or taught themselves French to absorb Western culture for subversive reasons.

~~~
ab9
I think that remained true at least until the early twentieth century. My
high-school Russian teacher said this was because wealthy Russian families
often employed French nannies, who taught some French to the children.

You can see this in the film _Burnt by the Sun_ , which is fictional, but
perhaps historically accurate in this respect. It's set in 1930's Russia. A
respected Soviet military officer is eating by himself while his wife's upper-
class family converses in the other room. The maid asks why, and he responds,
"I can't speak French." The purpose of this scene is clear: the inability of
high-status Russians to speak French is a sign of broader social change.

------
polyester
Reminds me of this, a 7.5hr video of a train journey across Norway:
<http://nrkbeta.no/2009/12/18/bergensbanen-eng/>

~~~
thingie
I watched it entirely. It had a great advantage of being taken from the cab,
which is quite different experience from anything you can see from a window of
a passenger car (of course, you can get something similar at the other side,
but in a modern train, most likely a driving car with another driver's cab
(unaccessible) occupies that space, and if not, then there are just quite
small and narrow windows in the rear door), especially live. It's worth
watching even if you already knew the route as a passenger.

On the other hand, it had a disadvantage of Bergensbanen being mostly just a
long long row of endless tunnels. Seeing a name of the tunnel, it's length in
kilometers and then watching 15 minutes of darkness… isn't quite interesting.

------
ctbarna
<http://www.google.ru/intl/ru/landing/transsib/en.html> \-- in English

------
jimmyjim
I'll bite: why exactly is the Trans-Siberian Railway so significant and awe-
inspiring?

~~~
jasonkester
Because it links up an incredibly long and incredibly hostile bit of
territory, and essentially hooks the rail networks of Asia with the ones in
Europe.

As a result, I can walk to my local train station here in the North of
England, and ride a continuous set of trains all the way to Ho Chi Minh City
(Saigon) without ever stepping off the platform. If it weren't for a few
destroyed tracks in Cambodia, you could make it to Singapore. That's pretty
cool.

It's also the cheapest per-mile transport on earth. Where else can you get a
full third of the way around the globe for under $200?

~~~
ugh
Under $200? That’s pretty incredible. You have to pay three quarters of that
to get from Munich to Berlin. That’s with a high speed train, but still —
under $200, wow.

~~~
jasonkester
Private compartments are more like $400, but yeah, you can get a 3rd class
berth for like $180 Moscow to Beijing.

------
trop
So good to see something on the web about the beauty, vastness, and mystery of
what is out there, rather than about the cleverness of the project's creators.

------
johnohara
Moscow looks and feels difficult. No doubt my impression is just a small
fraction of the real story. I was surprised to see so much graffiti.

Made me think about what the Russian people have endured the past 250 years
and how strong their resolve to persevere must be.

Be interesting to see the same video 10, 25, and 50 years from now.

------
tmsh
The 'explore the surroundings' is pretty cool also. Not to nitpick, but it'd
be pretty awesome if that was all in the same page. And picasa linked up with
youtube, real-time (galleries became available in the same page as you
progressed).... It's pretty amazing as it is though.

------
forkandwait
I think this is fantastic, and I might have to have a minimized version
running for the next month.

------
elmindreda
A week of live Half-Life 2 reference art can't be wrong.

------
Jun8
This is _awesome_ , I always wanted to make this journey but never had a
chance.

