Who wants a war?

Photo@ Fast food outlet, Kazan, Russia, Trans Siberian 2018

When I go to other countries, I want to feel the lives of local people.

This is a local fast-food restaurant next to the Kazan Station of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Likes Hong Kong's "cart noodles" (Hong Kong local food, noodles with selected dishes) and "two dishes rice" (Hong Kong local food, rice with two choices of sides), you line up to order food and then sit down to eat.

There is a high flow of people, which is probably due to the cost-effective food. Basically, you can get full with about HKD 30.

The clerks are very nice. Like me, with an Asian traveler outlook and the way that I ordered the food (using a finger to point out one by one), one of the clerks knew that I was not a local (not able to speak Russian), she took the initiative to tell the cashier and other clerks to make it easier for me to pay.

Everyone in Russia is very nice even if they cannot speak English.

The most profound experience is meeting one young man who was drinking on the train (which is forbidden), a child who kept chatting with me, and a teacher.

Drinking is strictly prohibited on the train. The young man who was drinking was caught by the train crew. The train crew asked him to buy snacks (actually not so expensive) to keep them in secrete. During the talk, he told me that knew that the country was not good, but he ignored it and chose to live in the moment.

One day I met a child (10 something) on the train. He was very curious about me and wanted to hear more about foreign affairs. There was another old man in the same room. He seemed to hear the child talking to me about the relationship between the countries with Russia and gave some negative responses. But I cannot understand Russian and what he said. Another younger person told me that the old people didn’t like us to say the negative side of the country, so advised us not to talk about it.

On another ride, there was an older teacher who got on the train halfway through. When she got on the train, she said goodbye to her family outside the window. I took pictures of them all and told her to give her the photos. And we started chatting for a long time. She initiative to express her views on the country.

Everyone knows what is right and wrong. But in some countries, they choose to accept it because they know that there is no possibility of change.

No one wants war, but the careerists did it. And those who suffered were the citizens, including all of them.

Unfortunately, even if I got their contact information (Gmail, Facebook etc.), I couldn’t get in touch with them (got blocked?).

The teacher also told me that even if she gave me an email, she might not receive my photos. She was not able to tell the reason directly. But all of us know it.

Hope they are all well.