Women selling food at a railway station, Amazar

Photographer: Eric Newb

Country: Russia

Date: 1977

‘At 2.05 pm Moscow time (8.05 in the evening), the Rossiya rolled into Amazar. On the platform the usual welcoming committee of local ladies was dispensing good cheer in the form of red cabbage, spring onions, boiled potatoes and bits of chewing gum shaped like sausages which looked as if they had been rolled between their thighs. Apart from being a graveyard for old steam locomotives, of which there were hundreds if not thousands in this part of Siberia (all awaiting the moment when the electricity is cut off for the last time and there’s no more oil, to make a comeback), it was a hell of a place.’ - The Big Red Train Ride.

Ref.: S0027639