The ninth day of the 47th loop

The train arrived in Belgorod at 6 a.m. The attendant woke us about half an hour before arrival. We washed up, freshened up, and arrived.

Belgorod greeted us with dense fog. Apparently it had been hot the day before and then a heavy rain had passed through. You could not see a thing. Igor Sergeyevich met us in a car and drove us straight to work.

I won’t describe the entire day, but it was very interesting, full of events and new acquaintances, difficult, and incredibly productive and inspiring. In the evening we went to a café with a smokehouse, ordered a meat platter—it was delicious. We drank wine and talked right up until the train. It was very nice to see that in the current situation local residents are still living full lives—walking around, dressing up, going to cafés, singing karaoke.

We arrived at the station about 30 minutes before departure, and security was very serious. We were able to exchange the tickets and upgrade them from platzkart to a sleeper compartment. We traveled on the same train and even in the same car we had arrived on. We immediately moved to the dining car so we would not feel cramped in the compartment. We went to sleep fairly early. I tried the shower again, but slept uncomfortably—twice during the night I turned on the light with my feet because I had placed the pillow awkwardly and my legs would not fit on the berth without reaching the switches.