Today, on my way to work I was listening to BBC Radio in marshrutka. It was a road show by Anora Sarkorova (famous Tajik journalist on BBC Russia) who was reporting on problems that Tajik passengers have when they cross Russian and Uzbek borders by train. She was interviewing the passengers of the ill-fated train, which follows the route Dushanbe-Moscow-Dushanbe. Usually people call it “train Dushanbe-Moscow”.

I was very much surprised to hear a news from Dushanbe because, first of all I was in Bishkek not in Dushanbe and secondly the marshrutka drivers in Bishkek usually force the passengers to listen to music, whether you want it or not. The marshruka (mini-bus, public transportation in post-Soviet countries) was very crowded, I could hardly move but I could hear the radio and I was literally enjoying it. This road show made me write down some thoughts about this train.

The train Dushanbe-Moscow has lots of informal names in Russian mass-media due to its reputation as a heroin carrier. The most popular are “Heroin Express” (Geroinovi express), “Train from the south” (Poezd s yuga) and “Narcoechelon” (Narkoeshelon). Russian experts claim that the railroad from Dushanbe to Moscow is the main route which is used by the drug-smugglers to transport heroin to Russia and further to Europe. They say that this route poisons the whole Russia and Eastern Europe.

Due to its reputation all the passengers of this train have many problems when they want to go to Russia or back to Tajikistan from Russia. The customs and border control on the Russian and Uzbek borders give a hard time to the passengers, especially those who have the Tajik passport. Actually, it happens everywhere in the post-Soviet countries, wherever you show the Tajik passport you are in trouble. Thanks God that in the rest of the world Tajiks don’t have the image of drug-smugglers. The customs and border control officers of other countries become happy when they see this passport because it is a chance to line their pockets.

The other major problem is corruption. There is formed a whole mafia which controls the ticket purchase-sale process. Most of the prospective passengers are not able to buy tickets in the official pay office and they need to buy from another person who is waiting for prospective passengers. The “ticket sellers” come up to you after you get a negative response from the official pay office and propose to make a deal. He increases the cost, sometimes to more than fifty percent of the official cost. People who urgently need to go home have to overpay, otherwise they need to stay in the terminal station for a long time which is not safe.

Due to corruption suffers the state-budget and the budget of the State Unitary Enterprise “Tajik railroad” (Tadzhikskie zheleznie dorogi). Consequently the lack of resources results in lame service. Russian government regularly prohibits the train Dushanbe-Moscow to enter the territory of Russia because of unsanitary (!). In reality Russian government is concerned about the fact that this train is the main carrier of drugs to Russia and this way it makes the Tajik government sort out the mess. It is some kind of prophylaxis.

The unsanitary thing is also not far from truth. The train is literally dirty on both inner and outer sides. The furnishing leaves much to be desired. You would be lucky to have the bad-clothes. In most of the cases people sleep with their clothes on. If you go from Moscow to Dushanbe the train is stuffed with huge bags and there is no place to sleep. Taking into consideration that it takes several days to get from one point to another it is not really comfortable to sleep on the bags.

Not matter how difficult it is to travel by train “Dushanbe-Moscow” it remains to be one of the main trains which feed half of Tajikistan. Most of the labor migrants (gasterbaiteri) go to Russia by train in search of earnings because there is no means of subsistence in Tajikistan.