Ben Williams and Ralph Kiggell (http://www.ralphkiggell.com/home/), two years below me at SOAS, had just spent their Year Abroad in Beijing and were returning to the UK on the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow — a six-day-five-night journey covering 4,735 miles.
On the USSR stretch, they were joined by a Russian soldier who spoke no English. He did, however, have a rather generous supply of vodka, which he shared with the boys. The rest of the journey went by in a haze, and they arrived in Moscow a few days later around 7am.
As they were shaking hands in farewell, the boys felt that they should at least express their gratitude by offering the soldier a drink in return, miming the act, quite certain that he would say no, after five days of solid drinking. He readily accepted.
A couple of hours later, Ben and Ralph staggered off to the platform to catch their train to Germany. As they stood there, waiting for their train to arrive, they saw a train already sitting on the tracks on the other side. They then saw some familiar-looking suitcases among the luggage strapped to the roof, and suddenly realised that they were their suitcases!
The shock jolted them out of their inebriation and they legged it up the bridge across to the other platform and caught their train just in time. The next train would’ve been something like a few days later.
(USSR, 1981)
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