The first leg of our Trans-Siberian railway trip on the Rossiya (Russia) train took us from the gloomy port of Vladivostok to Irkutsk near the shore of Lake Baikal. While some brave souls take the Rossiya for the full seven days to Moscow without a breather, we decided to break it up with a stop in Siberia after the third day.

For three days and three nights, we passed through taiga forests, Siberian flood plains and rolling hills covered with purple and pink wildflowers. With the tracks following an inland route parallel to the borders of China and Mongolia, we saw the landscape change several times a day, with a favorite being the low green hills that we learned usually preceded a village of ramshackle wooden cottages and subsistence farms. But we soon found out that a Trans-Siberian story isn’t really in what’s outside the window — it’s more about who is inside looking out.

One Thursday morning at 10:35 a.m., my boyfriend Ian and I were sitting on the bottom two bunks of our standard second-class cabin, 5,772 miles (9,289 km) from Moscow. As the triumphal departure music blared, we waited nervously to meet our travelling companions, who had left their luggage on the top bunks and joined the chaos of people in the aisle, chatting and waving to family and friends out the window. A man with thinning grey hair just visible beneath a plain blue cap cheerfully sat down and launched a barrage of Russian at us. Our polite smiles and nods encouraged more friendly Russian chat, which sounded suspiciously like a question.

“I’m sorry. We only speak a little Russian. Do you speak English?” Ian asked him hopefully.

The man, who we soon found out was nicknamed Vladimir, sank back, deflated. “School,” he said.

“Oh, you learnt English at school?” I prompted.

Diverse views of small wooden houses set against rolling green hills and brightly colored wild flowers can be enjoyed from the windows of the Trans-Siberian railway.

He gave a half-smile, stood up and busied himself with his luggage. “Yes,” he said, his last word for 23 hours. He climbed up onto the bunk and fell asleep.

As the train shuffled out of the urban landscape and into surprisingly endless greenery, our fourth cabin occupant appeared. It seemed a pity that Vladimir had already retired for the day, because her English was more than sufficient to have helped us make proper introductions.

Tanya was a 50-something woman from Vladivostok and she shared her homemade jam with us, on bread bought from the vendors crowding the tracks at the station. Eager to practice the English she’d studied at university, she regaled us with reminiscences of Soviet times, the effects of the economic restructuring of perestroika and the subsequent fall of Communism, and her concerns for the future.

“Before perestroika, if I wanted a particular thing, coat, or shoes, or furniture, I had to ask around to people I know, and wait for a favor,” Tanya explained. “But now, no waiting. If I have enough rubles, I can get whatever I want.” I thought of the tiny outdated selection sitting forlorn in the GUM department store in Vladivostok and knew sadly, this wasn’t exactly true.

She paused as the carriage provodnitsa (train attendant) entered our cabin, wanting to check our tickets and collect money for bedding. While Ian argued that we’d brought our own sleeping sheets and didn’t need to pay for extras, I ran my brain through all I’d learned in high school history classes about life behind the Iron Curtain. Tanya continued before I’d formed my next question.

“Before perestroika,” she said, “everybody knew their place in life. They could make plans. We had only a little money, but it was reliable. Now, everything is always changing. Banks close and we lose our money. Even the American dollars we all keep in a cosy place are not safe. The value goes down. Nobody can plan anything.”

She was the first Russian, but not the last, to speak to us so plainly about their situation. “It’s hard for us to imagine a life like that,” I said.