Classic Oriënt Express 2009: Day 12

I recently found my old travel diary again and started reading it.  Seems that I made 2 very nice trips in the past, which I think may be very interesting for my blog.  Thus I decided to copy what I wrote about these train journeys through Europe on my blog.

This is the twelfth day of my Oriënt Express Journey.

It starts to become frustrating, but every time I have to leave a city, the weather gets better.  Although this morning Ruse was still hidden in a mysterious Danube fog, when I took the train later in the afternoon the sun was shining and the temperature was very enjoyable.

Today I made the big city tour of Ruse, with a detour via the National Transport Museum.  The Pantheon of Revivalists was my first stop on this tour.  This pantheon, with golden dome, was built in the park which used to be the burial ground for the Bulgarian revolutionary fighters and contains the new graves for these revolutionaries.  As so the legendary Baba Tonka Obretenova is resting here for eternity.  This mother of 6 is a very important historical person in Bulgaria.  Together with het family she smuggled weapons, mail and other equipment over the border, to support the revolutionary movement against Turkish occupation.

In the middle of the pantheon there is an eternal flame... which was not burning.  Apparently there's no more money for it since communism fell.  The pantheon itself has been built by the Communist Party in 1975-1978.  To build the pantheon, they demolished the orthodox All Saints church, which is now being rebuilt at the other side of the park.

After walking through the park, I arrived at the National Transport Museum.  The museum building itself is of huge historical importance, as it is the very first station in Bulgaria at the very first railroad in Bulgaria (Ruse-Varna) and it contains the very first locomotive of the Bulgarian Railways, built in 1866.

The station building is not in use as a station anymore and now contains this beautiful small transport museum.  It was founded in 1966 to celebrate 100 years of railways in Bulgaria.  Locomotive 148, built in Newcastle and delivered in 1866 was the very first locomotive that ran for the Bulgarian Railways, even the very first German coaches are still attached to this locomotive, which make this the very first train(consist) that ever ran in Bulgaria.

Next to it there was a diesel locomotive with old infrastructure cars of the Bulgarian Railways.  These cars were used to repair and measure the railroad infrastructure.  The most important possessions of the museum are the royal coaches.

The first royal coach rather looks like a horse carriage, in the middle it has an open terrace and at each end there was a compartment, one for sleeping, the other one for sitting.  In the sleeping compartment there was also a loo and wash basin.  This wagon was used for official transports and is called the 'saloon-coach' of Sultan Abdul Azis.  Most importantly: the coach was built in Brussels in 1866.

The next coach was the luxurious decorated coach of Tsar Boris III.  It contained a spacious saloon and a very well equipped kitchen.  The next coach was the coach of Tsar Boris' son, Ferdinand, and was divided into 3 parts: a saloon/reception area with clocks indicating the time in all European time zones, a small dining room and a spacious kitchen.

The last coach was the coach of marshal Tolbuhin.  Guests were welcomed in a cosy saloon and then brought to one of the 4 sleeping compartments, which all had a private toilet and wash basin in a separate room.  At the end of the coach there was a kitchen as well.  Across the railway next to the museum I saw 4 old, rusty steam locomotives waiting to be restored and placed in the museum garden as well.

Inside the museum there was a collection of small railway objects: the very first sundial of 1866 was on display and a scale model of how the area used to be in the days of the first railway activity showed how big the area around this tiny station used to be.  I saw that among other things the first workshops of the Bulgarian Railways used to be here.

In the next room the first uniforms of the Bulgarian Railways were on display together with some kepis.  There is also a small collection about the shipping history on the Danube, which I personally didn't find very interesting (and apparently nor did my guide).  I found that the most interesting part inside the museum was the original waiting hall, the desk of the 'chef de mouvement' and the office of the 'chef de gare'.  The original luggage depot was also to be seen and finally there was a huge model railway which depicts the original station area of Ruse.

For Bulgarian standards, it wasn't a cheap museum (8 euro), but it was really worth every cent!  Especially my female guide, who clearly has a huge passion for railways as well, made it worth the visit.  Her English wasn't very good, but she made that up with a very good knowledge of French.

I returned back to the city centre, passing the statues of Bulgarian revolutionary fighters such as Alyoshka, Stefan Karadzha and Baba Tonka.  I also passed the city museum, which I couldn't visit due to a lack of time.  Also the house-museum of Zahary Stoyanov had to be placed on my bucket list for my next visit.

The next sight I saw was the catholic St. Paul's church, which is one of the very few Roman Catholic churches in Bulgaria.  The house of Ivan Solarov was my next stop, but I quickly noticed that it was screaming for an urgent renovation, as part of it was sinking in the ground, so a visit was not possible at all.  The last sight I still wanted to visit was the Roman Sexaginta Priest castle, but it was closed today.  The last few buildings I saw were the Carrettis Business house and some beautiful buildings on Aleksandrovska street.  I ended my walk by signing the guest book as the very first tourist of the year at the tourist agency.

I picked up my luggage and carried it all the way across Borisova Boulevard to the station, while enjoying seeing the mighty TV-tower in raising in front of me.  I stopped at the middle of my walk to enjoy a last delicious Bulgarian grill-meal and then took the train to Bucharest and leave magnificent Ruse behind.  The train to Bucharest only had a declassified Bulgarian first-class coach, so I had a nice first class compartment all to myself while driving towards the bad weather over Romania.  With some luck, I will have good weather tomorrow in Budapest.

At Bucharest I had to wait for 2 hours for my connecting train to Budapest.  The Romanian railways actually have lots of modern trains: brand new Siemens Desiro's on diesel traction and lots of nicely renovated sleeper cars.  Bucharest station is also very interesting because lots of foreign trains come here, I saw Russian as well as Moldovan sleeper cars.  When I wanted to make a picture, security staff quickly told me not to do so, so I haven't got any photos of these trains.

And although photography and filming are not allowed, many gipsies came to me at the station trying to sell me video cameras (probably stolen, because they were packed in a dark garbage bag).  My train finally came to the platform and I had a spacious compartment (larger than the one on the Artésia) and everything was working fine (so no heating problems as in the night train from Venice to Belgrade).  But in fact I don't really care about this all, as long as the train drives smoothly and the bed is comfortable, the train may fall completely apart.  The eye wants something as well, but to me that's the first compromise I'm prepared to make as long as I sleep well.  But again: this wasn't an issue at all on board this very nice Romanian sleeper car.