MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom

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travel �
in the kitchen of the Provotniks, the traditional
hostesses allocated to each car…
Imperceptibly, the Moscow-Nice takes on
a slight air of the Trans-Siberian. Accustomed
to long journeys across the immense white
spaces, the Russian passengers have literally
conquered their cabins, installing teapots,
utensils and provisions, recreating in a few
minutes their familiar microcosm. An entire
world which they carry around with them.
What is more, some of them do
not leave their couchette.
On the recommendation of
Elena, my brunette Provotnik,
I retire to bed early. Tomorrow,
at fi ve in the morning, we will
be crossing the border.
Her advice turns out to be
excellent as the formalities last
three long hours, punctuated by
the successive visits of fi rst the Russian, then
the Belarusian and fi nally the Polish police and
customs: “Passport! Fransuski?” “Da, da”. It is
impossible, after this procession, to fi nd sleep
again. Particularly as changing the wheels,
which makes it possible to go from the wide
gauge Russian track to the European
standard, shakes the convoy painfully, as
the cars are raised one after another with
the aid of a powerful hydropneumatic pump.
The plains of Central Europe
Dawn breaking dictates that I wake. I then
have the pleasure of taking – for the fi rst and
doubtless last time in my life – a real shower
on a real train. It is an extraordinarily original
sensation to soap oneself while watching
the morning landscape slip past the window.
A landscape of peat, dark fallow land and
bare trees lashed by gusts of rain, with here
and there a squat farmhouse. Damp paths
carpeted with willow and birch leaves, which,
I am sure, smell delicious. Warsaw is
approaching. After a stop in the Polish capital,
we head straight south, cutting across
the Czech Republic to reach Vienna early
in the evening.
At breakfast, I met Pieter, a Muscovite
originally from Holland, and the frail Siberian,
Svetlana, who is joining her husband in Nice.
She has taken the train simply because
she is scared of fl ying. She is accompanied