MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom

Along the Riviera.
towards Genoa, capital of Liguria and
the Mediterranean’s second most important
port after Marseille. Nicknamed ‘The Superb’
by Petrarque, it even surpasses Venice,
Amalfi and Pisa.
The landscape is once again hilly.
We wind across bridges and through tunnels.
At the bottom of funnels of green, we can
see gleaming streams. The warm-coloured
small towns huddled around their campaniles,
cling to the ravines. This disorderly scattering
of houses has never been hurried by history
and never will be. The old alleyways
offer strollers subtle shaded recesses.
Washing hangs from balconies on houses.
You seem to hear the echo of women’s
good-natured exclamations. You can just
imagine the sun drenched little squares,
large colourful markets, scented melons.
Italy in the twinkling of an eye!
Mediterranean
The arrival on the Mediterranean is striking
in the bright sunset. The sea seems to absorb
the light of the fading day. The track literally
licks the waves. If you were to lean slightly
from a door, you would feel them with your
fi ngertips. An endless succession of tunnels,
ports and palm trees. Then, our fi nal
stop at Ventimiglia. Only a few minutes more.
The moon behind us, the train follows
the rocky corniche between San Remo
and Nice. In each car, it’s time to put
our belongings away. The Provotniks suggest
a fi nal tea, dusting the bar, cleaning
their samovars. Everyone will shortly be
saying goodbye.
Nice. Already. At last. A little after 19 .00 pm.,
the hall of the Gare Thiers, an immense glass
dome in the Haussmann style,
welcomes train number 17 from Moscow.
I look for a red church with gilded
onion-shaped domes. In vain. Nevermind.
A stone’s throw from the station the orthodox
cathedral of Saint-Nicolas stands, considered
the fi nest outside Russia. A symbol.
Éric Dumoulin
Tale of a return to life
3,318 km for a journey time
of 50 hours 23 minutes departing
from Moscow and 49 hours
34 minutes departing from Nice;
fi ve countries crossed – Belarus,
Poland, The Czech Republic, Austria
and Italy; twenty nine stops including
Minsk, Warsaw, Vienna, Milan and
Genoa… With this new service, RZD,
in partnership with the SNCF, is
mainly targeting a wealthy Russian
clientele who appreciate the train
and wish to travel to ski resorts
in the Alps for the winter and
to the beaches of the Côte d’Azur
in the summer.
The train is composed of twelve cars
and has capacity for 136 passengers.
Not to mention the 28 members
of its crew, all Russian, recruited
through a competitive application
process based on their language
skills and hotel know-how.
The tickets, presently on sale
in Russia and France, will soon be
available in the main stations of
the countries crossed.
For passengers who are not of
Russian nationality, it is necessary
to obtain a Russian visa and
a Belarus transit visa. Eventually
RZD’s objective is to reduce
the journey time to 36 hours and
to propose up to four services each
week if the commercial success
is confi rmed.
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