In pre-war days in Siberia, traveling on the railway was easy; but as soon as one left it, one was liable to meet with a certain amount of adventures.
One night in the middle of winter, I landed at the station of Omsk. No one was there to meet me and I did not know a word of Russian. I was told that the town was at least six miles away and that to reach it one had to travel through a wild, empty country of rolling plain and small bush. Furthermore, quite a few Russians in Moscow and on the train had entertained me in French with terrible stories of escaped convicts, brigands, hold-ups and murders. In fact, only that week before my arrival, a traveler was supposed to have been shot and robbed on the same road that I had to take to go to town.
After a lot of trouble, I found a “troika” drawn by the usual three horses and was able to make the driver understand where I wanted to go.