Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation of an article originally written in French. I apologise for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have resulted. If you read French, click on the French flag below to access the original, correct text:
Français
I love books that make you travel. I just found an illustrated album that was one of my favorite books as a child: Paris-Beijing by the Trans-Siberian.
The authors are Agnès Rosenstiehl (the designer of the mischievous Mimi Cracra) and her husband Pierre, at Gallimard. An out of print edition from 1981!
I dive back into it with delight. And I understand better, with my adult eyes, why this book exerted such a fascination on my dreamy little girl mind. It's a real travel story, full of encounters, details, anecdotes, a story full of humor, illustrated by small comic strips showing the journey of the two young travelers, Marco and Pierrot. It starts like this:
The Nord-Express
Fire! We left for 10 834 kilometers. Paris-Peking, it's simple: just one change of train in Moscow. From the Gare du Nord, every day at 5:13 p.m., platform 3, the Nord-Express leaves to scatter its cars all over Northern Europe, to Münster, Bremen, Cologne, Hamburg, Copenhagen...
We embark in a very remarkable wagon: Russian, with Russian insignia, the only wagon for Moscow! The wagon conductor asks you in Russian for your passports and tickets. And "Niet, niet! ", no visitors in the Russian wagon of the North Station.
I have never taken the Trans-Siberian Railway. But to reach Asia without taking a plane, by land, is an old dream that I hope to realize one day.
I remembered this book thanks to a message posted a few days ago on Facebook by my fellow Quebecois Marie-Julie Gagnon His little daughter asked him for his Dora suitcase, to "play traveling at home, Mommy! »
So I saw myself "playing the Trans-Siberian Railway" in my train compartment. homemadewith my favourite book on my knees, absorbed in the contemplation of the imaginary landscapes that were scrolling through the imaginary window, seriously preparing myself for the announced stops: Moscow, Olan-Bator, Beijing... And then there was this incredible ascent of the time zones at the slow pace of the train.
I then started a search on the Internet, to find "my" book, obviously out of print. I finally found it on the used book website Abebooks. This was my first time ordering online from them. Super fast and efficient. As soon as I ordered, I received it! And the book is in good condition, as they said.
It was in this book, too, that I learned how to handle chopsticks... and I continue, today, to give this very sound advice to those who have trouble with it, "It holds together like two pencils!"
For those who, like me, love to travel virtually thanks to the Internet, you can take the Trans-Siberian Railway without leaving your living room: on Google.ru/transsib (a project involving Russian Railways and Google), there are videos and interactive maps, to complete the journey, step by step, from Moscow to Vladivostok. You have to click on the names in the block at the bottom right to go from one video to another.
Finally, because the journey can also be immobile, fed by readings and dreams, I pay a tribute to the poet Baudelaire, always inspiring...
For the child who loves cards and prints,
The universe is equal to its vast appetite.
Ah! How big the world is by the light of the lamps!
[…]
But the real travelers are those who leave
to leave; light hearts, like balloons,
From their fatality they never deviate,
And, without knowing why, always say: Come on!
[…]
Baudelaire - The trip
😉
