After my recent trip to Chișinău, Moldova, my travel buddy, Billy, and I returned to Bucharest. But unlike our way in, we didn’t do it by plane.
We decided to take the Prietenia (Romanian for Friendship) Train instead. It was a great experience, and one I would highly recommend.
But I would also recommend you come prepared. So I’ll tell the story of my trip and throw in some recommendations of how you can have the best experience if you take the train yourself.
The Prietenia
The Prietenia is a Soviet-era train, and one of very few still in operation. It’s around 50 years old!
The ride was about as smooth as you’d probably expect from a train that old. My only real experience with trains is Romanian trains. I’ll just say that I had a hard time actually sleeping on the train, but I can’t sleep on planes or in cars either, so take it with a grain of salt. The ride was a bit bumpy and kinda loud, but I think that’s pretty normal.
The train itself seemed pretty well maintained despite its age. Obviously a public train like that can only be kept so pristine, but I never felt like anything was overly dirty.
Boarding
The train leaves from either Bucharest or Chișinău (depending on your departure point) between 6-7 PM.
Because we hadn’t eaten in a while, Billy and I decided to grab some food beforehand. There’s a nice place to order Turkish food just across the street from the station in Chișinău!
So, we headed into the station to board our train, and made sure to ask one of the attendants which train car was ours (there was one at each car, thankfully!). As this was in Moldova, the people we spoke to didn’t seem to know much English. This is not usually the case in Romania.
Boarding was pretty easy, and even though we paid for a 4-person room (since it was cheaper, about $26 each), they gave us a 2-person one. My guess is they had extra space so they decided to spread people out.
When we first boarded, the train was unbearably hot. It had also been pretty hot in Moldova and in Bucharest (as there was a heat wave), so I wouldn’t expect that to be the norm. But we laid on our seats/ beds for upwards of an hour while we tried to cool down, using some brochures obtained at a local museum as makeshift fans. We had to wait for what Billy called “Soviet air conditioning”, by which he meant opening the window while the train was moving!
Amenities
The train comes equipped with a bathroom in each car. It’s an interesting experience, as the toilet simply flushes by opening a flap, and I’m not quite sure where the waste goes. A small hole in the middle of the floor drained straight to the ground below, and I’m sure that’s just there as a drain in the event of leaks or an overflowing toilet.
As for food, we brought our own, but there is a car on the train where you can purchase food and snacks. I didn’t personally visit it, so I can’t comment on that. Billy checked it out, and said it mostly just had snacks like chips and chocolate. So if you want a full meal, it’s probably best to get it beforehand!
When it came time to sleep, the attendant for our train carriage came around with blankets and pillowcases. Here’s where you should come especially prepared: the blankets were pretty thin and we didn’t get anything to put in the pillowcase.
This wasn’t much of an issue for me, because I can sleep with even a thin blanket, but if you need something thicker, I’d definitely recommend bringing your own. We only planned this a week or so in advance, so we didn’t have the time or foresight to pack such things. For the pillowcase, I stuffed dirty laundry in to act as some kind of padding.
Like I said, I had a hard time sleeping, but I think that was more due to being in a moving vehicle than the blankets or pillow.
As for the room itself, it wasn’t incredibly spacious, but it was room enough for two people. We could lay out things we needed on the seats and put them on the floor/ small table when we were going to sleep.
The Main Event: The Border Change
About 1/3 of the way into the train ride (or 2/3 if you’re coming from Bucharest), the train will stop for an hour or two.
This is why I recommend that, if you’re planning to go to Chișinău anyway and only want to take the train once, you should take it going out of Chișinău. Leaving Chișinău, this stop happens around 10PM. If you’re coming from Bucharest, it happens around 3-4 AM.
Firstly, there’s a border check for the country you’re leaving. Then the train goes over to another area where it waits for about an hour.
This, to me, is the coolest part. See, Moldova was part of the Soviet Union. Romania, while it was communist, was not Soviet. So Romania and Moldova ended up with two differently-sized railroad rails. As a result, when this train moves through the border, it has to stop to change out its wheels!
So, you’ll hear a lot of banging and clanging while you wait for them to swap everything around. This will also make it tough to sleep, as you’ll be contending with a lot of loud noises.
Finally, after they change out all the wheels, the train continues on through the border, where you’ll have another border/passport check to enter into the next country. So make sure your passport is accessible!
Departure
All in all, the trip took about 13-15 hours. I think we had some extra delays at the border, though.
Our arrival was pretty uneventful. We grabbed our things, got off the train, and took an Uber to our friend’s place to get our extra luggage. From there, we took a trip to a local mall for some food before departing Romania once again!
Conclusion
I’ll run quickly through everything you need to know again:
- Bring a meal of some kind. They only sell snacks on the train!
- Bring a pillow or blanket if you get cold easily or need to be really cozy to sleep.
- Noise-canceling headphones or other sleep aids like melatonin, if you use those, will make it way easier to sleep on the train.
- Have your passport ready at all times, in case you reach the border check.
- Definitely bring something to do if you don’t plan on sleeping. The view is nice but it gets dark pretty quickly!
All in all, I did enjoy the trip on the Prietenia, even if I didn’t get much sleep!
Would I do it again? I’m not sure. It’s definitely a good budget travel option, and I think I’d like to try it again with better preparation, but I feel like I might just end up losing out on sleep again.
1 thought on “Riding a Soviet Train to Romania”
Comments are closed.