There will be a samovar of hot water for tea on any Russian overnight train. Is there a direct train on this route? Best I find is 1 connection. Is there some reason you want to spend nearly 40 hours on the train?

Be sure to work out the visa issues for your trip to Russia several weeks in advance. Anything less than 6 to 8 weeks requires expensive “expedited service.”

Thank you.

I thought it was a German train, so I didn’t know about the samovar.

I have been planning this trip for years. Last December, the German Bahn website listed a direct train running from Berlin to St Petersburg on Wednesdays in May. I printed the schedule, so I’m not completely nuts. Because of your comment, I decided to double check and this train now only runs on Fridays and Saturdays. So we will probably go from Berlin to Moscow, then to St Petersburg.

As for spending 40 hours on a train, this trip will have several stretches like that. We are going around the world on trains, so 40 hours will not be unusual, and will seem a piece of cake compared with 6 days on the Trans Siberian.

I will start contacting Visa people in March.

Again thank you for your comments.

With only one or two trains a week you may find this overnight train crowded. Try to get ticket and reservation as far an advance as possible. I had a travel agent book the express from St. Petersburg to Moscow on a Sunday. While that probably doubled the price of the ticket, every single seat in both 1st and 2nd class was full.

Is this trip really 24 days?

Actually, the trip is only 22 days.

You’re entitled to your opinion, of course.

I took the train from Moscow to Petersburg, an overnight train which wasn’t that bad. But I don’t think they had any pantry although there was a small cart that came on the way for selling tea and chocolates.
However due to safety reasons, the US citizens consular services had fairly warned us not to open the door in the night to anyone and not to buy anything from any strangers. They also indicated not to talk to woman who would offer us something to drink and then dissappear in the course of the night with our belongings.
With their advice, we had actually booked the entire compartment to ourselves.

To look back, it was quite chilly in the night and hardly slept.

Crossing the Russian border by train isn’t a lot of fun, either….

The night train from Berlin to Moscow is – of course – a Russian train. See the complete train composition at this site: vagonweb.cz. The train runs daily dep 15.06 Berlin Zoo arr Moscow Belorusskaja the day after at 20.35. In the train, there are also destination coaches from Berlin to St. Petersburg (daily), Paris to Moscow (dep every monday, thursday, saturday), Berlin to Minsk (daily) and Berlin to Irkutsk (on wednesdays, although I am not sure if the coach runs this year – I’ll have to check that)
There is a Russian restaurant car in the train from Brest (Belarus) to Moscow.

Attention! You have to buy a transit visa for Belarus (€ 20), when crossing the country by train!

If you are in Berlin before your trip, buy your tickets at Bahnagentur Schöneberg, a very competent ticketseller for destinations throughout Europe.