The next stage in my grandmother’s journey the train from Kiev to Moscow. We had our own compartment, called a “coupe” — a four-sleeper cell that my DP joked was probably worse than most California prisons. Of course, it was still a lot better than the “platz-kart” section (the slightly more humane version of a cattle car) that my grandmother and father traveled in 62 years ago. We were woken twice in the middle of the night. First by Ukraine border inspection, then by the Russian one. NB to doc filmmakers: they can’t process ATA Carnet on trains; all the headache I went through at the airport in Kiev was useless and can only cause trouble for me later.
We arrived in Moscow at the “Kievsky” station, clearly named after my family in anticipation of my arrival. 
After a couple of hours to get cleaned up at the Mosflim Hotel (still used as residences for actors while filming at the Mosfilm Studio nearby), we were off to the Yaroslavsky station where our departure for Kransoyarsk was overseen by Lenin himself. Evidently not all of the statues of Lenin were taken down. In fact there are still plenty of Soviet symbols all over Russia and Ukraine.
At the first stop in the city of Vladimir (named after the arch duke of Kiev, later canonized by the Russian church), we meant to use our 20 minutes to go to the station and look around, but we never made it off the platform. Instead, we got into a conversation with a lady who sells ice cream on the platform. She was camera-shy at first, but after we bought some ice ream, she decided she actually had a LOT to say about Soviet and the Post-Soviet life in Vladimir. Interesting fact: dairy products in and around Moscow are made from powdered milk. The ice-cream seller’s biggest marketing point was that her ice cream was made from fresh local milk (mind you the chocolate was from powder).
The best part of the day was actually late at night, when my father, depite all of his protestations, finally opened up and started talking about his past and about my grandfather. We even managed to get some of it on camera.