Sleepers’ beat

16 MINUTES

‘It pulls you in’: the staff seduced by the rhythms of the Trans-Siberian railway

The Trans-Siberian is as storied a railway as any in the world, the 9,289 kilometres of its route between Moscow and Vladivostok both a stark physical reality and a mystique-laden gestalt shaped by a bloody and romantic history, incomparable landscapes, thousands of artistic interpretations and the journeys of innumerable souls. For those who work on the trains, there’s something more – a kind of gravity that draws them in, or a haunting in the oldest sense of the word, the roots of which go back to frequenting a place, to going or bringing home.

Created from the rhythms of the railway itself, the short documentary Sleepers’ Beat by the Russian-Swedish filmmaker Anastasia Kirillova is a mesmerising exploration of the force that the Trans-Siberian exerts on the people who come to it for work. In the clacking and screeching of the wheels on the tracks, the pulsing flashes of landscape out the windows, shaking visions of stations, villages and cities along the way, and the constant rattle of the carriages, Kirillova finds a poetry of place that’s always in motion.

This contradictory quality of the trains – the being within a space that itself moves through many places – feels directly tied to the power that, one after another, the people working aboard ascribe to the railway. One woman tells of taking the job with her husband when she was 25 because the salary was good and they wanted to see Russia: 24 years later and ‘We never left,’ she says. Another woman started working on a whim and then got hooked. One more adds that she began grudgingly and now finds it impossible to leave. What accounts for this magnetic or addictive aspect to working on the railway? Kirillova gives us fragments of the workers’ answers – a feeling of family and camaraderie, that being aboard lets one really see ‘human souls’, a sense that the train is a living creature or that each carriage has its own ‘spirit’, and, again and again, that the train has become home.

In an essay on the appeal and rewards of train travel, the Russian writer Margarita Gokun Silver observes that the ‘experience we create when we take the time to look out of the window, start a conversation with a stranger, connect with a family member or simply read a book while rhythmically swaying to the clackety-clack of the wheels helps recuperate the parts of us we neglect and miss.’ With her film, Kirillova takes us deeper still, creating an auditory and visual spell that reaches beyond words to make us feel the ‘beat of the wheels’ and the deep enchantment of the Trans-Siberian.

Written by Kellen Quinn

Director: Anastasia Kirillova

Cinematographer: Jacob Robinson

Editor & second camera: Anastasia Kirillova

Explore more

A group of office workers turned to face a colleague, clapping and smiling, in a modern meeting room setting.

Are you saying ‘thank you’ too effusively?

Research suggests that people who express their gratitude more effusively are judged as lower status and less influential

by Christian Jarrett

A bulldozer and excavator at a quarry with a clear blue sky in the background.

Scarred

The highway I’d helped build stretched before me. For the first time, I saw clearly what we had done

by JShawn Guess

Photo of a hiker with a backpack and two dogs on a mountain peak at sunset, above the cloudline and overlooking a valley.
Psyche Exclusive

A former office worker charts his own path, herding sheep high into the Pyrenees

Directed by Jake Joynson

Medieval manuscript illustration of three figures talking: a man, a knight with a shield and a shovel-bearer, set in an ornate border.

How the nature of friendship has changed through the centuries

The metamorphosis of this special bond from feudal to modern times reveals much about the aspirations of different societies

by Bénedicte Sère

Three people chatting at a rustic bar in a pub, with a brick interior and various decorations.

Our relationships, in five dimensions

Scientists offer a new way to compare and contrast social ties – like a ‘Big Five’ for relationships

by Matt Huston

Photo of a waiting room with focus on a black hat. A woman reads papers and another looks at her phone in the background.

How to chat with almost anyone

It can be awkward at first, but people are more open to conversation than you think – and it could lead to deeper connection

by Michael Yeomans

A yellow taxi on a busy street, people walking, child holding flowers, historic building in the background under a blue sky.

Confessions of a teenage fundamentalist

My world was dark and scary. But beautiful things crept in, and threats of hell just couldn’t compete

by Liz Boltz Ranfeld

A person wearing a red jacket and a backpack walking on a winding path through lush green fields with hills and trees in the background.

How to plan a pilgrimage

Whether religious or not, you can undertake a special, meaningful kind of journey that could leave you changed forever

by Oliver Smith