Space Odyssey on the Trans-Siberian: Bowie in the USSR

Scared of flying, Bowie had taken the Trans-Siberian Railway as part of his Ziggy Stardust world tour. He was one of the biggest stars in the world at the time, and yet he was spending a week journeying across a land where his records could not be sold, and his songs never played on the radio.

MOSCOW, August 20 (RIA Novosti/ The Moscow News) - It was a snowy April day just over 40 years ago at the small station of Yerofei Pavlovich in the Far East of Russia when the Trans-Siberian train stopped en route to Moscow. Soldiers stood on the small station’s platform, which was piled high with snow, and watched as foreign passengers got off and started to throw snowballs at each other. Another group of soldiers bumped into the first, as they were distracted by the sight of a passenger disembarking from the train.

Dressed in a yellow leather jacket with a matching fur collar and a large checked cap, the young man with bright red hair stepped down onto the platform, a visitor not just from another world, but another planet. David Bowie was in the Soviet Union.

Read the full feature in The Moscow News.