Fact #63345

Bernie Shaw (vocalist, Uriah Heep) : We've toured Russia several times. The first couple of tours were based on towns that lay along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Two days on the train and then a gig. The couples that look after you on the train, the conductor and the baboushka who makes your tea and brings your meals, are always married couples, because the journeys are so long. Two days out of Moscow they run out of food but they never, ever, run out of vodka. For food, you had to be up at 3am as they passed through some remote town and you could buy a chicken leg from some little granny on the platform, a couple of boiled eggs from someone else, some pickle from someone else. After five weeks living on that diet, we were quite slim and trim by the time we got home.
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black, for Classic Rock, March 2013)