You can ride the Transiberian for as low as $1200 for the 7 days it takes (plus cheap meals from the dining car), however you’re sharing a bunkroom car with the locals, which many state is the only way to do it! We did the trip in 2013, but did the route from Beijing via Mongolia to Lake Baikal, and then on to Moscow and St Petersburg. We did it over a 2 week period, stopping in several places along the way. You travel just about 90 degrees in longitude around the globe. We booked out own cabin, but you can actually just rock up and buy a ticket on the day. Its not a single train but a route with many trains running along its length. There are however the fancy tourist specials, with everything laid on that cost around $25k per person! Like most things, everything costs, so its a matter of your priorities. Its something I always wanted to do and had planned to do it even during the Soviet times. Finally in 2013 I got to it and really enjoyed it. There’s lots of old Soviet era stuff along the way, and every main station you come to always has a steam loco near by. Most of these stops you get maybe 1 hour, where we’d walk into the town square to see the statue of Lenin, and find the steam loco! Then back on our way. The scenery is mostly wooded forests of Birch. unlike the US, where the view changes significantly from east to west coast, incl rockies, deserts, grass plains and forest, the view across Russia at that latitude doesn’t actually change that much. Lots of Birch forest, wide rivers and lakes, timber Russian towns with domed churches etc. I’d do it again.
Oh, there is no english at all on the train, no-one speaks it, nor understands it, not anywhere across the route till you’re in Moscow. I did however find my German (which aint that good) most valuable. It was otherwise impossible to order things from the dining car or the shops in the many towns.
David.