In the number eight train from Novosibirsk to Vladivostok, a 3,700-mile journey, the third-class carriages swarm with tattooed men in T-shirts and tracksuits. Smells of sweat, vodka and the travellers' survival rations of salted fish wrapped in newspaper mingle in the overheated air.

Men like these travel in their hundreds every week along Russia's fabled trans-Siberian railway to the final stop, Vladivostok, to buy used cars imported from nearby Japan. Then they drive them back thousands of miles along a trans-Siberian highway completed with some fanfare just three years ago, to sell them at a profit.