A visit to the GP... Siberian style: Soviet-era train rumbles through frozen wilderness carrying doctors to treat isolated villagers still living a life unchanged in decades

Matvei Mudrov - a mobile doctor's surgery - visits remote settlements in far east of Russia
Operated by Russian state railways agency, it has around 15 doctors, examination rooms and basic medical equipment
Train equipped with heart monitors, ultrasound and x-ray machines - and a lab to analyse blood and urine

Published: 15:02 GMT, 15 June 2014 | Updated: 15:02 GMT, 15 June 2014

As ramshackle houses sit in the bleak snowy wasteland of Siberia - frozen clothes laid out across fenceposts - a train comes to a stop in plain sight.

For the townsfolk of Kun ('Valley of snow'), comprising only a handful of families who have no running water, the train is their lifeline.

But this is no ordinary transportation. It is the Matvei Mudrov medical facility.

These stunning pictures of the mobile GP surgery, as it travels from village to village, were taken by William Daniels for National Geographic magazine.

The Matvei Mudrov train - a mobile GP surgery - pulls into Kun, a remote village in the far east of Russia. For the handful of villagers who live in the ramshackle settlement, it is the closest they'll ever get to professional healthcare

The facility is not equipped to carry out even basic surgery but its strengths lie in diagnosis - it has heart monitors, ultrasound and x-ray machines - as well as recommendations for treatment. Above, staff take an after-hours break in the frozen wastelands of Siberia

Operated by the Russian state railways agency, the Matvei Mudrov has around 15 doctors, examination rooms and basic medical equipment. Above, two staffers celebrate the birthday of medical director Vera Scherbakova. In the background is a portrait of Matvei Mudrov, a pioneering 19th-century physician who is the train's namesake

Operated by the Russian state railways agency, it has around 15 doctors, examination rooms and basic medical equipment.

The facility is not equipped to carry out even basic surgery but its strengths lie in diagnosis - it has heart monitors, ultrasound and x-ray machines - as well as recommendations for treatment.

And there is a lab which can analyse urine and blood samples.

Patients also have access to a neurologist, Alexander Komarov, who became a doctor in the 1980s.

Among those who have come for advice is Mikhail Zdanovich, a 61-year-old repairman who dislocated his shoulder three years ago at the rail depot where he worked.

Hailing from the town of Berkakit (population 4,500), further up the line, he has his right arm in a sling.

Zdanovich has an appointment booked at a surgery - months away - in Khabarovsk, 1,000 miles from his home. But wants to know now whether he can continue to work.

Another man, from Khani (population: 742), fell down some stairs and has broken both ankles.

Most of the consultations take place onboard, but doctors do occasionally make house calls.

It is the closest many of the villagers in isolated parts of eastern Russia will get to professional healthcare.

Conditions in the region are harsh: in winter, temperatures can drop to as low as -45C, and there are few roads.

Built in the late 1970s, the Matvei Mudrov runs along the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), 400 miles north of, and parallel to, the Trans-Siberian railway.

The train - named after a 19th century Russian physician - makes about ten trips a year, each lasting two weeks as it visits dozens of small settlements along the thousands of miles of wilderness.