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Passing scenery
A rather ram shackle looking village rolls by the train window on the way from Irkutsk to Ekaterinburg.Welcome, dear reader, to another belated installment in our travel blog. In this post we are trialling a slightly different format. We will start with our usual eloquent prose, razor sharp wit and high brow humor, but this time, when we post photographs of events or places we have visited we will only briefly mention those events and places in the text. The bulk of the information will be attached to each relevant picture. Please feel free to post a message to let us know if you like the new format. If it sucks we may revert back to the old way.
Post pre-blog (huh?): You may be interested to know that we are writing this blog from gate 4 at Keflavik airport in Iceland at 4.40pm, about an hour and a half after our flight was supposed to leave. We have just heard an announcement informing us that the flight will now be leaving at 11.00pm! We will, however, be getting dinner in the transit hall cafe at 6.30pm and refreshments at 9.00pm. Who says you don't get free meals on a cheapo airline?!?! Of course it also means we
More scenery
A somewhat more pleasant looking Siberian village. will now be arriving in Berlin at 4.20am. Yech! Doubtless this will all be covered in a future blog entry 😉
Begin blog: When planning a significant train journey a traveler will be quite aware of the need to spend many hours at a time in a pokey little train cabin. At over 8000km the Trans-Siberian must certainly count as significant... and then some! Knowing in advance still doesn't necessarily prepare you for the reality of spending over 50 hours on rails. Fortunately our trip from Irkutsk to Ekaterinburg wasn't as dreary as it could easily have been. Firstly the carriage itself was a considerable improvement over the last one we had traveled in. More modern, quiet and comfortable - there was even a little table cloth on the little table and a timetable for our journey.
Secondly we had a fellow traveler in our cabin with us - something we previously had been happy not to have - he was a Russian gentleman (complete with big furry hat) called Gernardie who spoke a very small amount amount of English. His company was welcome because he was a nice guy and we whittled away several potentially boring
Snow!
A thick blanket of snow covers everything as we pass by late in the winter. hours just trying to understand each other! When Gernardie came into the cabin we were already having some bother reading the timetable - our stop didn't appear to be on it at all! Gernardie tried to help us and eventually we worked out that Ekaterinburg was still listed as it's old Soviet name of Sverdlovsk. He was also able to tell us he was going to Novosibirsk to visit his mum. A boy's gotta be good to his mum - it's a world wide thing. He also offered to share the apples he had brought on board with Kerry. Perhaps insisted is a better word. Don't argue with a man who wears a dead animal on his head. They were nice apples.
Reasons 3 and 4 for this being a more pleasant trip were Suzanne and Micheal! A nice young couple from Perth, on their way to the UK to live for a while, who recognised us from the train from Beijing to Mongolia - we hadn't had any contact with them on that train, we had just crossed paths in the dining carriage. When we had gotten off that train there was a man waiting with a sign
Mosaic
Noticed at one of the many stations we stopped at on this trip. An old Soviet mosaic mural of propaganda. welcoming "S. Jones" and "M. Jones" which confused us for a brief moment. Of course it wasn't a mistake by our tour company - that sign was for Suzanne and Michael! Mr & Mrs Jones, meet Mr & Mrs Jones!!! We even somehow discovered that Michael's dad's name is John... spooooky! Michael had spent some time before their trip learning some Russian language including how to read Cyrillic. He was a very helpful boy when he accompanied us to the dining carriage to help us decipher the all Russian menu! We also had plenty to talk about from our respective trips so far. From here on Suzanne & Micheal's Trans-zip (as it's called in the biz) was very similar to ours - Ekaterinburg, Moscow & St. Petersburg - just differing arrival and departure dates. There would be some overlap but we did not know if would bump into them again at any future time or place. Of course we got their contact details and will hopefully catch up with them in the UK.
Our provodnista on this trip also provided a little comic relief. She spoke no English at all so she just told us everything we needed to
Try it at home...
Lee in an interesting position as he listens to some music to kill a couple of hours. Looks comfortable, huh? know in Russian. We would smile and shrug and shake our heads and she would trot off on her merry way satisfied that she had done her duty. Perhaps the provodnistas also get bored on these long trips: she sure did vacuum the carpet a lot! Or perhaps, as Lee decided, she was just very 'train proud'! After the first couple of times we would just lift our feet and carry on with whatever we were doing as she bustled the hoover into our previously quiet little cabin. Cleaning the toilet was a regular duty also - which is a good thing. Of course this put one of the two toilets in the carriage out of action for a while - usually at the most inconvenient times. Also passengers are not supposed to use the toilets when the train is coming into a station to avoid unpleasant deposits at the platforms! One morning Kerry went off to the toilet only to find the provodnista cleaning it so she headed back to the loo at the other end of the carriage. The provodnista noticed this and raced after her and made it clear enough that we were approaching a station and
War Memorial
Erected in 1996 and known as the Memorial of the Black Tulip, this is dedicated to all the Soviet troops who fought in the wars with Afghanistan (1979 - 1989) and Chechnya (1994 - 1996). the toilet was not to be used. Kerry, quite obviously in some need asked for just two minutes. "No!" came the stern reply - and she held up one finger offering a meet-in-the-middle compromise which put Kerry under a bit of pressure. By this stage Kerry's bladder was also under rather some pressure so she was able to meet the tight deadline.
When we finally arrived at the station in Ekaterinburg at around 4pm we were met by a driver who bundled our gear into the back of his nice new Honda CRV 4WD while we jumped in the car. Lee went to front seat on the left hand side of the car and was momentarily stunned when he found a steering wheel there! Of course the Russians drive on the left hand side of the car and so far we had always been seated in the back. The driver called out "No, it's OK, I'll drive" with a big grin, obviously having had this happen many times before. We were then taken to our first Russian hotel. Russian hotels are generally quite expensive but this one was included in the price for this part of the tour so
The big guns!
This city was closed to the public - particularly foreigners from the end of WWII until the end of the Soviet Union. It was a kind of hub of KGB and weapons development activity. This is the former KGB head quarters which now displays a few of the weapons and vehicles produced here, some of which are still in use in various parts of the world. it couldn't be too pricey. The building was about 5 storeys high and the hotel entrance was at the back. The hotel had a nice dining area, a billiards room and a security guard station on the ground floor and an elevator to get the reception on the 5th floor (huh?). Our room was on the 4th floor... weird! Inside, the hotel was quite modern and our room was pretty nice. A good size room with a large bathroom and a double spa bath! Yeah baby!
According to our itinerary we were supposed to be taken for a city tour including one museum entry after check-in. The tour started at 5pm so no museum visit was possible but after 50 hours on the train we really weren't up for it anyway. See the attached photographs for some of the sights from the tour. After the tour we went to a buffet restaurant that our guide recommended to us. It was a bit of a walk for a couple of weary travelers but the food was nice and reasonably priced.
The next day we were picked up early by a driver and a new guide, Marina, to be taken
Church of All Saints
This Russian Orthodox church was built on the site of the house in which the Romanov family - Russian last monarchs - were murdered in 1918. It's full name is Church on Blood in Honor of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land. What a mouthful! for a hike in the forest. The cold we had both picked up in/after Beijing had started to make a comeback with Kerry but she was determined it would not ruin her day. It was about an hour or so drive away, though it probably should have been longer except that our our driver was a psychopathic techno-head road warrior. We made 2 stops along the way, one to get supplies for lunch and throat lozenges for Kerry and another at the marker of the border between Europe & Asia. The hike was a 17km round trip through the Siberian Taiga Forest, it was very picturesque (see pics) and tiring but we enjoyed it immensely (and Kerry hiked like a trooper!).
The drive home was just as frantic as the drive out there, the only difference was that this time he seemed to be in a hurry! Too much of a hurry it turned out as he was pulled over for speeding and we had to sit and wait for about 20 minutes while the traffic cops took his license, ID and various papers to their car and called the details in to HQ for verification. They then called
River
The river Iset flowing through the old industrial area of Ekaterinburg. It was formerly used to provide power for early factories. the driver over into their car and obviously some of his papers weren't valid as they then burnt them right there at the side of the road! A few minutes later he returned looking none too pleased and we resumed our journey, albeit at a slightly more civilised pace. Techno boy must have had a big night out at the trance club though as he looked half asleep for most of the trip. We spent the trip watching him and being prepared to smack him awake if he started to veer offline!
The next day was a free day in the city. There were not a great many sights other than what we had briefly seen on our quick tour so we mainly wanted to get some supplies for our next over night train trip and find an internet cafe. We found a large supermarket with no problems, the internet cafe was a diferent storey. We had guide book which listed 2 in addition to the post office. We found the building that the first one was supposedly housed in and after much gesticulation and presenting our piece of paper with 'Internet Cafe' written in Russian the non English
World apart
Kerry standing across the border where Europe and Asia officially meet. One of the old symbols of the Russian empire is a two headed eagle, one head looks to the left, the other to the right. It is symbolically watching over both the Asian and European parts of Russia. Could it also be taken as a symbol of paranoia though? speaking people at the reception desk directed us to the 2nd floor. Of course we couldn't find any sign of it and after more attempts at getting over the language barrier we found out there was no internet cafe there. Righto, here we go again! We decided to head for the post office which was fairly close and when we arrived all the computers were being used and there appeared to be some people waiting also. We went to the counter to see if we could be put on the wait list - or whatever - for the next available PC. We were ignored for several minutes before one of the women working at the counter came around from behind and said gruffly "What do you want?". "To use the internet..." Lee replied sheepishly, to which she responded "Wait!" and left the room. So we waited as more people came in and joined the imaginary wait list. Anytime someone using a computer so much as shifted in their seat you could see the waiting wolves preparing to pounce in their place. We got the feeling there would be no regard for who had been waiting longer then anyone else. After
Copy cat
'Nuf said! 10 or 15 minutes with no one giving up their computer and more waiters arriving all the time we decided to leave them to it before the flashpoint arrived and they all tore each other to pieces!
Time to go looking for the second of our guidebook's suggestions. After quite a walk we finally found what we expected and then some. Certainly there was no internet cafe... there was also no building. It had been demolished... or perhaps it just fell down - we have heard stories of the quality of Russian concrete!
All this day Kerry's cold had been getting worse and by now it was well time to get back to the hotel.
The following morning we were picked up and taken to the train station for our trip to Moscow, and who should be our driver? None other than techno boy once again looking more than ever like he'd just gotten off the floor after a hard night on the ekkies. Our past drivers or guides have taken the trouble to make sure we are safely on the train before heading home but this guy simply dumped us and our gear on the foot
Rubish?
A tradition has sprung up that Russian wedding couples come up the area at the border and tie ribbons to the trees. How sweet. Our guide just regarded it as littering! path in front of the wrong entrance and buggered off quick, bass a thumpin'. Screw him! After a while we figured out where we were supposed to be and were soon settling in to another very nice sleeper cabin for another night on rails. Moscow here we come...
Post-blog: Well we didn't end up leaving Iceland until after midnight and arrived in Berlin at around 6am. The air craft we were meant to fly out on was not serviceable and we had to wait for another to be sent from Buda Pest! It was a bit unnerving to be boarding a plane n the middle of the night and seeing from the walkway one of the engines opened up and two mechanics working on it. But that's a story for a later blog!
Post post-blog: So there it is - the first blog in our new format. The change in format has actually been not quite so effective with this blog as we really only one took pics of one outing. It was intended to get more pics in (we know you like 'em) and make the blogs quicker to write but this has probably taken longer than
Little house by the forest
One of the lovely houses nestled into the trees at the entry to the forest where we began our hike. any previous blog to post! We simply have been slack and too busy having a great time. Sorry folks - well, sort of! As mentioned in the pre-blog, we'd love you to leave us a comment to let us know what you think of this format or about anything else really. We really enjoy getting the comments and read all of them. Love to you all, K&L
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Steve
non-member comment
Urals guys, Urals
Like the format and the piccies are great. But then again I like snow...and trees...and...snow......anyway it's good! An especially nice shot Lee, so to speak, of your piss-hole; but it's Urals, mate, Urals. Hope all's triffic where you are; things continue to be good here. Think of you every day. Love to ya both. An email is imminent.