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Published: March 4th 2009
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The train from Irkutsk to Yekaterinburg took 48 hours and at 4pm on Wednesday we arrived. We met our guide, Yadia, and she took us for a tour around the city. She firstly took us to a gem museum which displayed one man's lifetime collection of precious stones and gems. There were so many of them and it was really impressive. There were also lots of really detailed little ornaments in bright colours which looked painted but were made solely using the stones with no additional materials. After the museum we were taken to the centre of the city where Yadia showed us a bridge where newly married couples padlock engraved locks to the bridge and throw the key into the river to demonstrate their commitment to each other. The tradition is that if any of the couples decide they want a divorce they must go into the river and find the key. Right at the centre of the city there is a pyrite stone which symbolises the heart of the city however the pinkness of the stone can barely be seen due to the amount of grafitti scrawled all over it. There were a lot of 'yoof' skateboarding and biking
Lilly
after mims styleatron around the square and in front of a statue of the 2 founders of the city, known locally as Beavis and Butthead! There was a map of the city cast in metal on the wall too, which showed the city as it was when it was founded in the 1700s - literally only a factory with some houses for the workers.
We moved on from here to the Church of the Spilt Blood, a big Russian Orthodox Church built on the site of the murder of the last Tsar and his family, the Romanovs. They had been on the run for over a year as opinions had changed and Lenin's Bolshevik movement had taken power in the capital, and had settled in a house in Yekaterinburg for a few months with 4 staff, a cook a chauffeur a doctor and a nurse. They were kept under house arrest, and one day the army guy in charge told them they needed to go down into the basement to take a family photograph. When they got there, the army guy read from a piece of paper that the whole family was to be killed for political reasons. They shot the Tsar,
Nicholas II, first, in the head, then his wife Catherine, and then the 4 children, the youngest of whom Alexei was only 14. The children didn't die from the shots however, and had to be bayonetted as well. The bodies were then treated with acid and buried nearby. Although the Tsar was pretty useless as a ruler and didnt do much for his country, the story is a very sad one, and the museum to the Romanovs in the basement of this church had a sad feel to it. The original house had been knocked down, but one room in the church, built to the same measurements and in the same place as the basement where they were murdered, is kept empty with only a bible and a candle inside to remember them. The entire family was canonised into the orthodox church. To enter the church us girls had to cover our heads and wear skirts, and james had to uncover his head. We looked around the rest of the church which is functional, and discovered the many differences between their religion and ours, very interesting as they have exactly the same foundation and same Bible and teachings as we
Alice's dinner
not quite what we imagined when we ordered it... do in the Protestant church. Their services last 2-3 hours, and the congregation stand throughout. Behind closed doors (the iconostasis) the priests can experience the presence of God, and sing praises and burn incense. Towards the end of the service the priests emerge through the doors, and the congregation all cross themselves, and after the service can ask to be blessed by Holy Water. Its much closer to Catholicism and even Judaism than to what I'm used to!
After the church it was dark already, so we went to see one last sight before going to dinner. It was the Black Tulip memorial, built by Yekaterinburg veterans for their fallen comrades after the war with Afghanistan, 1979-89. It had a kneeling soldier in the middle, with great black 'petals' reaching up on either side, on each of which were the names of the people who had died during that year. therewere loads of flowers there, frozen and icy. i found it a surprisingly moving memorial, although Alice found the statue quite scary!
We then went to a nearby self-service style cafe where we pogged ourselves silly, our first hot proper meal since we'd left irkustk! Soon afterwards we
returned to our really nice hotel for showers and bbc world news before falling fast asleep.
Our second day in Yekaterinburg was also very exciting. We woke up relatively early for our included breakfast where once again we ate ourselves into oblivion, before meeting our driver and new guide Maria to drive to the Europe-Asia border for some husky dog sledding! We stopped at the border to take some great touristy photos with one leg in each continent, before changing our minivan for what looked like an army truck - cracked windscreen and all! We piled in and drove into the forests which covered the Ural mountains, before coming to a halt in a small clearing to set up the sleds. As well as our guide there were 2 russians with us, the man who owned the dogs and his female colleague. They took the sleds off the roof and proceeded to extricate husky after husky from the back of the truck to attach to them! as Alice pointed out it was very similar to Mary Poppins handbag :P we had 4 dogs each to begin with, James driving the sled with me sitting, and Mim driving the one
with Alice. We set off along snow covered tracks, with bright blue sky above us and the forest all around (sounds like im romanticising, but i swear Im not!). soon we realised that 4 dogs wasnt enough, so we added an extra one each and moved much better after that. We followed the truck for 15mins or so before stopping to let the dogs rest. We ate oranges and drank our first russian vodka in the truck before returning to the sleds for the last part of the journey.
We stopped for lunch and our russian helpers started a fire to cook some sausages on, whilst Maria showed us some local rock features at the top ofa very steep hill. Alice slipped 4 times in the felt boots she and i were wearing to keep out the cold! twas very hard going, but at the top there was a fantastic view and these magnificent rock things. we decided to slide back down the hill on our stomachs, which was fun, but as i didnt have my glasses on i kept hitting rocks and emerged at the end quite bruised and battered! We then ate our lunch with bread and
salad, before piling back into the truck, 7of us and 12 dogs, to drive back to the hotel. All in all an excellent morning!
In the afternoon Alice and Mim had a rave in our room as our shower had lights and radio (:o!) and James and I went to find some internet to say happy bday to my mother. UNfortunately it was crap internet as it blocked hotmail and facebook and the blog and everything else useful, so in the end we had to use the very expensive internet in the hotel.
That evening we bought a bottle of vodka to share and embarked on a hilarious evening of drink-pictionary and alices' game of inebriated newts, which involved remembering harder and harder phrases and drinking every time you made a mistake. after this we decided to try and sample some of Yekaterinburgs nightlife, failing miserably after walking round for about 30mins and asking some local girls who told us that bars were closed on thursdays. great. so instead we went back to our rooms and watched the news a bit more before falling asleep again.
The next morning we had to wake up early in order
The founders of the city
locally known as Beevis and Butthead... to get to the train station for our journey to Moscow. Our driver met us at 8 and we got on the 24 hour train at 9.30, ready for the next stage of our trip!
xxxx
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Laima
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privjet!
ok i'm hoping privjet means hello or something like that.....haha. my only other phase that i'm very proud of is "zak njis" meaning shuttup :D emphasis must always be on the NJIS, as helpfully demonstated in monty python!! well ok i do know a few others but they are relatively boring compared to that. well looks like you guys are having a fantabulous time, seriously these blogs are the highlight of my day, i swear its on a level with facebook now so be very honoured! just wanted to say, you mentioned about couples locking padlocks onto a bridge and throwing away the key into the river, i had no idea that that was the story behind it, but there is a little bridge in one of the central parks in Latvia that is literally covered in them. i thought it was some rock or goth tradition hahahaha. i'm not really sure how long you guys will be in latvia for but do let me know if you want a remote tour guide! haha that's a new one. remote as in far away, not robotic. HA. and promise me you will visit the laima clock and go to a laima chocolate shop. obviously no need to bring back any for me......ahem. anyways, enjoy moscow and whatever else you have left of russia and blog more often!!!!! lots of love, xxxxxxxxxxxx ps. some caterham school goss in case you didn't know; Mrs Redding is leaving to become the head of a girl's school!