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Published: June 15th 2009
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Part 1: The train
This was our first taste of overnight Russian train travel. We travelled "Kupe" i.e. 2nd class and again were pleasantly surprised to have services included, despite having a bag full of instant noodles, bread & tea at hand to see us through! This time for "services" we were called into the restaurant car and asked what we'd like to eat. This greatly confused us but the patient lady waitress knew a couple of words of English and so we ordered "pork". It actually turned out to be a 2 course fayre of salad followed by pork stew with potato. Very nice indeed!
When we first got onto the train I was very upset to find a rather smelly lady in my bunk (no. 9). I told her in my best Russian that that was my bed (lit. it is mine: eta moi) and waved my ticket at her when she shook her head. Alas, she easily dismissed me so I asked if the one opposite was free and sat down. The nice male prodovistna (carriage attendant) also asked why she was in number 10 when he came to check tickets but we said it
was ok. She got off at the next stop which was only a couple of hours away so to avoid confusion with the next passenger I hopped over to my bed. Not without flipping the matress I would like to stress!
The rest of the journey went without issue. We had 2 hot meals served up to us in the restaurant all together. The 2nd was soup which we worked out to be borsh with the help of our phrase book. Then after checking out the meat we worked out it was rabbit borsh. I neglected to highlight to Graham that the white lump that he'd happily mixed in and eaten up was in fact the dreaded SOUR CREAM (!) until he'd almost finished.
Actually, while we're on the subject.. For those of you that don't know Graham, he has a random fear of cold sauces, mayo being the worst offender but including ketchup, sour cream, guacamole and all else. WELL.. Russian's do like to smother things in mayo or sour cream and I am happy to report that Graham has been very tolerant. He's happy enough to scrape it off and/or eat around it. So I am
a very proud wifey at meal times 😊
Part 2: Yekaterinburg
We had only one day here, arriving late on Saturday night (10.30pm) and leaving early Monday morning (4am). As our one day was a Sunday many of the main tourist spots were closed so we used this as an excuse to have a chilled out day. We had a little bit of a lie in and then wandered down to the river and on up to the Church of the Blood which is the church that Boris Yeltsin (from Yeketerinburg & mayor at the time) had built on the site where the Romanovs were murdered, as a memorial. See photos. We also went to a photography exhibition which was nearby. The exhibition included photographers from Russia, India, Thailand, Indonesia and parts of Europe but they were almost all very sombre, tackling big world issues and I felt, along with the Russian art that we saw in the Museum of Decorative Arts, gave a slight insight into the Russian mindset, with their recent turbulent history.
In the evening we went to a Scottish bar which, along with a Bavarian bar that we later went to in Irkutsk,
has taught us that theme bars while travelling are to be avoided as they are hugely overpriced (try 3 times the local bars!) and really quite shit.
Finally, a quick shout out to Katya - whist in Yekaterinburg we stayed in her hostel, the Meeting Point, about 10-15 mins walk from the town centre. Katya was awesome - really helpful, very knowledgable on the city and went to great lengths to make our stay a pleasant one (most notably staying up til 3am to send us a text letting us know that our taxi was waiting outside - nice!)
Ok, enough for now. We're staying in sleepy Ulan Ude at the moment so will have plenty of time to add "catch up" blogs in the coming days.
Tomorrow, expect topical posts from Mr Levere on "The Baltika Index", "Speaking Russian to Russians When You Don't Speak Russian (and they don't speak English)" and "Zakuski - how to make friends (under the influence) with people".
Da Svidanyyyaa, or something.
Kerry (and Graham towards the end)
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Stanley
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Topical Posts
Graham, I'm looking forward to the topical posts...you should write them in Russian or when you're under the influence, or both. Nice shots of the churches!