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Published: February 27th 2008
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Arrived in Ekaterinburg at about 8pm after 26 hours on the train. We had booked 3rd class (Plastkartny) for this leg as it was a lot cheaper. Turned out to be lacking a little in space but made up for it in people-watching potential and the opportunity to mix with the locals. We found that 'Pass the Pigs' was the game of choice for breaking through language barriers and met several locals on their way home to visit relatives who helped us with our Russian counting skills.
Ekaterinburg was in general one of the most difficult places we found to try and get decent cheap accomodation. We ended up paying a fortune to stay in a room which looked like it still housed five families living close quarter communist era squalor. The place was not really geared towards tourists....even more so than Moscow or St Petersburg. We quickly put that aside though as the whole reason we had stopped here was to take part in our first Siberian adventure....dog-sledding.
We were picked up from our hotel in the morning by our fantastic guide, Pavel in his ex-army 4x4 Russian van...a car we very quickly fell in love with wishing
we could take one home. They would make for an awesome camper conversion and really were built like tanks. Pavel was a very sweet man who had lots of experience with dog teams and sledding expeditions. He is actually in the Guiness Book of World Records (we haven't verified this ourselves yet) for climbing the highest peak with a dog team. His experience was evident and his love of his dogs and the respect they had for their master was obvious.
We drove for about 40km out of Ekaterinburg, stopping off to see the Europe/Asia border as well as a memorial to 20,000 young people ยท(most in their 30s) massacred during the communist reign for their religious beliefs. Another grey part of Russian history.
Once we arrived at our destination Pavel and Jas set about unloading the sled from the van whilst Kirstyn got acquainted with the dogs. Kirstyn was provided with snow pants but Jas was told he wouldn't need them as he was going to be busy driving the sled. Not sure whether he started shivering with cold at this point or just nerves at the prospect of handling six dogs and his wife all at
once! With a few quick instructions - "Stand here, push this to brake, you'll be ok" - we were off.
We had a great time both riding in and driving the sled - Kirstyn later got a chance to drive as well - you can see for yourselves in our video. We stopped at the halfway point for morning break and a few obligatory vodka shots before heading off again. Lunch was cooked on an open fire in the snow while the dogs munched on big bones and we climbed a nearby hill to see an impressive rock formation.
We spent the rest of our time in Ekaterinburg seeing the sights which included a huge ice sculpture park, the Raminov death site (where the Tsar family was killed), as well as walking on the frozen river watching the men ice-fishing. Oohs and aahs served ok as communication while watching this past-time although we did not see a single fish caught!
Our next leg of the train journey began at about 2am Ekaterinburg time. Luckily the train station was heated and we could spend the last few hours after dinner and drinks watching people come and go in
the busy station in preparation for the next 50 hours train travel.
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