Yekaterinburg - site of the Romanov murders

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Hello All,

We arrived in Yekaterinburg late last night after a 36 hour journey from Krasnoyarsk. As opposed to being accompanied by rain, it is quite cold here. The Russians are all wearing coats and we can feel a shopping expedition coming on for warmer clothes. I suppose though that what we think of their winter coats are really summer jackets.

Yekatarinburg makes a welcome change from Siberia - this town is much more geared up for tourists - we've found a coffeeshop with an English speaking waitress.

It has to be said Krasnoyarsk was only interesting in ensuring we knew Siberia isn't necessarily a nice place to live in. It was much grimmer than I expected it to be and certainly not geared up for an influx of English speaking tourists.

Following on from my last blog I can hear you ask what was wrong with that first hotel ..... well, I am not sure I should tell you this but it turned out to be part hotel, part brothel. We only decided to go there as the first hotel we went to informed us they weren't allowed to let rooms to foreigners. The signs were clear from the start - bouncers at the entrance, rooms rented out by the hour and the rooms were decidedly not for spending much time in - but we were both too tired to care and so decided to stay the night. We'd already resolved to find ourselves a better hotel the following day when I was woking up in the morning by a blaring telly (this was meant to hide the goings on but wasn't very successfull) and I subsequently overheard a conversation about money ... We relocated in the morning - the hotel administrator was not impressed as we'd let on we had planned to stay two nights.

We spent Monday 1st September sightseeing - this this consisted of climbing a hill on top of which was a small chapel which in turn is features on 10 ruble bills. Lots of kids were also there, it took us a while to figure it out, but in Russia the 1st of September is the first day back at school. Kids come dressed in their sunday best - all the girls have big white pompoms in their hair.

Our last evening in Krasnoyarsk we had dinner in Dom Baron (this restaurant was recommended by one of Sergey's friends - remember the guy sharing our cabin on the way over) - this was a good choice. The waiters and waitresses were very nice and the food was excellent.

Tuesday 2nd of September and Wednesday 3rd of September were spent in the train. We were not so very lucky with our cabin mate from Krasnoyarsk - he was not very happy about sharing a cabin with foreigners - luckily he had to get off about 8 hours later. We had the cabin to ourselves for most of the next day.

On our arrival in Yekaterinburg we met a nice bloke who helped us find a hotel.

Today we have been sightseeing visiting the death site of the Romanovs - they are clearly being revered: their status has been elevated to saints and a big cathedral has been built in their name. Unfortunately we couldn't visit the church as we don't have any headscarfs on us.

Till the next time,

Titia and Vicky

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