Day #26: Yekaterinburg

---

Yekaterinburg's main attraction is a bit macabre: the site of the murder of the Russian royal family in 1918 by executioners acting for the Revolution. They were shot in the cellar of a house, upon the site of which there is now an overbearing church in their honour (happily named the Church on the Spilled Blood). The royal family has become a highly political issue in Russia, and the church has become a political statement as well as a place of worship.

The royal family were proclaimed saints by the Russian Orthodox church, being considered to have died in the course of their faith, so the focal point inside the church are their icons, arranged in a row, which a steady stream of Russians (including a coach party of teenagers) come to pray to and light candles for, as they might for any other saint. To an outsider this seems absurd, but I think it is more a political statement than a religious one, showing support for the religious establishment.

The weather was atrocious today: constant heavy rain, which seemed appropriate for the strange church (and the Afgan War memorial, the other uncheerful sight we saw today!).

---