A murder made me famous

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The train

A short hop of only 21 hours, which had been made a lot longer by our compartment companion who snored like a Russian bear (no not Kellie a proper Russian who shared the 4 bed compartment with us). He redeemed himself by showing Russian hospitality and offering to drive us to our accommodation.

Yekaterinburg

A very pleasant town which is mostly remembered as the place where Russia's last Tsar and and his family were murdered in 1918 by the Bolshevikts. The house where it happened was demolished in the 80 but a massive church has been build on the same site 15 years ago. The tsar was also made a martyr by the Russian orthodox church. Just shows that history depends on who writes it...
The city itself has wide cobblestone and tram filled boulevards with ornate historical building which made it easy to imagine life here 50 or 150 years ago.
The city is a mix of old building with modern apartment and office buildings thrown in. This also includes a tower which has a viewing platform on the 42 for to admire a 360 degree view of the city across to the Ural mountains which are the divide between the Asian and European continent.
It is one of the main cities to host the 2018 FIFA world cup which means that quite a few places and streets are currently being redone to make it even better looking than it already is.
Boris Yeltsin, the first elected president of Russia, hails from here and the city boat a modern and interactive "Presidential museum" dedicated to the period just before and during his reign.
The museum provided a good insight into Russian political history leading up to collapse of Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, the emergence of Russia as a "democracy" under Yeltsin, his ten year leadership before resigning and leaving Russia in the hands of Putin. It was all obviously seen and reported mostly favourable towards Yeltsin but a interesting and very well done museum anyway.

We also decided on the travel destination for the trip after this. While in town we stumbled over Uzbekistani and Turkmenistani restaurants where we had fantastic food like delicious beef/tomato/potatoes/dill/noodle soup, lamb kebab, lamb cutlets, pancake, fresh oven baked bread with egg and feta, crisp light pastries and refreshing fruit compote drink (we ordered carafes). Based on this extensive research we will head to the Stan's next time to come back 20kg heavier.

To make it up to Dillon for spending hours in a museum and wandering the streets the next day we lined up for two hours and spent a day splashing about in a Russian aqua park. Indoor for obvious reasons. It was a proper complex and huge. As usual in Russia cleanliness is absolute and we had to wear little plastic bags over our shoes when we entered the place. No not the swimming area but the area with the cash registers..... Dillon and by the looks all children under 146 cm, had to wear life vest. The rule was vigorously enforced by the lifeguards who loved to blow their whistle.
The park was full of water attractions, they had used every bit of space and installed a wave pool, toddler slides, water guns, kids slides, a river with tubes encircling the circumference of the complex, 6 scary adult slides (Kellie somehow ended up on one needing to close her eyes and finding that her swimmers wandered up a bit), Turkish bath house, sauna and rooftop sun deck with 6 spa baths. The entire place was brimming with Russian people of all ages enjoying themselves immensely. Eventually exhausted and after becoming prunes even Dillon agreed to depart.

Rotymbiion*

^{* Random observations that you might be interested in or not}


• Tourists. Better the absence of tourists. Ignoring Russians and some hordes of Chinese group tourists we haven't encountered a foreign tourists on the train on all our journeys. Even in the cities we only stumbled over a few. Not that we miss them to much but it's just strange to not see anyone on something so famous as the trans Siberian train. Looks like this part of Russia is still an undiscovered place.
• Ripped jeans. Patrik you definitely should come to Russia. The looooove ripped jeans more than you do. They would consider yours slightly under ripped....
• On Fashion. Ralph could be a fashion icon here.... My wardrobe is as up to date as most peoples
• Communication problems! What problems. My Russian is non existing and most Russians don't speak English. That was never a problem. Its amazing how much can be achieved by vigorously pointing at things and speaking to each other where no one understands the other. These days the Google translate app is also a god send. Seriously if you travel anywhere get it on your phone. Speak the English sentence into it and it translates it into most languages. Point the camera at signs or menus and it shows the English translation. Google, I thank you. You have made travel better and worse at the same time. Less pointing and interactions but you get what or where you want...
• Russian railway travellers. The Russians have perfected railway travel. They wear very unfashionable but comfortable clothes, seem to sleep most of the day, have picnics in the carriage and deal with the traveling generally well. As there is always hit water from the wood fired boiler there is also lots of tea to be had


Don't forget to scroll down there are more pictures

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Photos

church on the blood
Previously the house where the Tsar and family was shot stood here

downtown Yekaterinburg
A pedestrian zone

apartment complex playground
Nearly all of them have one

as usual kellie wants to be in CTRL
Yes this is the statue to the qwerty keyboard. I tried to ESC

the local version of "cola" is sold everywhere in the streets
A aquired taste somewhere between coke and malt beer

view from top
The long chimney is abandoned TV tower that was only half build. The funky building in the lower right corner is the permanent circus

Nana Na Na batman
And superman

food cart in the train
People from the local city come and sell food during one of the longer stops