Blogs from Yekaterinburg, Urals, Russia, Europe - page 3

Six hours on a train whose rock-solid seats were shaped roughly halfway between an L and a ... read more

Yekaterinburg Russia! Shrouded in mystery in so many ways for so many years. Birthplace of the Russian Federation's first President, Boris Yeltsin. Site of the Gary Power's U2 plane incident. Renowned as the location of the murder of the last Russian Tsar and his family (including Anastasia). Heart of the Soviet military machine. They all hold their secrets in this, Russia's fifth largest city. And if you're like me, you've never heard of it before! Yekaterinburg was founded in 1723 as Peter the Great pushed into the Ural Mountains to exploit the natural wealth of this rich region of Russia. Yekaterinburg was named for two Yekaterinas - his wife, Empress Catherine I - the famed Saint Catherine, the Russian orthodox church's patron saint of mining! No need to say that Peter was particularly interested in the ... read more

We awake to the usual low dim of traffic and on T's persistence we get up early for breakfast - with the slight optimism that full English with proper coffee was waiting for him downstairs, we venture down. Yet again we are disappointed breakfast at the Yekaterinburg train station hotel - whose proper name I have forgotten, consisted of a square lump of unscrambled egg, cold sausage, potatoes and weird red additive/radioactive enhanced 'fruit ' juice. We check out and advance down to our pre-booked hostel Hostel Yekaterinburg (this is the correct name) 30 minutes later and still yomping and we mean yomping in 30 odd degree Siberian sun we arrive at home for the next 2 nights and check into the dorm. On arrival we meet up with a couple of Irish lads we shared ... read more

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 ... read more

Ekaterinburg - Capital Of The Urals …And doesn’t the name say it all. In fact, how the hell do you say the name!!! This city surprised me because it’s foundation is in industry such as forestry and mining, and militia, so to see a city (that is basically famous for the assassination of the last Tsar) have fantastic theatres and cathedrals was fantastic. The first morning spent in Ekaterinburg was spent in a walking tour of the city, seeing the main sights and filling us with information such as it being the city with the shortest subway route in Russia. The entire metro system only has five stops and no-one uses it because the trolley buses, buses and trams do a better job of covering the city. Passing monuments to World War II heroes and the ... read more