Blogs from Urals, Russia, Europe - page 4

Not a long time has passed since my trip to Altai. Now, three weeks after we returned to our homes and lived up to the end of summer, having nice conversations in the evenings with Dasha (appears under the alias of D. in the Altai story) and dreaming of our return to the mountains, we have had our fun in Chelyabinsk. Ludochka (the second girl) was also there, so there were three of us. Chelyabinsk is not as old as other cities like Kazan or Nizhny Novgorod for examples. It’s sort of a diary, so I write about every little trip for me to remember; moreover, I might have said earlier that Samara was the beginning (better say, continuation) of my Russian cities tour; so Chelyabinsk is next. You had the opportunity to see Yekaterinburg in ... read more

Yekaterinburg is so totally different to anywhere else we have been in Russia. It immediately feels like a big city full of grand European style buildings with lots of traffic driving in an organised and disciplined way. Technically we're still in Asia but it all feels very European and the people consider themselves European. All the other places have had a much more small town feel to them. From the top of the original dam you can see all the eras of the city: Istoricheskiy Skver; the site of the dam & 1723 city. A square crammed full of historical info that comes alive in the late afternoon with locals chilling out on the benches beside the river. Pre-Stalinist buildings: grand, intricate and colourful as befits the town presiding over a rich mining region. They are ... read more

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

It only finally sinks in that the caffeine-powered, money-worshipping, mind-conditioning world of early starts, late finishes, lost weekends and unpayable sleep debts is really being left behind when I wake up to the chug, chug, chug of the Moscow - Perm train's wheels. After a year at the grindstone I am finally back on the road. The train has yet to wake up. At the ungodly hour of six o'clock I side-step and duck limbs dangling from the ends of their bunks on my way down the peaceful, snoring aisle to the toilet. The train has no air-conditioning and is so swelteringly hot that yesterday all the men and even some of the women were wearing little more than underwear. Thankfully I am on a top bunk next to an open window through which cold, fresh ... read more

Pause assez courte dans cette ville qui a eu du mal a me convaincre, je dois bien l'admettre. Heureusement notre CS est un original batteur/ingenieur semi-lituanien possedant une passion pour fumer la pipe et porter des chapeaux, ce qui rend le sejour tout de suite plus sympathique :o) Petit apparte historique tout de meme elle est nomme d'apres Catherine II de Russie, personnage haut en couleur ayant reigne trente ans (1762-1796). Cette femme peu commune avait de nobles ambitions pour son pays (qu'elle a agrandi d'un demi-million de kilometres carres par diverses conquetes) ; elle a importe la culture des Lumieres et l'usage du francais a la cour de Russie, en plus de maintenir les paysans dans une misere noire, fouetter un peu les polonais, enfiler les amants et endosser un role de mediateur europeen de ... read more