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Published: July 27th 2014
The train ride from Tobolsk to Yetarinaburg was pleasantly relaxing we had almost the whole car to ourselves. The weather has turned cold and wet so lucky we brought our rain coats, It was raining when we arrived at 10pm local time. I bought more train tickets to our next destination, the Kungur ice cave, I am getting good at this. Yekararinaburg has a similar population to Adelaide and is a pleasant city to wander around.
Our time here is short so we rose early grabbed breakfast then set off to find the Church on the Blood built over the bodies of the murder Tsar and his familly. We checked out a few more impressive churches before visiting a military museum which had a great exhibit on the American spy plane piloted by Gary Powers shot down nearby in 1960. We visited a couple of other less impressive museums before visiting a Scottish pub for a few drinks before going to the train station.
Next destination was the Kungur Ice Cave four hours further to the west, I purchased my second lot of tickets all by myself, Kungur is a small station, so we had two minutes to disembark
in light rain, no cabs which was annoying, so I looked at my guide book and discovered bus 9 was the way to get there, so on we hopped unfortunately we went the wrong way, so got off crossed the street, and and caught the next number 9 going the other way, we arrived at the terminus which was about 500 metres from a ten story light blue soviet era hotel, so we pulled on our packs and headed in that general direction.
We handed our passports so the hotel staff so they could quite unnecessarily register us with the government and headed to our pokie, very old room to relax. The hotel has a big indoor pool which was closed and a fully stocked bar which was open. Only 20 people can enter the cave every 2 hours and we were desperate to get into the first group at 10am as we have tickets for the 12.36 train to Vladimir, so I went down after breakfast and waited in the light rain till I go my tickets.
The "ice" cave was a little cool but I doubt that the ice in the cave was natural, the blogs
of industrial ice scattered around and the cheesy sculptures were a good indication of that. The cave itself was not very interesting and the tour finished earlier than expected which was good for us. Forty five minutes later we were at the station waiting for our train which would stop for just a few minutes, so we were a little worried about which platform it would stop at. Fortunately I met a young guy (Vladimir) who spoke English and helped us when we needed reassuring. It amazes me that people are allowed to bring cats and dogs on trains and planes.
The train took 20 hours and we had a room to ourselves which was lucky, Vladimir popped in for a chat then we slept until we disembarked at 6.30am, the walk to our hotel was fortunately short but we couldnt check in till 12 so we left our bags and climbed aboard a bus to Suzdal. One hour later we disembarked in a lovely town that reminded us of Hahndorf or Tanunda, nothing was open yet so we wandered the streets taking photographs of lovely churches.
Firstly we visited the Museum of wooden architecture and peasant life,
which had some splendid examples of traditional russian timber churches and homes, this was probably the highlight of the town although the Kremlin and the monastery were worth a look. We were lucky enough to enjoy some singing from some priests and the hourly bell ringing in the cathedral tower. We then walked out to the bus station and clambered aboard a small bus back to the town of Vladimir. Later we walked around the town visting some of the sights before risking a visit to McDonalds which in this country is a major trial as they have few staff and a huge number of customers.
The 20 hours daylight each day is driving me crazy, I was awake at 5am again and decided to go down and book our last ticket to Moscow, I couldnt believe it when we couldnt get any tickets that day, most disappointing after 10000km, we had to take a bus for the last 200km. The bus left a little after nine, and took about 4 hours depositing us near the Shcholkovshkaya metro station in Moscows west. A quick change of trains at Kurskaya brought us to Komsomolskaya metro and the modern and impressive
Leningradsky long distance train station.
We sat outside and people watched for a few hours, but I had a run in with some dodgy characters so we entered the old looking exterior of the building to discover an incredibly modern and comfortable interior. We boarded our train for St Petersburg just before 5pm and received a sandwich and some other snacks, the trip would take four and half hours and lacked the atmosphere of earlier journeys.
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Church on the blood from across the pond
D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Ice Cave
Sounds like the ice cave was a little disappointing but what a fantastic trip. Eager to read more.