Day 2 Yekaterinburg
I got started a little bit later than I expected doing some surfing of the inter webs and various things but I made a concerted effort to follow the red line.
I retraced a bit of the ground I covered yesterday and ended up looping back on some stuff I had already covered as well but I followed that line like a really well behaved tourist.
It took me through a mall and past the town pond again. I went through the literary quarter but a lot of stuff was closed because it was Sunday and to be honest, I'm not really into Russian authors so it wasn't very appealing to me.
Then the line took me past what I guess I would call the performing arts and museum sections as I went past a bunch of small museums and concert hall type things. This turned out to be a bit of a blessing because I saw a couple of shows that I thought might be interesting to see while I was in town.
Anyway. Then the line took me past a few other boring things like lookouts and sculptures in honour of some Russian people I'd never heard of, then a few art installations and then back towards the hostel.
I think if I'd done a bit of reading on Yekaterinburg before I arrived I might have got a bit more out of it but overall I quite enjoyed the walk as I got to see some really interesting architecture, a lot of the city and play a bunch of Ingress. I got my Exo5 medal for anyone who cares.
One of the things I noticed on the walk was that one of the performing arts centres had a ballet performance on tonight. As a general concept I like the idea of ballet but in reality the shows I've been to have been pretty boring. BUT I'm older and wiser now and I'm in the heartland of ballet so I thought I might give it a go if I didn't find anything else to do. Also - the theatre looked absolutely beautiful and I'm tempted to go just to see the inside.
I end up at a market so I do a bit of shopping to get some stuff I need (or have convinced myself I need) and some lunch then head back to the hostel.
One of the things I am enjoying at Yekaterinburg is the amount of public art around the place. There really are a lot of sculptures, contemporary artworks and graffiti / murals around the place and they are all quite high quality as far as I'm concerned. It gives an otherwise unattractive city some appeal when walking around and makes for lots of ingress portals.
So I go back to the hostel and eat my lunch, drink a beer, and book some accommodation and tickets for the coming days.
Before I know it there is only 30 minutes til the ballet starts and I've decided I want to go. So I quickly take a shower then as I'm changing clothes and putting shoes on I get drawn into a tedious conversation with a Russian dude in the dorm room. As much as I'd like to speak to some more Russians with a bit of English it's just bad timing! So I disengage as gracefully as I can and take off to try and make it to the theatre on time.
I'm about 10 minutes late but they still sell me a ticket for what was significantly more money than the website said it would be. Hmm. Did I just get tourist scammed or is there a serious discount for buying online? Whatever - it was only $25 AUD which was still pretty cheap for a ballet performance.
I make my way round the front then up to the third floor and look helplessly around until someone helps me read my ticket. I get stuck in a temporary seat for the first act which is partially obscured which will teach me for being late.
Tonight's show is Romeo and Juliet. One of the reasons I decided to go was that I basically know the storyline of R&J so I figured I would be able to follow what was going on. If it was some convoluted Russian traditional story I would have been screwed.
The theatre itself is absolutely stunning. If I'm honest this is half the reason I wanted to come to the show. It's a smallish theatre with 3 tiers (I'm on the middle tier) and it's decorated absolutely beautifully. You would think with the amount of gold and glass that it would look gaudy but I think they balanced it pretty well and it just looks great. I probably shouldn't have paid extra for a lower tier because I'm pretty sure I would have been able to see everything really well from the top tier as well.
The ballet itself was fine. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would which was a relief. There were some good costumes and plenty of colour which helped things along. I find the whole white tutu swan lake style ballet to be very tedious.
Now I don't know that much about ballet but I've seen a couple of performances. I'm pretty sure this was not a top tier ballet company. The leads seemed pretty good but the rest of the ensemble didn't really sell it during the big group sequences. They weren't always in time and it just looked a bit sloppy.
I also am really glad I knew the storyline because if I hadn't I'm not sure I would have been able to tell what the hell was happening. I'm sure it's difficult to choreograph nuanced meaning in a dance but it was a bit of a stretch at times to convince myself that whatever was happening on stage had anything at all to do with the storyline.
At this point I will also be a bit of a pervert. There were SO many hot Russian women in the audience. Holy shit. If the show was boring I would have been entertained just people watching.
It was a pretty nice night out when I left so I went for a bit of an amble on the way back to the hostel to see the sights by night. Yekaterinburg is more pleasant in the dark.
Back at the hostel and I meet the girl who has been sleeping in the bunk under mine. She's Korean and speaks pretty good English which is nice. She ends up having a bit of a chat with some others in the room while I try to tune it out and go to sleep.
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