Day 3 Yekaterinburg
Day 2 continued:
I can't believe I managed to make yesterday's entry without mentioning the Romanovs. The execution of the Romanov's is a part of the fabric of Yekaterinburg and there are things commemorating them everywhere. One of the biggest attractions in town is the Church of Blood which is a memorial for the Romanovs. It's a massive facility and it's really spectacular. There is a lot of money poured into this facility and it seems to be the main cathedral in town.
Purely by accident I was there on Sunday morning and stumbled into a service in the top part of the cathedral. I was in two minds about whether to stay because I wanted to have a look at the cathedral and it's spectacular paintings but don't feel comfortable intruding on religious services. Thankfully I walked in right at the end so by the time I'd made up my mind to leave it was over and I just hung around for a few minutes til it cleared out a bit.
Day 3:
Had a nice late start this morning.
Started off this morning having tea and a chat with the Korean girl in my dorm. Nice to have a chat in English :) Most of the people I've run into are going Moscow -> Vladivostok but it turns out we're going in the same direction. We're actually going to be in Kazan and Moscow at the same time (though on different trains) so we may meet up. It's nice to have someone to compare notes with.
Showered, packed my bag and just slowly got going.
I ducked into a small cafe around the corner for breakfast which is something I haven't really been doing on this trip. Odd really considering breakfast is my favourite meal of the day! I put it down the to lack of decent coffee I was experiencing in Asia. Coffee is an important part of my cafe experience so it's just not the same if the coffee is shit. However - I went to the Zebra Cafe and the coffee was good, breakfast was good (I had an omelette) and staff spoke a little English. Really cool little cafe so if you're ever in Yekaterinburg I'd recommend giving it a shot.
I didn't really have much on the cards today as I'd pretty much hit all the things I was looking at the day before so I decided to have a look at some galleries or museums. I stopped in at the Yekaterinburg Tourist Information Centre near my hostel and asked the lady what was open on Mondays. She was constantly apologising about her poor English (which was pretty good) and assured me she spoke better German and Russian. Another person making me feel like a lazy good-for-nothing for my single language.
She pointed me towards a couple of museums and I found a gallery in the tourist city guide she had there so I was set.
The first museum looked like it was closed. The entrance was all roped off and there were construction workers updating the facade. It was the least interesting museum on my list anyway so I just decided to skip it and moved onto the "Ekaterinburgskaya Galereya Sovremennogo Iskusstva" which was a small modern art gallery. The only had 2 floors with maybe 100 pieces in total of local Ural artists. While the gallery was small I thought there were some pretty interesting pieces in there. There was an exhibition on the top floor which largely focused on artistic impressions of aerial property maps which wasn't particularly interesting. Amazing what is considered art.
One of the pieces I really liked was a wire bust of a person holding a book and the bust was stuffed with pages of books. Could be a nice practical piece of artwork to have at home as sort of a recycle bin with the colours constantly changing based on what you were throwing out.
Next I headed off to the Museum of the History of Yekaterinburg. It was a small museum and was basically about the formation of the city. Essentially the capital of the Ural area it didn't become a formal city until quite late in its existence. It was mostly an industrial city that was known for its metalwork. Made lots and lots of cannons and whatnot for various Russian wars.
The museum itself wasn't fantastic but it did make some pretty good use of technology. At the beginning there was a 15 minute 3D video (in English even!) showing the timeline of the growth and creation of the city. Really cool little movie but I felt like it basically rendered half the museum pointless. There was a whole exhibit about the formation of the city and it essentially covered everything that was in the video.
The audio guide was pretty good. Each guide was a small infrared scanner and there were a bunch of sensors around the place. You pointed the scanner at the sensor, pressed the button and it started playing the audio for the thing you were interested in. I really liked that because it meant I had complete control over what I was listening to.
And the last cool thing was a big book with some sort of coding embedded on each page. When you turned the page of the book the projector above would put a bunch of information and animation on the pages. It was really cool!
Otherwise the museum was done pretty quickly. Interesting enough but definitely not a must-visit.
By the time I was done with these 2 it was about 2pm and I was looking to go to a restaurant serving food from Uzbekistan before I left town. The restaurant was recommended in the lonely planet guide and got some pretty good reviews online as well so I thought I'd give it a try. Never had Uzbek food before so I really didn't know what to expect.
The restaurant is called "Nigora" and it was awesome! I had "Lagman" which was a beef and noodle stew and Manty which were beef dumplings. The stew was really rich with a beautiful spice combination. The noodles tasted like they were made in-house. And the dumplings were really tasty though perhaps a little over cooked. The decor of the restaurant was awesome and felt authentic (based on me knowing nothing about Uzbekistan) and it was really cheap! Totally recommend this place if you're ever in Yekaterinburg and I will try to find Uzbek food again before I leave Russia.
Only a couple of hours to go until my train left. Not really enough time to do anything so I decided to head to the train station and have a look around the area. Maybe visit the rail museum which was next door to the station.
I couldn't find anywhere to dump my bag at the station so I didn't go to the museum. In the end I ended up walking around playing ingress and just investigating the area surrounding the station. I found a small market and picked up some cup noodles for dinner on the train. The area on the far side of the shops near the station was pretty dodgy. There were a bunch of guys in hoodies and sunglasses standing around on street corners in a way that screamed ILLEGAL THINGS FOR SALE. Probably the only place I've been so far in Russia where I've seen that sort of dodgy looking behaviour. Lots of shitty old buildings and dilapidated areas but nothing that felt unsafe until this place. Just glad I wasn't wandering around there at midnight.
That said - there were plenty of people wandering around with their shopping and their kids so maybe I'm just imagining things.
I had originally been planning to go straight to Moscow from Yekaterinburg but given the recommendations from the people on Olkhon Island I decided to do a couple of days in Kazan. This would cut short my Moscow time a little but only by a day which was fine.
In the interest of trying new things I've decided to travel to Kazan in platskart - third class. Third Class is effectively open bunks. Similar configuration to 2nd class but without doors and with an extra 2 bunks on the end of each row. From what I have seen it actually looked better than the trains I saw in China so I think it'll be OK. Regardless - I'm only doing an overnight so it's not like I'll have days to kill. Should be fine for sleeping.
I may have been wrong! It's a bit cramped! And it's absolutely packed! It's got half as many people again as the 2nd class carriage so I'm sure the morning rush for bathrooms will be chaotic.
I'm in the top bunk on the side of the carriage and I'm lucky enough to have nobody below me for the time that I'm awake which means I get a table and chair for a couple of hours. I do some blogging and have some tea and nobody wants to talk so after our first 30 minute stop I make my bed and go to sleep.
Walking down to the bathroom is an exercise in dodging people's feet sticking over the edge of their beds and there is already a queue. Maybe I shouldn't have drunk so much tea.
It's a little noisier than second class but most people are trying to sleep by this time so it's not too bad. Certainly no louder than the passive sound of the train going down the tracks.
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