Mmm, buffet breakfast. Then we were off to our first sight. We cross now to our correspondent on the scene...
After uniting the continents through the power of the High Five we drove back into Ekaterinburg. Along the way Kathryn discovered a monument of much greater cultural significance. To her anyway. Another IKEA, complete with backward 'N' to add to the one spotted in Ulaanbaatar. However once returned to town we decided to take a walking tour of Ekaterinburg, being that it is so walkable and the weather so nice.
Ekaterinburg is a pretty city, in the middle at least, with a central canal-cum-river derived from a weir that holds back the rather inauspiciously named 'City Pond'. It looks altogether more European than Irkutsk in Siberia despite being technically still in Asia. However, like Siberia before it but perhaps more noticeably here, it is crumbling around the edges. Literally. Concrete gutter dissolves into rock & dust. Roadway edges are rough & rocky. The motorway on ramp was just about a dirt road.
But the city does have a number of small but fetching monuments. Most are devoted to the periods before and during the soviet era. Unfortunately for Russia it seems that since Glastnost & Peristroika, no new major works seem to have been built. Nor anything cleaned. But there were less Russian stereotypes here than in Siberia. More western. Although when considering what it is that gives a standard, 'boring' soviet background a western look it's advertising. The neon streets in Beijing and Shanghai are excellent examples. This is the familiar Western 'sheen' that we are used to. And that is disappointing.
But things here were exotic too. For both of us trams are always exotic. Trains that drive on the road? That's just mental. It all seems so industrial revolution and foreign. The electric busses with overhead cables even more so. They seem synonymous with bread queues and communism. There was a sculpture that was a huge concrete keyboard laid out besides the river. It is, according to the tourist map, the largest in the world. Now there's a claim to fame.
Similar exoticism was also seen, although perhaps less poignantly so, in the Russian aversion to facial hair and the alleged stories of police corruption towards tourists. In fact the Police were so biased against us they didn't even care we were there at all. Just as well we would soon flee this oppression. Damn you KGB!! There was, however, a bridge of love. Couples had attached padlocks adorned with their names to the bridge's railings. Some were even heart shaped locks. We liked to think the keys were thrown into the river. One, however, had an end date: 2002-2011. Guess he'll need the bolt cutters.
The other site of note visited today was 'the Romanov Death Site'. This spot marks where the Romanovs, including Anastasia, were killed in the basement of an engineer's house in 1918. Subsequently the Soviet's built a Museum of Atheism in the house above. What do you put in a museum like this? A bunch of empty displays with captions saying 'Here isn't a god'? A list of things God didn't create? Dioramas of events where nothing supernatural occurred? It would be great! But instead, there's a church. Or more correctly "The Church on the Blood".
After a certain Boris Yeltsin, an Ekaterinburg governor, had the original house demolished in 1977 in case it became a shrine for Monarchists, a massive church was built. And more than become a rallying point for monarchists the Russians posthumously exalted the Romanov's the rank of Saints. From bourgeois oppressors to miracle workers in one life-time. At this rate drunko Yeltsin will become a God. Today it is surprisingly difficult to find exactly where the spot is. The guidebooks describe a number of markers that no longer exist. We satisfied ourselves that we were 'close enough'. That night we crossed town to find an actual Russian restaurant. The sign isn't in english but fortunately our Cyrillic reading is so awesome now we could find it. Despite being in a basement the interior is series of rooms each done up like a different country Russian dining room. When taking your order the waiter asks where you are from and plants the relevant flag on your table to let everyone know.
Fortunately there were no Americans in tonight to send troops to every other table. Kathryn's beef Stroganoff was very good. Gavin's four quarters pie less so. We could identify two quarters - onion and mushroom with cheese. The other quarters were less clear. Beef and rabbit? Not sure. Not good. But we left feeling like we had got to know Ekaterinburg.
After uniting the continents through the power of the High Five we drove back into Ekaterinburg. Along the way Kathryn discovered a monument of much greater cultural significance. To her anyway. Another IKEA, complete with backward 'N' to add to the one spotted in Ulaanbaatar. However once returned to town we decided to take a walking tour of Ekaterinburg, being that it is so walkable and the weather so nice.
Ekaterinburg is a pretty city, in the middle at least, with a central canal-cum-river derived from a weir that holds back the rather inauspiciously named 'City Pond'. It looks altogether more European than Irkutsk in Siberia despite being technically still in Asia. However, like Siberia before it but perhaps more noticeably here, it is crumbling around the edges. Literally. Concrete gutter dissolves into rock & dust. Roadway edges are rough & rocky. The motorway on ramp was just about a dirt road.
But the city does have a number of small but fetching monuments. Most are devoted to the periods before and during the soviet era. Unfortunately for Russia it seems that since Glastnost & Peristroika, no new major works seem to have been built. Nor anything cleaned. But there were less Russian stereotypes here than in Siberia. More western. Although when considering what it is that gives a standard, 'boring' soviet background a western look it's advertising. The neon streets in Beijing and Shanghai are excellent examples. This is the familiar Western 'sheen' that we are used to. And that is disappointing.
But things here were exotic too. For both of us trams are always exotic. Trains that drive on the road? That's just mental. It all seems so industrial revolution and foreign. The electric busses with overhead cables even more so. They seem synonymous with bread queues and communism. There was a sculpture that was a huge concrete keyboard laid out besides the river. It is, according to the tourist map, the largest in the world. Now there's a claim to fame.
Similar exoticism was also seen, although perhaps less poignantly so, in the Russian aversion to facial hair and the alleged stories of police corruption towards tourists. In fact the Police were so biased against us they didn't even care we were there at all. Just as well we would soon flee this oppression. Damn you KGB!! There was, however, a bridge of love. Couples had attached padlocks adorned with their names to the bridge's railings. Some were even heart shaped locks. We liked to think the keys were thrown into the river. One, however, had an end date: 2002-2011. Guess he'll need the bolt cutters.
The other site of note visited today was 'the Romanov Death Site'. This spot marks where the Romanovs, including Anastasia, were killed in the basement of an engineer's house in 1918. Subsequently the Soviet's built a Museum of Atheism in the house above. What do you put in a museum like this? A bunch of empty displays with captions saying 'Here isn't a god'? A list of things God didn't create? Dioramas of events where nothing supernatural occurred? It would be great! But instead, there's a church. Or more correctly "The Church on the Blood".
After a certain Boris Yeltsin, an Ekaterinburg governor, had the original house demolished in 1977 in case it became a shrine for Monarchists, a massive church was built. And more than become a rallying point for monarchists the Russians posthumously exalted the Romanov's the rank of Saints. From bourgeois oppressors to miracle workers in one life-time. At this rate drunko Yeltsin will become a God. Today it is surprisingly difficult to find exactly where the spot is. The guidebooks describe a number of markers that no longer exist. We satisfied ourselves that we were 'close enough'. That night we crossed town to find an actual Russian restaurant. The sign isn't in english but fortunately our Cyrillic reading is so awesome now we could find it. Despite being in a basement the interior is series of rooms each done up like a different country Russian dining room. When taking your order the waiter asks where you are from and plants the relevant flag on your table to let everyone know.
Fortunately there were no Americans in tonight to send troops to every other table. Kathryn's beef Stroganoff was very good. Gavin's four quarters pie less so. We could identify two quarters - onion and mushroom with cheese. The other quarters were less clear. Beef and rabbit? Not sure. Not good. But we left feeling like we had got to know Ekaterinburg.
