Liner Hotel Yekaterinburg

... br><br> The Moscow train was supposed to be segregated by gender. <br>My first room-mate was a Russian lady &#8220;d&#8217;un certain âge&#8221;. Probably a bit like myself. She was certainly of an age when English was not taught in Soviet schools. <br>But, despite the lack of a common language, we managed to sort out the luggage distribution and other practical matters. That was when the &#8220;Provodnik&#8221; (translates as ...

... from Asia.<br><br>Unfortunately the last Tzar Nicholas 2 believed he ruled by divine right and his father before him had ruled Russia as a police state, possibly because his own father the reforming Alexander 2, had been blown up by anarchists. The Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood in St Petersburg,commemorates this event. <br><br>The bungling Nicholas was unable to govern effectively and with ...

You guys are getting two blogs for the price of one; I figure it will keep you busy enough to buy me some time to get to Moscow. I arrived last night in Yekaterinburg, the last stop in Siberia and the mid-way point for my time in Russia. Yekaterinburg is also the city where the last Tsar of All the Russias, Nicholas II, was killed in 1918. My prime motivation for coming to this city was to see the sites related to the end of the Imperial ...

... an eternity When I wake up in the morning, I throw my things around and make noise purely out of spite. It is not a good beginning. When Marina finally wakes up, I greet her coldly. She asks me where I'm from, and when I reply, she makes a face. "Canada? Then how...You were born in Russia, though, right? Your parents...they are Russian?" I explain to her how I speak Russian, and she tells me they have a geologist friend in Edmonton. This breaks the ...

... cards, drank, ate strange platform foods and talked at length about the world and his wife. We were also really lucky to be next door to Mandy and Seb and Alex and Megan and we became a jolly party of 8 as we reached our first leg stop. We weren't so lucky to have a shower for 4 days and by the time the last afternoon came round the carriage attendant decided to tell us at that point that we could have had a shower all along!!! Lots of swear words follow from all of us.......

... went out swimming to one of the nearby lakes wiht Olga's brother and friends). I don't know if they are succesfull but either way I wish them all the best as they are very helpful, inovative, educated and lovely. Notes on the city - I am glad I stopped here and not only because it breaks an 80 hour train journey between Moscow and Irkutsk but also because the city is charming, the people are friendly and the police is not showing as much ...

... pretty much just birch trees all the way- this had been very much part of the 'Trans-Siberian folklore' imparted on us by travellers we have met going the other direction- so we set out thinking it really was going to be incedibly dull. However, despite the warnings, we found the trip pleasant and interesting. Ok, so a Siberian equivalent of Alberta's 'The Rocky Mountaineer' this isn't, but in the main the birch forests are not dense ...

... home stay experience. We got off the train in Yekaterinburg, at 10pm, with no accommodation arranged! This is not a good idea in Russia!! Thankfully as we were ascending the steps of one of the very few (and very ****) hotels, an old lady (the afore mentioned Tatiana), leapt out of the darkness and offered us accommodation. Well, perhaps she offered many other things, but as she could only speak Russian and we only English/Afrikaans/Spanish/French there was limited ...

... we joined the throngs of people getting off the train to do their shopping. A real market economy exists at every train station in Russia. Locals bring their goods to the platform, and passengers flock around them striking up whatever deals can be made. While foodstuffs predominate, you can find stuffed animals, CD's, DVD's, and clothing. Our mission was to get lunch though. We bought beer, some cottage cheese stuffed blinis ...

Just arrived in "civilisation" - Novosibirsk (3rd largest city in Russia and you've NEVER heard of it!) So... we're now Trans-Siberian Vetrans (TSV's)! To go back a couple of days... Yekaterinburg cont... Picked up at station and driven 100m (yes, that's metres) to Hotel Sverdolvsk (named after guy that killed the Russian Royal Family). Did some more washing...bought Ariel ...