Park Inn Hotel Ekaterinburg Yekaterinburg

... is the fifth largest Russian city, and the frontier city between 'Europe' and 'Asia'. It's two timezones ahead of Moscow time but a couple of decades behind.<br><br>It took us over an hour of traipsing through the morning darkness, ice and snow asking whoever we could find at ridiculous o'clock to help interpret the vague directions we had. Eventually found the place - on the 7th floor of a grotty grey towerblock about a 10 minute tramride out ...

... them shot and their bodies burned and disposed of in a nearby mine. Having previously read the story, heard about the later 'Anastasia imposter', and viewed the St Petersburg tombs where the remains were finally interred in 1998, I felt compelled to visit the site of the brutal murders.<br><br><br> In honour of the now canonised 'Tsar martyrs', The Church of the Blood now stands in place of the house where the royals met their end. I perused the ...

... embarking on a 50 hour train journey, but this was the situation we found ourselves in when we returned to the hostel on Monday evening for a last shower before our midnight train. Tired and smelly then our spirits were lifted by the sight of the magnificent Train no.2 'Russia' Moscow - Vladivostock - resplendent in full Russian colours pulling into Sverdlovsk station, and onboard was a private first class cabin with our names on it.

... in the compartment, trying not to stare at each other in awkward silence. I could see he wanted to say something but seemed hesitant, so I began. "Earlier, you said this was a country of fools. What did you mean?"<br>Before offering me beer and nuts (he tells me he bought them to share especially with me, and we end up toasting to friendship), he gestured into the darkness - we are speeding past poor-looking wooden houses with small gardens - and ...

... Fyodorovna - a small wooden chapel next door Ascension Church The water tower - one of the city's oldest structures, inside we found a lovely man and tiny museum of ironworks- When you see the photos it's a bit like dads shed in one part! The man spoke only Russian but Damian translated for me. Even though I couldn't understand him it was clear that the man loved the place, and talking to people about the many different items inside. His face lit up as he spoke and when ...

... medicine, watched a movie and got lots of rest. We had the luxury of getting ready at a relaxed pace today, as our train does not leave until the evening. After getting ready we made a stop at the store to get supplies for our big 60 hour train ride to Irkutsk. When we arrived back at the apartment to drop off our groceries and pick up our day packs we found that Andrei had left the apartment and we did not have a key to get in when he was not there. There must have been ...

... killed for being a Romanov relative). We then walked into another large square, the pl Sovetskoy Armii or military square. At one end was the historic Officer's Club (still in use) and, directly facing the club, was the Black Tulip (or Black Rose). This is huge war monument to the soldiers who died from 1979-1989 in Afghanistan. Rather than standing in triumph, the monument is of a kneeling solider, head downcast and framing the figure are curved pillars featuring ...

... Russlen had checked with Robert (much to his amusement) whether 'Your woman allowed to drink?' An entertaining evening; involving a bizarre game of poker between Robert and Russlen that resulted in the loser being viciously flicked on the forehead the number of times that he had raised in the stakes! Russlen took 80 blows at one point! We were supplied little packs of cutlery, condiments and juice, and then packs with mini ...

... an d did nothing but per petuate the backwards mentality of the Russian ruling class. A better, more forward-looking tsar could have circumvented the revolutionary threats and modernized the country more in line with the rest of Europe. Communism - and its infinitely greater brutality - could probably have been nipped in the bud and the likes of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Frunze and Dzerzhinsky would have ended up swinging from the gallows or in permanent ...

... you can probably believe us when we say that we did not sleep well. Not speaking any English, our host Lidia spoke to us in both fluent Russian (of course) and German. Confusing us, she would switch between the two when she was greeted by blank looks. Pamela, who knew a smidgen of German from primary school, was able to extract some sense from her on occasions but most conversions were painfully slow and not worth the trouble, confusion ...