Richmond Yekaterinburg

... day and a half in Moscow. You do feel under pressure to see the “must-sees”. Well, all we managed was Red Square, the Kremlin and the GUM shopping mall. Superlatives all round. Certainly the most golden domes I have ever seen in one place. And the most uniforms. Now, it may be a city thing. It’s a long time since I spent time in London or Paris. But I don’t think I have ever seen so many uniformed men. The ...

... lead us to Ganina Yama. Unfortunately, when we did eventually find it, it wasn't made of yellow brick, but pure red mud, and we had to share it with a constant stream of trucks and 1970s Volvos that seemed to hit the puddles just right. 3km later, a massive complex of wooden chapels and out-buildings materialised through the birch trees, and we discovered where the trucks were going. Apparently, it seems that the New Russia feels kinda bad for what happened to their last Emperor ...

....is a bad thing. It's a dangerous thing. It's a thing that makes you close your eyes and think of England. It's a thing I did today.

The day started oddly. I had booked an excursion through a local tour company to go see the monastery at the place where the Romanovs' bodies were dumped into the mine shaft, and also to go see the Asia-Europe border marker. They were to meet me at the hostel at 9:30. I popped outside to wait at ...

... Look at this....just look at it. Poor people, so, so poor. What do they have? They have nothing, and no education, and unfortunately they are influencing our country. Me, I left. I grew up in one of the coldest places on Earth, and went to Krasnoyarsk to study and get an education. I was there three years studying and learning. It's so important, don't you think? I don't want to learn English, but soon, I'm going to find some classes and start ...

... it anywhere. I haven't had it out everyday because I've just been using it when I needed it for an odd text (when it worked) or call home if I needed too. I searched everywhere but it was gone. Somehow I must have left it at the hostel or on the train. It could have been worse, I still had my wallet, camera, laptop and ipod, but it was just damn annoying. I guess I'll wait until I get to China and try to pick up a cheap one there. In the meantime I have brought a calling card ...

... barbequed chicken and fish done over the open fire. Alena's BIG scary looking dog kept nudging up against me to try to be my friend ... or maybe it was because I was sitting right next to the plate of chicken? We then returned to Yekaterinburg and even though it was still early afternoon we decided to go home because I was not feeling to good. We had both had upset stomachs (and maybe some other symptoms mentioned in the Pepto Bismal adds) since the train to Yekaterinburg. We took ...

... 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 ...