Sarah & Richard's Travels

From Moscow we took the train to Ekaterinburg or Sverdlovsk as it's still known on the timetables. The city was renamed Sverdlovsk during the Soviet era after one of the comrades who was called something Sverdlovsk. We were lucky that this ti me we had booked our tickets in advance on the net, thanks to our friends in Moscos - it was really helpful! We rocked up to the pre-booked ticket booth and gave the lady a piece of paper which said we have booked tickets online etc etc please can we pick them up. Anyway, she read the piece of paper and we got our tickets - simple! We even got a rye smile from her 'stupid tourists' as we left and a smile ain't that common in Russia!

The train left Moscow around 2pm and arrived at Ekaterinburg at around 7pm the next day. As there are 7 time zones in Russia all train times on the tickets are in Moscow time - it makes sense but can also be a bit annoying when you're working out how long things take - a couple of times, we've forgotten that it's been Moscow time as well! We went in the Kupe class as it was a reasonably long journey and ended up sharing with a lady from Omsk and her 7ish year old son. He was pretty funny, as soon as we were given our linen he proceeded to make all the beds up including ours and then when we offered he some food he took it and then took all our rubbish away. Every time we ate something he's jump up and take our rubbish awawy - I felt terrible as it was like he was our little servant! Though he didn't seem to have much else to do. The lady didn't speak English so we bumbled along trying to explain a couple of things and she pointed a few things out the window, but apart from that there wasn't much other conversation. The Prodvonista was also pretty interested in talking to us, though again we couldn't comminucate much. Every kept saying 'Americansie' and we were like 'NYET Americansie!!!!!' lol

We've hardly met any other tourists on the trains at all, possible because we are in Kupe, but a lot of others have been saying the same thing, so I think there are just very few tourists! The train ride was ok and didn't actually seem that long. Our little diet of pot noodles, soup and tea got a bit boring after awhile, but there's not much else to eat unless you understand Russian and can read the very limited menu in the restaurant car. There are lots of people selling things at stations - ice cream, bread, cooked chicken with cucumbers and tomatoes, packed in styrofoam containers and theses filled savoury pastry things usually with meat inside which are interesting.

We met a German guy travelling with his Estonian girlfriend who luckily spoke some Russian, so we were in the restaurant car with them for while. They were pretty interesting - he used to be a banker and gave it all up and has no been travelling everywhere for the last two years, not sure what he want's to do with himself! We ordered some sandwhiches from the restaurant car - four pieces of bread with cheese and what comes along, two tiny pieces of bread (smaller than vogels slices) cut into two so four pieces and a few bits of cheese. Not really a filling cheese sandwhich if you ask Richy! haha.

We arrived at Ekaterinburg and had booked to stay at the Meeting Point hostel. It was an interesting place - more like a homestay than a hostel and the girl running it had taken over a flat which had loads of beds in it everywhere. The first night there were 9 of us in this tiny flat! It was in a building of flats and when we first entered all I could smell was gas - I thought uh oh, this is going to be good, but no one seemed to bothered, so I guess it was normal! It was all decorated in real Russian style. The hostel was pretty new and just really getting on its feet and the owner was lovely - she helped us organise our train tickets and would have oragnised anything else for as as well, she also helped out the guy from Hong Kong who got taken by the police for no apparent reason when he was cleaning his jeans about 2 feet from the hostel door! It was interesting talking to her and finding out a bit about Russian life and universties, studying and a few of her views.

The city itself didn't have a lot to do so we spent the only full day we had walking around. If you were into hiking and had a bit more time and money it's the perfect base for exploring the surrounding mountains and an American girl and the Hong Kong guy had been on a guided walk that day which they said was amazing. So we headed off to the church of the blood which is acutally built in the 90's so pretty new. This was probably the best church I've seen as it was light and bright inside with a lot of gold on the altar and not too many frescoes / decoration on the walls which in all the other churches had faded with age. There was a wedding ceremony going on inside, so it was quite cool to see part of it. The bride and groom were standing at the front (obviously) and behind them were two people (I assum like the best man and bridesmaid) and they were holding a gold crown aboe the bride and grooms head. The priest was doing his chanting and there was a lot of prayer and crossing going on with the bride and groom and the small number of guests standing in a semi circle behind them (there were no pews at all). They were given some holy water to drink and that was almost the end of the ceremony. I didn't stay for the rest as I felt like I was intruding a bit, although there were plenty of other people standing watching and a queue of couples with family outisde waiting to get married!

We walked along the Iset river below the Cathedral and into town. They call the lake area the 'city pond' which I thought pretty amusing. The trolley buses, trams and minibuses here again look really clapped out and ready to fall apart though it seems to be the case everywhere. There are a lot of black out 4WD's here as Ekaterinburg is one of the Russian Mafia's most important cities. Hmmmmm.

We ate both nights at the Iset hotel which was built in the shape of a hammer and sickle, so quite funny! It was just a buffet and pretty cheap, the lady at the hostel had recommended it to us. The first night it was pretty quiet, but the second night a Friday it was heaving with locals, so obviously the place to be. The food wasn't exactly gourmet, but there were veges (YAY) and a reasonable choice of other stuff as well so pretty good.

We got the train to Irkutsk at 2pm local time the next day. A 50 hour train ride!