Getting Off the Train – Alighting in Yekaterinburg

Having been confined to the train for forty-eight hours – excepting those occasional station breaks – I think everyone in our group simply wanted to get to the hotel in Ekaterinburg, check-in and take a shower. Here’s a recap of what transpired when we arrived.

14 June

I think we all felt a sense of relief when this came into view. I know I did. Our transportation coordinator Vlad met us on the platform and greeted us expansively welcoming us to Yekaterinburg in boisterous English. (You may also see the city’s Romanized name as Ekaterinburg but the spelling I’ve chosen is more common and better reflects the pronunciation.) He “gallantly” offered to carry the bags of one of the women in our group and ended with Anne’s though I don’t think that was his hope or intention.

On the drive to the hotel, he told us that Yekaterinburg was established in 1723 by order of Peter the Great and was named for his wife Katherine. During the Soviet era the city was renamed Sverdlosk and was closed to all foreigners because of all the military activity in and around it. The current population is a bit under 1.5 million. Although we will certainly learn more during our guided walking tour tomorrow, he rattled off a few other quick facts he thought we might find interesting:

It is the city where the Romanovs were executed in 1918.

The city is the birthplace of Boris Yeltsin (1931).

Gary Powers and his U-2 spy plane were shot down near the city in 1960.

We reached the hotel which is close to the city center after only a few minutes on the van. The Park Inn is owned by Radisson and is the only major chain hotel of our trip. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s also to date, the most well-appointed hotel of our trip. As part of the usual check in process in Russia, the hotel copies our passports and immigration documents for their records. Groud had a second copy made and gave one to each of us telling us to keep the originals locked in the room safe. It seems that police officers have been known to occasionally stop foreigners and ask to see their passports. If you turn over the original, there have been instances when the policeman chooses to hold the document for a ransom. The cost of retrieving such documents has been known to run as high as 1,000 rubles. A copy provides sufficient and legal documentation and the officer can keep it while your original remains safely locked away.

Everyone hustled off to their rooms for a shower and change of clothes but we agreed to reconvene in the lobby as G had offered an orientation walk around the city. The consensus was that we would stop for an early dinner (it was about 16:30 local time) and G took us to a nearby cafeteria style restaurant that she assured us was very popular with the locals.

At dinner I tried my first (and last) kvass. Kvass is a local fermented drink made from rye bread. Though it contains up to 1.2% alcohol by volume, it’s not considered alcoholic by Russian standards and this is understandable since this is less than one-third of most light beers. I’d see the drink being sold by street vendors all over Yekaterinburg but, after my first exposure that tasted like drinking straight vinegar, I was never tempted to try it again. The Brazilians set off on their own. We had determined on the train ride that Ana was a “picky eater” – one of her words of the day. Still, I couldn’t really blame them. Although I’d identified most of the food I put on my plate, I also picked up one or two items of uncertain composition. I looked at it as part of the adventure- a bit like trying kvass – though more satisfying.

After dinner the six of us set out on our walk and shortly happened upon this:

Apparently, not only is this mid June weekend a weekend when weddings are quite common, but so is celebrating them in public places. If you’re curious whether newlyweds engage in the padlock tradition I talked about in Irkutsk, here’s your answer:

We continued our walk to Vainer Street – the main pedestrian street in Yekaterinburg and came across some surprising (to me, at least) street musicians:

who were indeed playing music that sounded to be of Central or South American origin. Vainer Street is dotted with sculptures like this

and this rather colorful gift from the German Embassy:

I’ve included more photos than usual in this post because I’m going to beg your indulgence as I will wait to open the full Yekaterinburg folder until tomorrow’s entry.

We wound our way back to the hotel and, although it remained quite light out late into the evening, I shut the curtains and settled in for my best night’s sleep since our night at Lake Baikal.