Thursday, 13 May 2010
Yekaterinburg, Russia
A further 2hrs forward of GMT as we cross the Urals overnight. Thus missing the opportunity to see some hills. Scenery has morphed from flat landscape to flat landscape with silver birch trees.
Land of the silver birch…
Now we’re in Siberia.
Yekaterinburg to be precise.
Famous for being the scene of the murders of Tsar Nicholas II and family in 1918. O level history lessons come flooding back.
Now a fairly cosmopolitan city home to Gazprom, Russia’s monolithic gas company responsible for its new found wealth, and skyscrapers and shiny new office buildings.
First stop of the day is for the train buffs on board. The railway museum housed in Yekaterinburg’s old railway station with fantastic facades and some very good street art made of bronze showing various station tableau. Signal John asks a simple question on rail signalling which needs to be translated for the museum curator. You know when you used to see Game for a Laugh with Jeremy Beadle and there’d be someone asking a simple question in English to a translator, the translator would then spend five minutes ‘translating’, then the other person would spend five minutes answering and then the translator would reply with a simple ‘yes’ answer. And you’d all giggle. On Saturday night prime time TV. Well it’s like that.
The scene of the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and family is now covered by the Church on Blood. Newly built in the 1990s on the exact spot where the Bolsheviks executed them. Actually shot in the basement of an engineer’s house, located where the church now is, but then carted away to be buried in the woods. The church has a lower floor with a chapel in the exact location of the basement. Have always been fascinated by Russian history since being taught it by one of my favourite teachers at school. One of two. The other was physics.
Having previously been to the Tsar’s memorial in St Petersburg on my trip to Russia in 2004 and subsequently in 2013 on my Cape to Cape trip (read it here: https://touringtaurean.com/2018/07/24/chicken-fish/), it’s good to finally see where it all happened. As we’re listening to the guide giving details, a monk from the church walks past. He’s the spitting image of Rasputin. Quite startling.
It’s apparent that the house the Romanovs were murdered in was in a very nice location with a forest backdrop and overlooking the Iset river, judging from the black and white photos dotted around depicting the Romanovs.
Far too much time is spent at the Urals Mineralogical Museum. Private collection of rocks which is worth a quick two minute waltz around not the half hour allotted. Notable for the most disgusting toilets I’ve seen in a ‘civilised’ country. Probably not been cleaned since Stalin’s time.
Afghan War Memorial is set at the end of a public square with fountains. They do like their fountains. Again, statue of a grieving soldier holding an AK47 is solid and muscular. Sweeping columns soar up to the sky. One for each year. 1980 to 1989-ish. With the names of the dead. Reminds me of my East German colleague. Enlisted for National Service in the Soviet Army in the 1980s he was put in a shed with his comrades who were then subjected to a gas to see what effect it had on them. Not that this affected him in later life. Ahem.
Local guide tells us about her father. He worked in factory producing military equipment and had to get a letter from his bosses to say that although he could see secret documents pertaining to the military equipment he hadn’t actually seen them, so he could obtain an International Passport. As opposed to a National Passport permitting travel within the USSR. The authorities were frightened that he might defect and trade secrets about the equipment.
As we travel out of Yekaterinburg, the bus stops and a Russian ‘official’ jumps on board shouting something in Russian. Guide comes on the PA, “Have you got your passports?”
We haven’t.
They were taken off us to check visas etc on the train.
It appears the ‘official’ wants to inspect our passports and visas. Guide is winding us up. If we don’t have our passports it’s not great news. Can sense that this is a load of nonsense but there’s a few old ladies getting their knickers in a twist that they don’t have their passports.
Guide and ‘official’, who it turns out is from the tour company and in fancy dress with a peaked cap, suddenly start giggling.
Oh.
I see.
It’s a joke.
Deary me.
The reason?
We’re actually at the European/Asian continental divide. The watershed has been scientifically proven to be here.
So there.
The occasion is marked by drinking a glass of champagne with one foot in Europe and one foot in Asia.
