Breakfast this morning was certainly a lot more than I was expecting. Given that the Chekhov is the kind of hotel that you would only recognise if you had heard of it and knew where to look, the place is amazing. They had managed porridge, several cooked items, smoked salmon with cream cheese on rye bread, blinis, ricotta cheese pancakes and a lot more. Including coffee.
Our guide, Dmitri, arrived at around 9:20 and seemed quite surprised that we were ready. Ivan had mentioned yesterday that we should be picked up at 9am but Dmitri, as our schedule stated, thought it was for 10am. No problems, and we started earlier. We walked from our hotel passed a local park, and Dmitri mentioned that his company had set up a painted red line on the path for those visitors to Yekaterinburg who wanted to see the most important sites. A bit like in Boston. We were shown the local Government building and then walked across one of the three bridges (although of course one is being repaired) to see Beatles Square, which had been created in the 70s in a pseudo rebellious nature. The corner had a large number of tributes to the Fab Four, but also featured a painted TARDIS as well. We managed to see several old merchant houses in different styles, as well as presented with a view of how the city has changed through Imperial, to Communist, to Stalinist and then to the modern age.
Dmitri was the first of our Russian guides who had not served in the military and he did have some interesting perspectives on modern Russia. He was willing for us to ask any question that we wanted, and although some of his opinions seem fixated on what one would expect, it was interesting to get the viewpoint of someone living in the country.
We had a look at various olden/ original wooden buildings in the city, as well as several statues, including one of Marshall Zhukov, one of the main Russian generals of WWII.
Unfortunately, this is where the tour took a turn for the worse as we were then taken to see ‘The Church on the Blood’. This is an ‘Orthodox’ (and I use that term VERY loosely) Church on the site of the building where the Romanov Imperial Family were kept and then murdered back in 1917. This isn’t a normal church in any sense of the word. It is more garish on the outside, and a 100 times worse inside. There are not 1, not 2 but 3 different tourist shops that you can visit as you walk into the church. It is not lit up as normal Orthodox churches, but very dimly lit, and the normal icons of Mary with the baby Jesus, Jesus by himself flanked with the angels Michael and Gabriel are somehow replaced with the images of Nicholas II, his wife and children, who have all been made saints by the Russian Church. The result is a crass attempt of apology to history; a PC rubber stamp to the new Millenia and it comes across out of sync and out of place. From here it went from bad to worse as we were taken to the site where the bodies were dumped. Well, supposedly dumped and found. More in that later. This is a spot outside of town where the bodies of the royal family were all disposed of down a disused copper mine. The site has now been converted to a ‘monastery’ and despite having traditional Orthodox monks, the place comes off wrong. There are a number of churches on this site, at least 5, and they are all ‘created’ in the traditional wooden style. The problem is that they are not a subtle design as you would expect from a site where, for all intents and purposes, you would expect a sombre and melancholic approach. This is far from the case as from the outside they all look tacky and crass, a form of Disneyland of Churches. Again, with souvenir shops inside of the churches themselves. There was a museum of the Romanov family underneath the main church, with a number of photographs of the family, and genealogical trees to get an idea of the family tree. It just didn’t work. I can understand the possible ‘need’ to whitewash over a part of your countries’ history but to do it in neon pastels???
Anyway. We did get to see a large part of Yekaterinburg and overall was very happy to have had the opportunity to see what was, until 1991, a forbidden city to the west. We were able to be dropped off at the hotel to have a shower and rest, and to buy snacks and breakfast for the next leg of the train ride. We managed to visit the same restaurant as last night for another example of Siberian cooking, which didn’t disappoint, and were picked up at 2145 to make our next train. The Yekaterinburg station was certainly quite busy, with 2 trains arriving from Moscow, and a couple heading that direction. Ours was on a different track and not too busy, and as per usual we departed Yekaterinburg spot on time.