Sverdlovskaya Oblast’

Officianado’s of Bony M and/or important world history will understand the title as we are now in the City of Yekaterinburg, most famous for being the location that witnessed the end of the Monarchy in Russia in 1918 in brutal fashion.

More of that to come but as our train arrived at Yekaterinburg and we struggled off with our luggage, Alexander, our driver, was waiting on the platform for us, directly outside our carriage and 20 minutes later at around 9.30pm we were in the comfortable Chekhov Hotel and a further 45 minutes later were in Rosy Janes bar enjoying some drinks and food, enjoying ’terra firma’ after a day on the train.

We now had all day Tuesday and Wednesday for sight seeing which we’ll cover together now. Our first outing on Tuesday was a drive 120km north east of the City into Siberia to look at life in a typical village and we were taken to Koptelevo which has a population of around 1,500 people. Our guide walked us around the village and explained about both the past (from the first settlers in the 1600’s) through to what life is like now for the current day population. It was all very interesting and we ended this part of the tour by meeting a group of Babushka’s (Grandmothers) from the village who get together in their local community centre on a regular basis to sing traditional songs. We thought the process might be ‘over touristy’ but it was far from that and both we and they seemed to enjoy our time together, assisted by our translator. They sang some songs for us and there was some obligatory audience participation - in the form of dancing! An interesting point is the realisation of what winter must be like for the population here in their wooden houses with a summer to winter temperature swing of +30°C to -40°C! They use wood burners despite the Russian government proudly having provided a gas pipeline to the village which only very few residents have actually been able to afford due to the connection charge, let alone having the money to buy appliances or fund the running costs.

Now the end of the Russian Royal family (the Romanov’s) is a sad and gory tale but in summary the last Tsar, Nicholas II, was killed during the Revolution in 1918 by the Bolshevik’s after a period of imprisonment in Yekaterinburg. He, his wife Alexandra (Queen Victoria’s Granddaughter) and five children, along with 4 of their close friends, were killed in a basement here, initially by bullets and then, when that wasn’t totally successful, by bayonets. Also the well respected Grand Duchess Elizabeth (Alexandra’s sister) and five of her sons, all Grand Dukes, who had served Russia heroically during the First World War, were imprisoned in the nearby town of Alapayevsk (we visited this place) and all were murdered by the Bolsheviks the day after the Tsar by way of being thrown, alive, down a mine shaft then having a grenade thrown down on them and when this didn’t finish them off burning brushwood was dropped on to them. All very unpleasant and history suggests that this monarchist wipe-out was carried out on the personal instruction of Lenin himself.

From the time of the Tsar and his family’s deaths until the end of the Soviet establishment in 1990, the monarchy was regarded as a terrible thing (perpetuated by Lenin, Stalin and co), however after Glasnost and the breakdown of the USSR it has been re-established as having been an important part of the country’s history and monuments and memorials to the Tsars and their families have been established all across Russia.

During our sightseeing trips we saw many of the locations involved in the imprisonment, death and incarceration of the Royal family as well as gaining an understanding of the detail surrounding their deaths and current attitudes to the past. Public opinion on the Royal family and the Soviet period is still divided. The story is interesting and has encouraged some follow up reading.

Other parts of the two days of sight-seeing we’ve done included a trip up the tallest skyscraper in Yekaterinburg. From 52 floors and 180 metres up we had a great view of this prosperous and ever developing City that was actually closed completely to tourists until the end of the Soviet period in 1990 as it is the centre of Russian Technical research and manufacturing.

We also visited Tchaikovsky’s house in Alapayevsk and also a memorial placed at the burial ground of 18,000 civilians murdered as ‘enemies of the people’ by Stalin in 1937. We also visited the dividing line between Europe and Asia where our guide produced a half bottle of Russian bubbles to celebrate with.

Our guide on Tuesday was Konstantin, who owns the local agency and on Wednesday it was Dimitri. Both were excellent.

The Checkov Hotel is really good and the staff are young, enthusiastic and very helpful. We must mention Taxis here in Russia as Uber operates in the 3 cities we’ve visited so far, operating under a Russian banner of Yandex. It is very efficient and ridiculously cheap (our average journey has cost around £2), which can be put down to, in part, the fact that petrol costs around 50 pence per litre.

On Tuesday, after an 11 hour touring day, we had a table booked at a Georgian restaurant named Khmeli Suneli where we enjoyed maybe our best meal so far, a mix of vegetable pates followed by lamb shish kebabs, with Georgian breads and Georgian beers. The evening was enlivened when a table of four, two couples in their 50’s, next to us were given a cake presentation by five staff singing ‘happy birthday’. They drank some celebratory vodka and appeared in good spirits, however, within an hour the evening rapidly deteriorated into chaos as one of the couples (not the birthday lady) had a full on shouting match argument resulting in the woman bawling her eyes out and her husband having one last go at her and storming out. The rest of the restaurant looked on in stunned silence. We decided a photo of the occasion might not be appropriate and kept our heads down.

It’s now Wednesday evening. We are just about to (hopefully) enjoy a good meal at an Uzbekstani restaurant near to our hotel and we will be picked up at 8.30pm for the 9.58pm train to Irkutsk, a journey that will take 4 days and 3 nights across the length of Siberia. We’re not sure how we may be able to keep in touch but we will do our best - internet connection permitting.Read more