Buildings of Yekaterinburg

It was such a treat to enjoy the luxury of a hotel and a lovely breakfast with fresh fruit salad, yogurt and oats, good coffee and croissants.

We went out at 10 with Natalie our guide for 3 hours, on a walking tour. We wore layers but hadn’t really realised how cold it was, 2 degrees and it started to snow, with a biting wind.

We went to the monument to the Afghan War, which is interesting in that the soldier is bowed and defeated rather than the usual triumphal ones here. Oddly the army was having an event in the square opposite, to commemorate the 100 years since army HQ was set up here. Natalie got us into the cordoned off area where they had some tanks and boys toys.

We saw the opera house where we would go later, the Church of Spilled blood dating from 2003 dedicated to the Romanoffs who were kept in a house on this site before they were shot. Yeltsin had it pulled down. The gold and white church there now contains a room full of pictures of the royal family and the myth about how great they were - now they have been sainted and people come from all over on pilgrimages.

The little house on the left is one of the old ones - there was a pretty street of them. The one on the right is the current Czar’s official residence when he is here.

We had a nice lunch in a little restaurant that looked like somebody’s house - plants, wallpaper, pictures, flowers etc.
As we have an early 24 hour train to Moscow tomorrow, we went with Stig to get vodka and provisions for the journey. (The food isn’t great on the train - I asked from the menu for scrambled eggs, tomatoes and onions. What came was 2 fried eggs). We have bread, cheese, tomatoes, jam and fruit, not just vodka!

The ballet, Romeo and Juliet, was more contemporary dance than ballet but was stunning. The music was dramatic - about 60 in the orchestra, and the stage had great depth so allowed from lots of fast movement, particularity in the sword fight scenes. We went on up the road to a jazz club where had a strange absinthe which involved 2 glasses, one with the drink in it, which was set on fire then upturning the other glass over it to catch the smoke. Then a straw was put under the glass and we had to suck up the smoke. It tasted weird - the drink tasted like Pernod, of aniseed. The jazz trio - keyboard, double bass and drums, played Sting tribute stuff, plus their take on Beatles “let it be” and a Micheal Jackson one.

Back at midnight for fireworks outside, presumably in honour of the 100 years since the army HQ was founded.