Being taken to the Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow worked alright but the driver left me at the entrance. Having been into stations before I thought it would not be a problem. I waited until the train number came up on the screen showing the track where the train would be waiting only I could’t find my way to the rain. There was no obvious rush of people in one direction so I ended up asking, miming, to have a small doorway pointed out and through which lead to the station concourse. Passport and printed ticket with a bar code ready for the carriage conductor (all female as far as I know and have not come across a miserable one yet as depicted elsewhere) as she had my details in a bar code hand reader and onto the train and a compartment to myself. Even the Russians have to produce a passport or identity card.to get on a train.
Soon after the train started the attendant came and kind of asked if I wanted any food, flapping her arms to mime a chicken. I agreed thinking that it would be for dinner later only as time went by nothing happened. Luckily enough a young girl and her mother further down the carriage heard us talking and then translated with the result I ordered pork for breakfast. There was no evening meal but I did take with me a couple of packets of pot noodles, the perennial standby.
The carriages were quite different to those traveled on previously, the sleeping part anyway. The compartment had four bunks (I had a bottom bunk) with the base folded up into the wall. With this pulled down the mattress was made up and then a pillow, duvet, towel, slippers with toothpaste and brush were supplied. Only low power lights were on in the carriage while stopped (noticed on other trains as well) and the main lights were switched on by the attendant after leaving the station. There were two reading lights for each bunk, one each at each end. There was a television screen in the compartment but it was not in use.The small table in the compartment had a table cloth on it and a sealed packet containing the days Russian newspaper. There were clothes hooks, clothes hangers and a 220V charging point as well. Most disconcerting was that the inside of the compartment door was a full length mirror, possibly there to make the compartment look bigger. According to a screen in the corridor the compartment was kept at 21C. In the attendants room was drinking water and a microwave to heat up personal food. There was a hot water boiler in the corridor which was heated by coal in the earlier trains and electricity later on. At the end of the carriage there were two sit-on toilets with air fresheners as well.
During the time on the train I noticed that the attendant cleaned the toilets on a regular basis, not only the toilet and hand-basin, but the floors, walls and doors with the area outside the toilets. The carpets in the corridors and compartments were rolled up and the carriage floors washed before the carpets were replaced. Everything I saw was really very clean.
Come morning there was plenty of snow to be seen and in the villages and towns we passed but I did not see any building more than two stories high. A lot of the buildings were made of wood (or logs as they say here) as well. At some of the level crossings besides there being the normal lights and barriers there were also steel barriers hydraulically lifted out of the road to stop vehicles actually reaching the train tracks.
Breakfast was brought to me by the attendant: pork with rice and carrots, bread, salami, biscuits, water and a mint sweet. It tasted alright and would keep me going until I reached the hotel that evening. The meal was actually free due to the full price ticket that had been bought for me.
Yekaterinburg or Ekaterinburg, is the fourth largest city in Russia, is east of the Ural Mountains, and is at the boundary between Asia
and Europe. It is located about 1,420 kilometres (880 miles) to the east of Moscow. Founded in 1723 it was names Yakaterina after Peter the Great’s wife. In 1924, after Russia
became a socialist state, the city was named Sverdlovsk after the Bolshevik leader
Yakov Sverdlov. During the Soviet era, Sverdlovsk was turned into an industrial and administrative powerhouse and in 1991, after the
fall of the Soviet Union, the city returned to its historical name
From being picked up at the station I was taken to the Chekhov Hotel which was very good and
convenient for cafes and banks. I found one small Russian cafes where for £2 I had a large pot of soup, a mushroom and cheese pie and a pot of tea. The food was very good and I thought that the price was not too bad either.
I had arranged a tour of the city for the following morning when I went to The Church on the Blood which is a Russian Orthodox church built on the site of the Ipatiev House where Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, and his family, along with members of the household, were shot by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War.The church commemorates the Romanov family being made into Saints and Martyrs by the Russian Orthodox church .
First to arrive among the Romanov's were Nicholas, Alexandra Feodorovna and their daughter Maria. Later, they would be joined by Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia and Alexei. The family were held prisoner in their final residence for 78 days. Fearing a potential attempt to liberate them the local Bolshevik leaders, after consulting with the leadership in Moscow, decided to kill the family
. In the early hours of July 17, 1918, the Tsar Nicholas Alexandrovich and his family were taken to the basement of the Ipatiev House and were murdered by being shot and bayoneted. In 1974, the mansion was designated a "national monument"; but three years later on September 22, 1977, a team, under orders from the Soviet government and with the direction of Boris Yeltsin, demolished the house.
Views of The Church on the Blood
I was then taken to Ganina Yama Monastery which was originally a 9 ft. deep pit in the Four Brothers mine near the village of Koptyaki, 15 km north from Yekaterinburg. In the pre-dawn hours of 17 July 1918, after the execution of the Romanov family, the bodies of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family (who had been murdered at the Impatiev House) were secretly transported to Ganina Yama and thrown into the pit. An extensive report concluded that the royal family's remains had been cremated at the mine, since evidence of fire was found and charred bones, but no bodies. But the Bolsheviks, realizing that the burial site was no longer a secret, had returned to the site the night after the first burial to relocate the bodies to another unknown area.
The grounds at the pit were therefore dedicated to honor the family’s humility during capture and their status as political and religious martyrs. With financial assistance from the Church the Monastery of the Holy Imperial Passion-Bearers was built on the site in 2001. A tall cross marks the edge of the mine shaft, visible as a depression in the ground. This is now called Ganina Yama.
Seven chapels were later constructed at the site, one for each member of the royal family. Each chapel is dedicated to a particular saint or relic. On the anniversary of the murder, a night-long service is held at the Church of All Saints (Church on the Blood) on the site of the Impatiev House. At daybreak a procession walks four hours to Ganina Yama for another ceremony. The former mine pit is covered with lily plants for the ceremony.
While in one of the churches one of the guards asked my guide if I would like to go up the bell tower. The guide later said that this was completely unknown in all the years she had been going there as no-one ever went up the bell tower. Of course I said yes, and while up there the guard showed me how to ring the bells and then let me ring them. When we had finished he asked that his best wishes be given to Queen Elizabeth, and he was quite serious about this. So, if there is anyone out there who can pass these wishes on then he, and I, will be obliged.
Views of Ganina Yama
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| Me ringing the bells |
The chapel of St Catherine (in the city) is a simple five domed structure that was built in 1998, in tribute to the Cathedral which used to stand at this location until 1930. The corners of the chapel are designed as columns which are topped by golden plated domes with orthodox crosses. on this site in 1991, as a memorial to the previous church.
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| The Chapel of St Catherine |
In the early 1820's the Cherepanov's built Russia's first steam locomotive made out of copper and wood. It was used for factory purposes, and eventually a line was built from a mine to the factory in Nevyansk on which the train ran. Based on the success of this experiment, Miron Cherepanovs
was sent to Newcastle, England to observe the operation of "Stephenson’s Rocket", which was the most modern design of a steam train at the time. Miron was not able to communicate with the designers, as he spoke no English, but based on his observations was able to reproduce the engine, with the help of his father. In 1834, the first steam locomotive in Russia was produced. It was very successful, and was one of twenty different models produced by the Cherepanovs.
Sevastyanov House is the residence of the President of Russia, at the moment Vladimir Putin. The house is owned by the local government and is only used by the President for formal occasions. It is said to be the most beautiful building in Yekaterinburg.
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| Sevastyanov House |
During the Christmas season, which lasts for a month in Russia, most local councils make an ice display in various parts of the towns and cities. The display in Yekaterinburg was to shown themes from Russian folk stories.
Ice sculptures in the park
On the train to Yekaterinburg I had been talking to a Russian family in a near compartment and they offered to take me out the following day. They had suggested going to Ganina Yama Monastery and on picking me up, and on hearing that I had gone the day before, were relieved as there was to be a marathon run there. Instead they took me to see the Leaning Tower of Nevyansk with the Old Believers’ Church and a monument to Peter 1 of Russia with the industrialist Nikita Demidor. It was the son of Nikita Demidov who funded the building of the tower about 1732.
Views of the Leaning Tower of Nevyansk
The tower is 189 feet (57.5 metres) high and 31 feet (9.5 metres) square and is leaning 7.5 feet (2.3 metres) at the moment. A repair to bring the tower upright has been tried but was not successful and the tower continues to lean by about 0.5 inch (0.9 mm) per year. The tower has nine levels with a clock made by Richard Phelps of London with a clock face on three of the four sides. The clock still chimes and plays a tune on the hour using eleven bells. The walls at the base of the tower are 6.5 feet (2 metres) thick tapering to 1 foot (0.3 metre at the top.
It is believed that the tower was built to show the might of the Demidov family. It has been shown that some of the rooms were used as laboratories using iron ore which was mined locally or as a watchtower, even part as a prison as shackles were found nearby.
A room located between the 4th and 5th floor is known as the ‘whispering’ room of 63 feet (19 metres) long sides. It is possible to whisper in one corner and hear what is said in the opposite corner. It is not known why this is there.
Studies of the tower have shown that its architects used some of the most advanced technologies available at that time. The tented roof was the first cast iron cupola in the world, with a metal carcass and metal outer shell. The very top of the tower is crowned with a metallic lightening rods built between 1721 and 1745. They were made 28 years before Benjamin Franklin's scientific explanation of such devices. Also, it was found that in order to fasten the structural parts of the tower, the workers used the principle of reinforced concrete for the first time in the world, or some 130 years before its first recorded use in 1860. The tower is literally pierced with metal bars and it can be seen that the metal parts used during the construction do not have a slightest trace of corrosion. This is due to the metal used having 99.6% pure iron, the manufacture of such high-grade material in the 18th century still remaining a mystery.
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| View of the river from the clock tower |
That was a very good and enjoyable day out. Then it was time to pack and be ready to go to the station for the 21.47 train to Irkutsk, a journey of two and a half days.
The day was not over yet as I went for a dog sleigh ride, not that I actually controlled the dogs but sat in a sleigh while the owner went as fast as the dogs allowed down a very bumpy road. Fresh air by the ton on the ride, somewhat uncomfortable but fun never-the-less.
