long red lines across a map

Being in a city for only a few days you are really only trying to build a slight impression of the place.  For Yekaterinburg that would be unfinished buildings.  Most strikingly was what I assume was supposed to be a communications tower.  Instead of one aerial thrusting upwards there were many strands of concrete reinforcers forming a bamboo fence like crown.  Also impressively on this particular structure was some of the graffiti.  Not in itself but more from where it was being right at the top of this maybe thirty story structure with only a very rickety metal ladder up the side to climb.  For a city supposedly showing off its new found mineral wealth it was not doing a very good job.  Perhaps the highlight was getting halfway down the central city river walk only to have the path end and end up scrambling around rubble and through collapsing buildings to break through back onto the street grid.

This river walk had sucked us in with the promise of perhaps the most inexplicable monument ever.  Richard was as excited as I think I have ever seen him.  In his words ‘a rendering of something I’ve spent half my life at.’  What else could elicit such emotion from our implacable companion than a twenty metre long stone Qwerty keyboard.  Recessed into a grass bank and with two sullen types occupying the number keys it was magnificently improbable.  The look on myself and Arnika’s faces mimicked the bemusement shown on our host’s face that morning when he got asked to locate it on a map for us.  We jumped around the keys for a while spelling our names and the like.  The teenagers glowered at us.

 

Humour I suppose.

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The thing is that, despite all previously documented troubles, Kazan is a really great place and I am really glad that the route was able to be influenced away from the usual stop in Perm to include it.  Officially the third capital of Russia and recently done up to celebrate its 1000th birthday the tone of the place starts at the Kremlin which models co-operation to all by containing both a mosque and an orthodox cathedral.  We had read that there was a strong separatist movement in Tatarstan and to expect to be asked about this.  We weren’t asked so we sought out opinion on this and found that there may have been murmurings in the 90s but it seems that money has quelled those with the resource boom making the region very wealthy.  Or maybe it is because FC Rubin Kazan is top of the league.

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Today we leave Moscow for the Golden Ring towns.  Even though many of the stops along the way are going to be major cities it still feels as though this is the end of the easy part.  The further east ... [Continue reading this entry]

One of the most prevalent questions encountered so far has been Moscow or St Petersburg, which do you prefer?  As the title of this post alludes to one is based on the premise of beauty and the other power.  One ... [Continue reading this entry]