Blowing up the kitchen.
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.
The keyboard rounded off a nice day of charmingly crap exhibits. With the nature of our trip a visit to the Railway History Museum seemed a must. Hosed in an old wing of the railway station it also meant we could book the next leg of the journey. It was to be a punishing 4am start. Some pictures of the building of the railway were only mildly diverting. What was worth the ten rouble entrance fee was the massive train set mimicking Siberia in the centre of the room. All those boyhood dreams of expanding the Hornby set that was my pride and joy came flooding back. The other room of the place was in use hosting a seminar for old people. Doc and I were interested in slipping into the back but were pulled outside by Arnika.
We couldn’t escape the old people in this city.
It always amazes me how you plan a route for the morning thinking ‘get this stuff out of the way and then we’ll have the afternoon to delve deeper.’ Then walking tiredly up the stairs to the apartment close to 7pm wondering where the day went. Despite only touching on the superficial it had been a satisfying monument tour. Today figuring out the rattling tram system even. The memorial to the Afghan War was especially worthwhile. Exuding a forlorn despair rarely seen in the war memorial genre, the worn out soldier with his head slumped is a powerful admission of lost ambition. Somehow the ability to recognise this comes across as a particularly Russian trait. As usual the ability to fully explain this though eludes me.
Perhaps the biggest draw to the fifth largest city in Russia is as a pilgrimage to the place where the Romanov dynasty came to an end. We forwent the much advertised trip out to the mineshaft that the bodies had been thrown into instead going to the actual site of the murders. Yekaterinburg’s most famous recent son, Boris Yeltsin, had the house demolished during his time as mayor in the 70s. Now there is a monument and display in front of the appropriately named Church of the Blood. Looking at the photos of the family, their black and white faces staring out it is impossible to imagine marching them down into a concrete cellar and gunning them down. In good Bolshevik fashion the historic, monarch derived name for the city got thrown out a few years later and renamed Sverdlovsk after the man who orchestrated the whole thing. This is barely even the most depressing story within a fifty metre radius. Just over there at what is now a children’s museum is the house that a merchant by the name of Rastorguiev bailed an architect, Kharitonov, out of jail and promised to buy his freedom if he built him a beautiful enough house. Of course Kharitonov was double crossed and hanged himself rather than go back to prison.Leaving the cultured west of the country behind one of the most obvious differences has been the drop off in the standard of fashion. Not so much with the males where it is still all jeans, black shoes, and black leather jackets or fetchingly shiny suits. They seem to be made that way. But the female effort has been in steady decline ever since St Petersburg. I look back fondly on that virtual parade of catwalk standards on the footpath. The further we push east the trashier it gets. Lots of animal prints and bad denim. Or a combination of the two that we followed down Pr. Malysheva to McPeaks. A Russian version of McDonalds serving an interesting take on western fast foods. Housed in the foyer of an old theatre the setting was very impressive for a fairly slapdash burger. Lots of rich woods, high ceilings, black and white tiles, mirrored columns and the like.
Roar.
Our arrival back to the apartment saw us sitting in the stairwell for half an hour hungrily looking at the shopping we had just done. New Zealand butter is cheaper in Russia than it is back home. It would be hard for the reverse to be true with Russian vodka as we picked out a moderately priced one from the room there was to select from for about $6. We had been given a keys for the building but not the two heavy steel doors to the apartment. The outer of these held a note saying “Back Soon” with no indication of when it was left or when soon might be. This must be some sort of revenge for my attempt at destroying the kitchen that morning. The mistakes you make before you get that initial coffee. It was while trying to figure out the machine on the counter top to make Rdoc and I a brew that I managed to send a geyser of hot water shooting right up to the ceiling. The top had also reached that high leaving an imprint in the tile while the water took off a large patch of paint and left interesting marks on the cupboards. Of course all of this happened just as a bemused host walked in to cook us breakfast. It was delicious.
Tags: Church/cathedral, evil old people, food, landmark, monument/memorial, Russia, Yekaterinburg
montombo
April 11th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
http://tau.ur.ru/tower/etower.asp