RUSSIA - Yekaterinburg
We got picked up from the station in (Y)ekaterinburg and got taken to the hotel. He was a very funny guy called Sergei. Next day we had a tour which was organised as part of the Trans-sib trip, around the city by a guy called Gleb. We saw an old KGB headquaters complete with old soviet tanks and the Chechnya memorial (Black Tulip).
Then we headed to the Church of Our Saviour on the Spilt Blood which was built as a memorial to the Romanov family, the father was the last Tsar of Russia. 
The were murdered in there own home, on the site by the Bolsheviks. The start of the tour was quite intense but it later melowed when we took in the city centre. The following day we had a planned trip to a Traditional Siberian Village about 2 hours away. This was a real highlight. Taken by our guide Anna and a local lady, we looked around the traditional buildings learning how things used to be done and we then went into their village hall to be confront with 9 elderly ladies and an accordian player. They proceeded to sing and dance for us for about 20 minutes. It was fantastic and we had our photo with them after.
We then had a horse and cart ride around the village and came back for a gorgeous traditional lunch including salad, soup and dumplings all washed down with the local tipple Samogon which is apparently made from anything in nature, i appreciated the cough mixture flavours but i dont think Karl or Clem were as keen. Sergei was trying to get me to have more and more! 
We got on the train the next day to journey through Siberia itself. It is the longest leg of jounrey we will make in 5 months, 2 and a half days on the train!
We got picked up from the station in (Y)ekaterinburg and got taken to the hotel. He was a very funny guy called Sergei. Next day we had a tour which was organised as part of the Trans-sib trip, around the city by a guy called Gleb. We saw an old KGB headquaters complete with old soviet tanks and the Chechnya memorial (Black Tulip).
Then we headed to the Church of Our Saviour on the Spilt Blood which was built as a memorial to the Romanov family, the father was the last Tsar of Russia. The were murdered in there own home, on the site by the Bolsheviks. The start of the tour was quite intense but it later melowed when we took in the city centre. The following day we had a planned trip to a Traditional Siberian Village about 2 hours away. This was a real highlight. Taken by our guide Anna and a local lady, we looked around the traditional buildings learning how things used to be done and we then went into their village hall to be confront with 9 elderly ladies and an accordian player. They proceeded to sing and dance for us for about 20 minutes. It was fantastic and we had our photo with them after. We then had a horse and cart ride around the village and came back for a gorgeous traditional lunch including salad, soup and dumplings all washed down with the local tipple Samogon which is apparently made from anything in nature, i appreciated the cough mixture flavours but i dont think Karl or Clem were as keen. Sergei was trying to get me to have more and more! We got on the train the next day to journey through Siberia itself. It is the longest leg of jounrey we will make in 5 months, 2 and a half days on the train!
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