DAY 160 SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 1 YEKATERINBURG

The hotel provided a wonderful breakfast buffet and at 10am our guide appeared in the lobby.  Natalie is a married woman who speaks good English and has completed a degree in International Relations at one of the city's tertiary institutions, which is named after Boris Yeltsin, who studied here and took a special interest in the place.  There are many students and children here and the whole place has a positive, get ahead feel about it.

She was the first person we have met in Russia who was interested in talking politics and she knew her stuff.  She walked us past some historic buildings,

and a church with a tiny log cabin in the front.

Log cabins are everywhere in Russia.  Then we walked to a War Memorial which was a moving experience.

She called it the Black Tulip and told us it was completely designed and paid for by the people of the town with no support from military or government.

There is a petal of the tulip for each of the years that Russia fought in Afghanistan. The names of the young soldiers who died in that year are engraved.  These are just the ones from this city.  In addition the ones who died in the war in Chechnya are on the gold plates at the back.  We were told the Russians were the bad guys by the media but you get a different feeling when you see war from the point of view of the families who lost their sons and daughters. The focus is on the sadness of the soldier who has lost his mates.  Natalie said Afghanistan was Russia's Vietnam.  On a lighter note she told us that there were Irish, Scottish and English pubs in the town.  We passed the English one where none of the staff spoke English.

There are many churches in the city and this is one of the tallest. Only two existed under the Soviets.

 The men took off their hats and the women pulled up their Goretex hoods as we entered the very conservative Church on the Blood of All Saints.  We were not allowed to take photos and security watched us carefully as Natalie told us this church was built on the site where the last Royal Family of Russia were lured by the Bolsheviks "for their safety" then lined up for a photo and shot.  She took us downstairs to show us a replica room where there was a picture of the bullet holes in the wall.  The gunfire was so intense that the riflemen had to go outside and wait till the smoke settled to see the bodies.  When they came back, two women were still alive and had to be shot again.  Nasty story. As we entered the souvenir shop, about 20 young men in training for the church came out and their leader gave us sweets.  We saw a group of nuns going in another door.

  Nearby we passed a collection of wooden houses from early times brought here from the country. Rather like the Open Air Museum in Helsinki.  There is a post showing the original distance to St Petersburg.

We stood under it as people who had travelled from there overland.

Shortly afterwards some young ones from St Petersburg wanted a photo with us.  But they did not offer to assist us across a road.  As we approached the 1905 City Square we saw a stretch limo pull up and a wedding party get out.

We walked past the usual statue of Lenin,

across the road was a sculpture representing the smouldering fire of communism in Lenin's dreams.

We passed some local military.

Add your own caption.
In the square a concert was being presented on a large stage by the local children, who had just finished their summer holiday.  An old truck in appropriate colour was popular with the kids.

Today was an auspicious day for a marriage and after registering their vows in the morning the couples visited traditional spots for photos, while waiting for the evening party.  This was one such spot.

We have already broken our record of the number of brides in one day and we have not had lunch. Speaking of which we came to a restaurant where Natalie was to pay for us to have a traditional four course meal.

We followed her instructions as we moved along the cafeteria line and ended up with this:

The soup is Borsch (very nice) and the entree is sweet beetroot salad. The dessert is boiled dried fruit (tasteless).  We could not finish it all as we had a big free breakfast.  At 2pm Vadim came into the restaurant and escorted us to the VW bus and our driver took us to a cemetery 12km out of town. In our travels through Europe we avoided going to the Concentration Camp sites as we had learned enough about them.  This place was even worse. He told us that workers building a road in 1938 came across a large number of human bones.  They asked the KGB about it and were told to say nothing and forget about it.  When the KGB was disbanded in the nineties they got access to the old files which showed that over a two year peroid in the 1930s, an average of 400 people each night were shot and dumped in such graves.  Vadim said Russia is still suffering from the effects of the extermination of scientists, teachers, generals and artists, leading to a lack of high-level skills and knowledge in the society.  There were 18000 names recorded at this cemetery alone.  Here is part of the list whose names started with B.

Overall it is estimated that 26 million people died at Stalin's order.  That sounds like more than any single country has ever lost in one war and several times the number killed by Hitler.  There is no statue of Stalin in this town.  A memorial cairn here has four sides; one for each religious group. Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim.  Vadim was Catholic and paid his respects.

Such a contrast to the happiness of the wedding parties and so difficult for an Australian to comprehend a government being so ruthless.  We moved on to the first monument marking the "border" between Europe and Asia, which we had actually passed yesterday on our train.

The word transliterate to ASIYA and EVROPA.  Slowly getting the Cyrillic Alphabet. But this is the false border put on the main Moscow highway for convenience.  It turns out that this is another favourite wedding photo spot and people bring ribbons to tie around trees and make a wish.

Two more brides.

Next stop was a private lake where people escape the bustle of the city. Some ladies were fishing from the pier.  The Trans-Siberian Railway runs across the other side of the lake and we saw a long freight train.  It is a very busy line. Maximum zoom caught two locos.

Next stop was the second border obelisk which was on the real spot and where Vadim likes to drag people into Asia.

After that the REAL border monument on the old road to Moscow following the early trade route.
As we arrived a local lad was stamping out coins with a big hammer.

Can you read the sign this time?  And the crowd?  You guessed it. More brides.

That's a total of ten wedding parties.  If you have nothing better to do (if you have, why are you still reading this?) discover which bride actually appeared twice.  Some ladies greeted us in their traditional dress and we complimented them on their appearance.

Malcolm took an atypical stance with a foot in each camp.

 Another group of ladies grabbed Lyn and did a song and dance for us.  Have to wait for the video to see that.
On the way back to town Vadim told us how hospitable the local country people are and to demonstrate he stopped outside this house to see whether the housewife was at home.

She invited us to look at their bath/sauna room,

and their big vegetable garden.

When she invited us in for tea and pancakes with raspberry sauce, we realised we had been set up.  Her name was LLudmilla and her husband was Nicholas (but he was out fishing).

We thanked Vadim for his personal attention and he presented us formally with a diploma.