Yekaterinburg

I woke in Yekaterinburg ready to face another day. Vietnam and Beijing now seem so
far away and I can't believe that the trip is going so well. Anna and I had a plan to hit most of the sights in the city centre that day, we weren't going to do a lot in the city. Firstly and more importantly we needed to find somewhere to have breakfast. I don't know why but we always seem to take the long way round and do more walking than we need to. And this morning was no different. We sat down to breakfast and planned the day. Katiya, the lady running our hostel, had given us a map and marked a load of places on it, so we were ready to go. In the restaurant I discovered that I hadn't replaced the battery back into my camera, I couldn't be bothered to go back. That's how little there is to see in this city, I was beginning to wonder why I had decided to stop here. We walked to the Church Upon the Blood. This church was built to commemorate the Romanovs and is on the site of the house where they were murdered. The history is fascinating but I couldn't resist going to a church with "blood" in the name. The church is built in the traditional Russian Orthodox style with gold domes and whitewashed or limestone walls. Inside it is very richly decorated but very small. I don't know what kind of services they have in the church, in any of the churches I've visited in Russia as there are no pews inside. Furthermore half of the interior space is inaccessible as it is blocked off with a screen across the whole width of the interior. Granted the interior is very beautiful, it's a lot brighter than a majority of English churches and as a woman my head had to be covered to enter.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in the city centre and it is very underwhelming, we could have spent a day here and I think it would have been enough. We walked beside the city pond, saw the statue of the city's founders, went to the Beatles memorial and a played on a piece of modern art. Then we were pretty much done and went back to the hostel via a German restaurant for lunch, which of course included a beer. I am still in shock at how much more expensive Russia is than almost any other country I've visited. No wonder the Russian tourists in Mui Ne have no problem paying the prices there. I am still adjusting to the price differential and I do understand that Vietnam is a very cheap country to live in. That doesn't make the adjustment any easier.
It was reasonably early when we got back to the hostel but I don't think either of us really wanted to stay in. I thought we would ask Katiya for a restaurant recommendation but she wasn't there. Some of the other guests were eating food they had bought from a local supermarket and it looked great so we decided to go there, buy some food and then eat it, sat in the park. Jenny, another Brit staying at the hostel, joined us. We found the park quickly, cracked open the beer and sat down on a bench to eat. It is absolutely no problem to drink in public in this country. In fact I think it would be a problem if you didn't have a drink in hand. Although most people I've seen were drinking beer rather than vodka. The sale of hard alcohol is limited to between 10am and 10pm,I don't know if that has something to do with it.While we were sat there Anna attracted the attention of four guys in black tracksuits, they walked past us and then sat down at a bench across the park from us. They sat there staring at us, then Anna took a photo of them and all but one of them turned their heads away. I was glad when they left the park, they were definitely shady and after everything I had heard about the city I was on guard.
None of us wanted to go back to the hostel when we finished eating so we set out to find a bar. We stumbled across a Ukrainian beer garden in another near by park and sat down and ordered beer. Everyone there was so friendly and it was really easy to take random people photos. Jenny caught the fancy of this Russian guy who thought Anna was gay! He was getting over friendly when we decided to leave. We got back to the hostel and hit the sack, it had been a good day.