Yekaterinburg

I was awake fairly early on my second day in Yekaterinburg, which was a pain. The hostel is basically three rooms if you include the kitchen, with everyone sleeping in two of those rooms. I tried to be quiet and not wake anyone, I don't think I succeeded. Unfortunately Anna and I didn't have much choice when choosing accommodation in the city, I think the hostel scene is relatively new in Russia. Most of the hostels seem to be in converted apartments and all the size ramifications that comes with that. They are also way more expensive then even the U.S.. Also a pain was that this hostel didn't have wifi and only one computer, set up in one of the bedrooms. Since I usually get on the computer when I wake up, this wasn't great either. We were due to leave the next day but hadn't picked up our train tickets when we arrived in the city as we had wanted to get to the hostel before dark. We decided to get the bus to the train station that morning, I was hoping that we would just be able to go to one of the electronic ticket machines and pick up the tickets fairly swiftly.
We got the bus easily enough but weren't sure where to get off, in the end we decided to follow the people on the bus who had luggage, this worked surprisingly well. We got into the ticket hall, there were only about five windows open and each had a mass of people around them. I would like to able to say that each had a line in front of it but that would be a lie. We went to an empty window hoping to get info on where the electronic ticket machines were, there weren't any. We lined up at one window but the queue was going nowhere so we moved to another. Then we were given a lesson in how Russian queues work. It is acceptable to stand in the line for a few minutes and then go and sit down and rejoin the line where you left it just as it becomes your turn. Neither Anna or I were very impressed with this and made it clear to a few people. It's amazing how well you can communicate even without sharing a common language. Little did we know that this is totally acceptable. Our line seemed to be going nowhere and we decided to split our forces, Anna went and joined the next line over, whoever got to the ticket window first would be joined by the other. I occasionally glanced over at Anna and saw that she had her elbows out and was refusing to let anyone get in front of her, she was definitely taking no prisoners. I was impressed, I won't lie.There have been any number of times when someone has pushed in in front of me but I have not said anything despite being pissed off about it.We waited at least forty-five minutes to get our tickets and we had already booked and paid for them. Heaven knows how much longer it would have taken if we had had to start the process from scratch.I was so glad that we hadn't waited to get them the morning of our train, I would have been having kittens. We returned to the hostel the way we had come, by bus which was an experience in itself.
Jenny was there and we asked her if she still wanted to hang out with us that day, she said she did so we had lunch. Then we caught a minibus to the outskirts of the city to go to a cemetery. In the early 1990's Yekaterinburg was a hotbed of Mafia activity and there had been a gang war. Our guidebook said that some of the graves were worth looking at, including one that had a portrait of it's occupant holding his Mercedes car keys. It was raining on and off when we were walking around the cemetery, it was a strangely beautiful place. The quality of the carving amazing and how different it is to British cemeteries quite marked. For a start the whole area was wooded so there is no overview of the cemetery and the graves don't so much have headstones as a few metres squared paved area with headstone and bench. The headstones either have a photo on of the deceased or a carved representation of their face. It's very personal and must give the families of the deceased some comfort. It was a strangely calming place to be and I hope our presence there didn't disturb too many people.
Once back in town we went to a book store, bought some postcards and repared to a cafe to write them. I am keeping up my postcard writing traditions, I think I sent 26 from Beijing. It would only be four from Yekaterinburg, I hadn't really seen that much in the city and the shop only sold one design of postcard. I also don't like to send postcards of things that I haven't actually seen so that limits me. In the cafe Jenny attracted the attentions of a local and we were then joined by him and his friends. His friends were great but the guy was wasted and it was only 2pm in the afternoon. I know I drink during the day but it's been a long time since I have been drunk at 2pm and if I am, I will be asleep by 3pm. I am sure many of my friends can attest to that. We wandered through the shopping area, the street is pedestrianised with lots of benches and statues. Of course there had to be statue photos. Unfortunately it led to one guy following us, we ducked into a shopping centre to lose him and left by another entrance. Back outside we came upon a statue of Michael Jackson, flowers had been left at the base. It was June 25th, almost two years to the day of his death, hard to believe. That didn't prevent us having a statue photo taken there, of course!
It was late in the afternoon so we headed back in the direction of the hostel, I didn't want a late night as we had an early train the next day. We went back to the beer garden of the previous night, which despite the rain was open. We had dinner there and a couple of beers. As we were leaving the park we saw a group of students singing and dancing, they were friendly so we joined them. They were very happy to share their vodka with us, it was the first vodka I have drunk in Russia. Not bad considering everyone said that we would be inundated with the stuff. We were joined by one of the guys from the beer garden, apparently it's run by Uzbek's, who knew. We were fully intending to leave when the guy invited us back into the beer garden and despite not drinking himself bought us all a beer. He was a lovely guy. We staggered back to the hostel via a local grocery store and more random people photos.
I was up early the next morning and got my stuff together. I hadn't seen Katiya so Anna and I left our room money and the apartment key on the table in the main room and headed out. Katiya had booked us a taxi back to the train station as we didn't want to risk the bus, it was waiting for us. We got to the station with plenty of time to spare. We sat and waited on the main stairs as you have to pay to use the waiting rooms. I was not a big fan of Russia at that time. The train was on time and so we were on our way to Moscow, our last stop in Russia.