Екатеринбург

Arriving at 4 am in Ekatherinburg I was glad I accepted Irina’s offer to send me a taxi which was already waiting for me. The next day Irina and her friend Kseniya showed me around. Ekatherinburg is a cute city and reminds me somewhat of Hamburg, mainly because of the big lake in the North-East of the city center (;

Actually I feel quite exhausted at the time, I’m falling asleep at any rest, especially in buses – the so called Marshrutka. Therefore I enjoyed our cosy evening at Irina’s place making Pelmeni, chatting and watching Irina’s home videos, she’s a great figure skater. The next day we explored Nevyansk a small town near Ekatherinburg with its famous Leaning Tower and a small nearby village Bin’gi where I probably saw the first really old Russian church. Nearly all churches in Russia had been destroyed during Communism which one can’t believe admiring the myriads of them. But they are mostly (re-) built only recently…

Visiting the countryside I was also stunned by the simpleness of the way of living here. It differs already in the cities from what I know but all these tiny wooden houses and the people give again totally new impressions. I love the old church, the incident light creates an impressive atmosphere and when we entered people were having breakfast. It seems the church is used as village hall and I think the priest is even living there, I like this idea pretty much! Today I visited another village, respectively the Ganina Yama monastery ad its just amazing. Should you ever be in Ekatherinburg, don’t miss it!

Now I’m about to face even 52 hours by train, but that’s at least a good opportunity to fetch some sleep and at least it’s not a six-days-trip (: