Irkutsz to Yekaterinburg

Taking 2 days and 2 hours, this journey was our longest stretch on the train, and we felt fortunate that, unlike many, we were not continuing all the way to Moscow. We spent most of the journey gazing out the window, one perfect Christmas card view after another for hours upon hours upon hours. Inside the train, the lack of English wasn’t a problem, providing plenty of laughs as the man who was paid to take the food trolley up and down the carriages performed a beautiful game of charades, although the rabbit did look significantly more like a chicken.

The prize for the worst passenger of the day definitely went to the nice, well-behaved Russian man who decided to drink a bottle of vodka with his friend. His friend retired to his cabin, leaving him to fall asleep firstly on the chair, then on his hands and knees on the dining room cabin floor. Assisting him back to his cabin, he vomited all over the corridor floor and retired to the toilet for a nap.

Yekaterinburg

Arriving in Yekaterinburg, we were delighted to see civilisation again. The city is the country’s fourth largest and one of Russia’s most important economic centres.

With no guide in sight, we made our way to the hotel and checked in. Five minutes later, a stressed guide entered the hotel and berated us for leaving her at the station. She was quite surprised to hear our feedback that we found it very difficult to recognise a Russian guide in Russia who was not holding a sign or wearing any form of uniform. A poorly organised tour of the town followed, with the guide seemingly shocked that the sun had disappeared at its usual time.

The tour took us past the site of Ipatiev House, where Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, was executed in 1918 during the Bolshevik Revolution. Nicholas’ decision to support Serbia when Austria-Hungary declared war in 1914 triggered the start of World War I. Severe military losses during the war sparked the February Revolution, and support for the monarch disintegrated. In March 1917, Nicholas abdicated on behalf of himself and his son and was exiled to Siberia. The Provisional Government, put into place following the abdication, was defeated in October 1917 during the Bolshevik Revolution. Led by Vladimir Lenin, the Bolsheviks seized power, establishing the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR), the world’s first constitutionally guaranteed socialist state, and eventually the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in December 1922. Nicholas II and his family were transferred to Yekaterinburg, imprisoned in Ipatiev House, and executed by firing squad in the basement.

The house was demolished in 1977; the Politburo declared that the house was not of “sufficient historical significance. Construction of an Orthodox church on the site began in 2000, and in 2023, the Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land was consecrated.

We also visited the Black Tulip War Memorial, which mourns the death of victims of the Afghan war. Soviet forces entered Afghanistan in 1979, assassinating General Secretary Hafizullah Amin, who had lost credibility, to ensure that the country retained leadership supportive of the USSR regime. USSR believed that the Afghan people would accept their presence, but there was nationwide opposition. After years of brutal guerilla war, the Soviet forces announced their departure in 1987. While the guerilla troops were expected to take control quickly, this didn’t eventuate until 1992, when the Taliban came to power. Official records registered 14.453 Soviet fatalities, although other estimates are as high as 26,000. Estimates of Afghan fatalities vary from 562,000 to 2 million, and land mines planted by Soviet forces or Soviet-supported Afghan forces are still scattered throughout the countryside. The memorial has an unusual, striking design and visiting at dusk created an eerie atmosphere for the three of us.

We were quite glad to return to the centre of town, visiting the City Dam and Lake before being dropped off for dinner at a Russian buffet-style restaurant. A highlight of the evening was being invited to go tobogganing by some of the local families, a first for this snow-deprived Aussie.

Koptelovo Village

Vicki and I spent the next day travelling to Koptelovo Village to learn more about Siberian traditions. We were welcomed to the village by a Russian man in a traditional sleigh and were driven around the block, viewing a small traditional church. We walked down to taste the freezing cold water of the natural spring before looking at the small cathedral built to commemorate the discovery of the spring.

Finishing at the town hall, we were treated to some Ural songs from the local choir, translated by our guide, Jana. A group of primary school students stole the show with their song about a man who walked into the side entrance of a house and began ‘kissing’ the daughter. One of the students had the same name as the man in the song, so all the students giggled their way through the entire song. The performance finished with several songs by a selection of local babushkas (or grandmothers).

Following the performance, we headed to the hall’s small museum to examine some historical artefacts. The most interesting, for me, were the keys people used to prove the type of land their family owned and where it was located. One piece of the key was centrally stored, while the family kept the other part. During a land dispute, they could bring their keys and verify which family was the owner.

Another interesting piece of memorabilia was the Death Certificate of the ‘undead’. The certificate was given to a mother telling her that her son had died. A few years later, the son walked into the house, having no idea that his mother had assumed him dead for years.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch of coleslaw and pancake salad (slices of pancake mixed with salami and sour cream), chicken soup, dumplings, potato tea, biscuits, bread buns filled with potato and Koptelovka, locally-made alcohol. After lunch, we walked over to visit a traditional Siberian house, built without a single nail. I tried to move the incredibly heavy food pot into the oven. Even though I finally managed, I decided that if I were responsible for cooking, my housemates would go hungry more often than not.

We returned to Yekaterinburg and found Rosy Jane’s for dinner, a ‘traditional’ English pub where most locals go for dinner. The highlight of the night was the following conversation:

Russian Man: What is your finest point?
Me: I don’t understand.
Russian Man: I’m sorry, I don’t understand your English.

I still have no idea what he meant.

Dog sledding in the Ural mountains

The last day in Yekaterinburg was the highlight of the whole Trans-Siberian journey, being led on a tour of the Ural Mountains by a beautiful Russian husky pack. The dogs were so beautiful and did a fantastic job of carrying us all through the snow and into the mountains. Finishing the tour, we wandered up to the top of a smaller hill and unsuccessfully tried to climb one of the rock formations. A lunch of fire-roasted sausages with salad filled us up before returning in the jeep to Yekaterinburg, where we visited a site where they were building an ice village for the kids at Christmas.