Dear Mom and Dad,
Another city come and gone; this one the seventh now since leaving Vladivostok two weeks ago today.
I arrived in Yekaterinburg yesterday afternoon at one o’clock and picked up where I had left off and huffed my pack the 6km down one of the city's main streets, 8th of March Street, in honor of International Women’s Day. This route immediately took me over the river that runs through the city, the rather unimposing Iset’ and off through the surprisingly modern high rises of the city. While it is technically fourth in population, Yekaterinburg feels like, and is commonly referred to as the “third capital”, behind of course Moscow and St. Petersburg. It’s metro also supports this claim supporting a third line to Novosibirsk’s and upcoming Nizhny Novgorod’s two apiece. As with all my stops thus far, this is another administrative center, this time of an oblast' rather than a kraj, this one being Sverdlovskaya Oblast'. As Yekaterinburg is just east of the Ural Mountains, it is the first big city moving from the west that marks the beginning of Asia. Like Peter the Great’s “window to Europe” – St. Petersburg – Yekaterinburg, named after his second wife and successor to the throne, Catherine I, became the Russian Empire’s “window to Asia” towards the end of the 18th century.
While my exploration did not take me too far, I joined the Sunday crowd in strolling along the banks of the Iset’, enjoying the low 60s, listening to the gentle rush of water and…the blaring drum covers of System of a Down in the background. Russians love SOAD. And good on them for it. The next morning I ran out the door and explored the rather expansive Central Park I luckily found myself not far from. On a sunny Monday morning, the air warming every minute, a walk through the deserted park’s forested paths bathed in the golden carpet of fallen birch leaves was definitely my favorite experience of the city. Paved and unpaved paths alike wove through the trees and were intertwined with stone staircases in a comfortable state of relaxed decay. Like your grandmother’s couch.
The days are getting noticeably shorter and while it was still warm in Yekaterinburg, as I write this from my open compartment train car a few hours outside of Nizhny, we’re passing less and less gold and more gray. There have already been several stretches of light snow. Part of the motivation for starting out on this trip when I did was to miss the summer and avoid the miserable heat of AC-less Russia and beat the winter that would have required a stouter wardrobe. As it was, I got away with living comfortably from a 55 gallon backpack for a month. The long johns will likely come in handy later today.
My next and final post of the series will come from my apartment back in St. Petersburg, though, as I’m staying at a friend’s tonight, I think a drink or two may be in order as a preliminary celebration. I reckon I’ve well enough dried out from the island birthday extravaganza of yore by now.
One more to go,
Alex
Comments