Chapter 6 Kazan and Ekatrinburg, September 2019.
We arrived in Kazan at 8 am after the night on the train. We found the ride rather rough as the tracks are certainly not well aligned. The result is that the train sways constantly and rather roughly from side to side. We had a first-class cabin which means we had a normal cabin with only two lower bunks. We found our table set with water and some snacks. Later, we were served a light meal and we then had our first night on board. We will be sleeping one night on a train and one night in a hotel for most of the trip. This means that we get off the train, then go to a hotel for the night, the next day we see a town and re-board a train for the night. It will take a while to get used to sleeping on the noisy and shaky trains.
We set out to visit Kazan which is the capital of Tartarstan, a province of the Russian Federation. We were surprised that the Tartars still strongly hold on to their traditions, language, and religion, Islam. The place is peppered with Islam mosques which were forbidden in Soviet times. When the ban on mosques was lifted in the '90s, the number of Islam mosques went from 100 to over 1000.
Pictures I took of Kazan can be seen at:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/cg8gAwD8axcBXBMSA
The city is on the Volga river with a huge fort, called a Kremlin, overlooking the river. It has a beautiful mosque as well as a number of Russian Orthodox churches. It is a huge complex with an immense wall all around. We learned that the St Basil Church on the Red Square of Moscow (the one with the colored domes) was built by the Tsar to celebrate the victory of the Russians over the Tartars.
The city, with a population of 1 million, Kazan has the standard Soviet planned urban layout with post-Soviet modern buildings. Large streets, ugly old buildings, and quite a few new buildings. Here and there one sees very old, wooden buildings which date back several centuries. We had lunch in a local restaurant where one of the cooks came out to show us how to make the local triangle bread bun filled with meat and potatoes. Monique put her hand to the dough and produced one under the supervision of the lady chef. So far, the number of different foods one encounters is impressive but given the size of the country, this diversity is perhaps not surprising.
After lunch, we headed back to the hotel for a rest as it was raining and cold. Our nice guide Nadiye picked us around 1800 and took us to a very posh Khazakstan style restaurant along the river. We had a pre-set meal consisting mainly of lamb soup. It was obviously not their best evening as we were the only persons in this huge restaurant which seemed built last week. It could have been in East Germany as it had no warmth, no real feel of a restaurant. I guess it takes some time to get rid of the Soviet habits of 70 years.
My Russian is not getting much practice as our guides all speak excellent English. The only place so far I have been able to practice my Russian has been on the train where no one speaks anything but Russian. All of the services in the trains so far have been delivered by women. The cabin and restaurant staff are all female. I assume the train drivers are male, but I am not sure. In a country which was run by female tsars and after 70 years of equality imposed by the regime, women in Russia are about as emancipated as could be.
Our train for Ekaterinburg was scheduled to leave at 0545. I set our alarm for 0415 with the plan to leave the hotel for the station at 0500. We went to bed early to prepare for the early rising of the next day. At 0510, our phone rang waking us. Nadiye was in the lobby awaiting us. Within 10 minutes we were in the car on the way to the station and we boarded our train at 0535. No bad: from bed to train in 25 minutes. I later found out I had set the alarm for 4pm instead of 4am. Technology... Or is it just me? I know what you are thinking.
We spent the day traveling by train by train across the huge steppe east of the Ural. It was a rainy day but still, the autumn colors were in full bloom. The colors are mostly yellow with a few shades of red. The forests are made up mainly of Birch trees but the trees are only about 25 cm in diameter. All along we saw huge expanses but almost no farming. No wonder they have to import food. It is shocking to see so little large scale farming. We had a hearty breakfast in the dining car. We had our dinner on the train which was really not very good. I guess we will stay with omelets on this trip. The prices were about one-half one would pay on trains in Europe or in North America.
In the evening at about 9pm, we arrived in Ekaterinburg and were met at the train by our guide, Vladimir. Monique is developing a cold so it is good that we had no activities planned until noon the next day. We checked into the local Novotel and it was nice to stretch out on a real bed.
Pictures can be seen at:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/gpuggoz1H3c5aXcq6
We slept until 9am this morning, had a leisurely breakfast and set out to see the city. This is where the family of the Tsar was murdered by Lenin's government. What I learned was that the white army (they fought the soviets who were establishing the communist government) took back Ekaterinburg 1one week after this murder. This apparently was what pushed the soviets to order the murder of the family, as they feared the white army would put the tsar back in power.
Vladimir and the driver came to pick us up from the hotel at noon. It was a rainy and cold day. By this time both Monique and I had running noses and were coughing. It really is not fun to do sightseeing in this condition. But we got into the car and drove east back to the geographic point where Europe meets Asia.
We then headed to the memorial park where the bodies of the Tsar and his family were first dumped down a mine shaft to hide the brutal act. The grounds of this place are considered holy by the Russian Orthodox church and Monique was required to wear a red skirt and cover her head. Here the church has built 7 log churches, one for each member of the family. It is a little overdone but now serves as a pilgrimage place for Russians. In fact, the murderers pulled up the remains from here and took them to a place a few miles away where they were buried under some railway ties. Interestingly, the church chooses to ignore this as the remains were discovered long after the mine shaft location was chosen to be holy ground. At the actual place the remains were found there is no memorial and the place is deserted and known only to very few, and visited by no one.
We then returned to Ekatrinburg and were shown where the tsar family was actually murdered. The house they lived in for 78 days has been destroyed and a huge church has been erected on the site.
The murder of the tsar family was ordered by Lenin and was an absolutely barbaric act but it was also a silly political move. By killing the tsar, the Bolsheviks ensured that the Taar and his family would become saints in the eyes of the Russian people who would never forgive Lenin and his entourage for this act.
We then walked around the inner city for a couple of hours to see a clean and rather pretty city center which has been cleaned up with parks and large lakes in the downtown, We ended the day by having tea at the restaurant on the 37th floor of a new skyscraper. The view of the city was beautiful and one could see the river which flows through the city.
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| Nadiye, our Tartar guide in Kazan. |
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| The walls of the fort of Kazan. |
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| The mosque in the Kazan Citadel, or Kreml. |
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| The layout of the city of Kazan. |
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| Inside the new Mosque of Kazan. |
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| Monique trying her hand at making Tartar samozas. |
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| Our Tartar guide in Kazan. |
We set out to visit Kazan which is the capital of Tartarstan, a province of the Russian Federation. We were surprised that the Tartars still strongly hold on to their traditions, language, and religion, Islam. The place is peppered with Islam mosques which were forbidden in Soviet times. When the ban on mosques was lifted in the '90s, the number of Islam mosques went from 100 to over 1000.
Pictures I took of Kazan can be seen at:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/cg8gAwD8axcBXBMSA
The city is on the Volga river with a huge fort, called a Kremlin, overlooking the river. It has a beautiful mosque as well as a number of Russian Orthodox churches. It is a huge complex with an immense wall all around. We learned that the St Basil Church on the Red Square of Moscow (the one with the colored domes) was built by the Tsar to celebrate the victory of the Russians over the Tartars.
The city, with a population of 1 million, Kazan has the standard Soviet planned urban layout with post-Soviet modern buildings. Large streets, ugly old buildings, and quite a few new buildings. Here and there one sees very old, wooden buildings which date back several centuries. We had lunch in a local restaurant where one of the cooks came out to show us how to make the local triangle bread bun filled with meat and potatoes. Monique put her hand to the dough and produced one under the supervision of the lady chef. So far, the number of different foods one encounters is impressive but given the size of the country, this diversity is perhaps not surprising.
After lunch, we headed back to the hotel for a rest as it was raining and cold. Our nice guide Nadiye picked us around 1800 and took us to a very posh Khazakstan style restaurant along the river. We had a pre-set meal consisting mainly of lamb soup. It was obviously not their best evening as we were the only persons in this huge restaurant which seemed built last week. It could have been in East Germany as it had no warmth, no real feel of a restaurant. I guess it takes some time to get rid of the Soviet habits of 70 years.
My Russian is not getting much practice as our guides all speak excellent English. The only place so far I have been able to practice my Russian has been on the train where no one speaks anything but Russian. All of the services in the trains so far have been delivered by women. The cabin and restaurant staff are all female. I assume the train drivers are male, but I am not sure. In a country which was run by female tsars and after 70 years of equality imposed by the regime, women in Russia are about as emancipated as could be.
Our train for Ekaterinburg was scheduled to leave at 0545. I set our alarm for 0415 with the plan to leave the hotel for the station at 0500. We went to bed early to prepare for the early rising of the next day. At 0510, our phone rang waking us. Nadiye was in the lobby awaiting us. Within 10 minutes we were in the car on the way to the station and we boarded our train at 0535. No bad: from bed to train in 25 minutes. I later found out I had set the alarm for 4pm instead of 4am. Technology... Or is it just me? I know what you are thinking.
We spent the day traveling by train by train across the huge steppe east of the Ural. It was a rainy day but still, the autumn colors were in full bloom. The colors are mostly yellow with a few shades of red. The forests are made up mainly of Birch trees but the trees are only about 25 cm in diameter. All along we saw huge expanses but almost no farming. No wonder they have to import food. It is shocking to see so little large scale farming. We had a hearty breakfast in the dining car. We had our dinner on the train which was really not very good. I guess we will stay with omelets on this trip. The prices were about one-half one would pay on trains in Europe or in North America.
In the evening at about 9pm, we arrived in Ekaterinburg and were met at the train by our guide, Vladimir. Monique is developing a cold so it is good that we had no activities planned until noon the next day. We checked into the local Novotel and it was nice to stretch out on a real bed.
Pictures can be seen at:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/gpuggoz1H3c5aXcq6
We slept until 9am this morning, had a leisurely breakfast and set out to see the city. This is where the family of the Tsar was murdered by Lenin's government. What I learned was that the white army (they fought the soviets who were establishing the communist government) took back Ekaterinburg 1one week after this murder. This apparently was what pushed the soviets to order the murder of the family, as they feared the white army would put the tsar back in power.
Vladimir and the driver came to pick us up from the hotel at noon. It was a rainy and cold day. By this time both Monique and I had running noses and were coughing. It really is not fun to do sightseeing in this condition. But we got into the car and drove east back to the geographic point where Europe meets Asia.
 |
| One of the churches at the memorial site for the murdered Tsar and family. |
 |
We then headed to the memorial park where the bodies of the Tsar and his family were first dumped down a mine shaft to hide the brutal act. The grounds of this place are considered holy by the Russian Orthodox church and Monique was required to wear a red skirt and cover her head. Here the church has built 7 log churches, one for each member of the family. It is a little overdone but now serves as a pilgrimage place for Russians. In fact, the murderers pulled up the remains from here and took them to a place a few miles away where they were buried under some railway ties. Interestingly, the church chooses to ignore this as the remains were discovered long after the mine shaft location was chosen to be holy ground. At the actual place the remains were found there is no memorial and the place is deserted and known only to very few, and visited by no one.
We then returned to Ekatrinburg and were shown where the tsar family was actually murdered. The house they lived in for 78 days has been destroyed and a huge church has been erected on the site.
The murder of the tsar family was ordered by Lenin and was an absolutely barbaric act but it was also a silly political move. By killing the tsar, the Bolsheviks ensured that the Taar and his family would become saints in the eyes of the Russian people who would never forgive Lenin and his entourage for this act.
We then walked around the inner city for a couple of hours to see a clean and rather pretty city center which has been cleaned up with parks and large lakes in the downtown, We ended the day by having tea at the restaurant on the 37th floor of a new skyscraper. The view of the city was beautiful and one could see the river which flows through the city.
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