Impressions from Jekaterinburg

 

The hostel in Jekaterinburg... It looked like as someone took the grandmas flat and put some bunk bed in and defined it afterwards as a hostel. It was very amazing... Especially when you come there at 2 o'clock in the night.

Here the hostel or better grandma's kitchen

Jekaterinburg is quite a boring Russian city. There were not many interesting things besides some colorful stone cows. ;-) 

 But we are very far away from home. By the way it is an absolute different feeling to travel with the train than flying to some place as you have a complete other feeling about the distances. 

 

Russians are crazy about German beer and also Oktoberfest...

 

In a supermarket in Jekaterinburg... Bloodyunbelieveable!

 

On our second day in Jekaterinburg we made an 80km trip together with our couchsufing host Alexander and his friend Diana to a village called Byn'gi to visit Stefan a German guy. On the way we had a short stop at Nev'yansk where they build up a crooked church similar to the Pisa tower.

 

Joram, our couch surfing host Alex and Diana at Byn'gi

A typical lane in an typical Russian village. It's like if you are in another time! The lanes are not tarred and have a lot of gigantic potholes. A lot of animals like chicken, goose and geese are running on the street and nearly all houses are wood houses.

 Just another impression of the rural Russian life.

 Here the house of the German guy Stefan... Very cozy from outside and also from inside

 The houses in this street had no flowing water. You have to get your water at a well!!! This is not a choke!!!

 This was inside of Stefan´s house... It was somehow very different. We are sitting there somewhere in the nowhere, meeting a German guy, his Russian wife Olga served a very good coffee, we ate some very tasty sweets from the village bakery, another German guy with his wife came, a Russian translator also came, we were talking about satellite drives and xenon gas... Yes Xenon gas! Stefan has a company that sells Xenon gas that is produced near to Jekaterinburg to German satellite companys like Astrium or OHB! Furthermore Stefan hosts tourists in gers (nomadic tent) in his garden, helps children with leukemia, breeds goose together with his neighbor, was ten times in the Russian TV, etc., etc. etc. All in all an absolute amazing guy.  

 On the right side is Stefan. 

 Eva and Diana posing in funny skirts. All women had to wear those skirts as we visited a monastery on the way back to Jekaterinburg. 

 The two Himmelhunde... And what is also important: Always make some Gampertbräu advertisment! ;-) 

Transsib II - Jekaterinburg to Irkutsk

50 hours in the train from Jekaterinburg to Irkutsk - unbelievable! On the picture you can see the "boss" of our cabin :-)

 

For once we just had to try the train restaurant... it was ok, but the portions were too small for us :-)

 

All in all we can say that it was a nice trip: we had some good vodka with our russian cabin neighbour, played "Kniffel" whenever it was boring and saw a lot of birch trees. Unfortunately the train was not so comfortable than the first one, but still fine.

The Transsibirian Train - Part I: Moscow to Ekaterinburg

From Moscow to Yekaterinburg: 24h with the train, 1800km and traveling to a new continent (Asia).

Our wagon with our train conductor. She was quite unfriendly, spoke no English but at least we had no problems with her.

A look in the floor of our wagon. All in all we must say that this train was very comfortable, extremely clean, air conditioned, TV in the cabin and there was always a hot water for tea.

... more in some days. We now have to sleep as we have to get up in a few hours to catch our train to Irkutsk. 53hours in the train!

Moscow part II

The "wallpaper" we know from German news. The Moscow river and in the background the Kremlin.

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour... One more impressive building in Moscow.

Jo together with his four girls... Olga, Julia, Sasha and Eva! ;-)

Last but not least our couch at Julia´s home.

Julia´s mother Irina and Julia. It was great to stay at their flat!

Moscow part I

There we are - Moscow, the capital of Russia... An army of matryoshkas waited for us..

 
Julia, Eva and Jo in the pedestrian zone in Moscow. Julia - 20 year old party girl - is studying mathematics and hosted us during our stay in Moscow. What more can we say than "spasiba!" (= Thank you). It was just great to go out with her and her friends, cook typical bavarian food for her family (Rouladen, Klöse and Blaukraut), and talk to her mother.

 
Saint Basil's Cathedral at the red square

The GUM - the fancy shopping mall for the rich people at the red square. 

The roof of the GUM

Old russian lady feeding the pigeons near to the read square

Russian horses don't like water. So what to do? They jump out and look for some vodka near to the Kremlin :-)

Russians love German beer... More for that in the next posts.

Mc. Walk...

A typical metro station in Moscow: Always a eye-catcher. Very clean, an impressive architecture and in every station a person who takes care that you are not falling at the end of the escalators.

On the roof of a metro station: A relict to Soviet times.

The university of Moscow. Normally there is a good lookout place on the top of the building. But it was not allowed for us to go there as we were supposed to be German spies. That´s a true story!
At night you can find around the university a lot of rich Russian kids that take out their cars for playing "The fast and the furious". A pair of new tires for one evening is nothing!!!

By the way... In Moscow you can find so many German luxury cars as we never saw before. But only the real big ones: Mercedes S class, Maybach, Audi A8, Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne, VW Touareg...

At the university you also have a great view over the city of Moscow.

Language change!!!

Hello together. As we meet a lot of people that want to follow our blog and don´t speak German we decided to change our blog to English language. I hope that is OK for all our German friends...

Posted by Jo.

Sapsan - Way to Moscow

Yeah! The Sapsan... We did what every Russian guy did: A photo with the great Sapsan (Sapsan is the Russian word for falcon). All in all the Sapsan is one of the most photographed trains in the world I think. On every train station was someone who took a photo. For us Germans the Sapsan is not the big thing as it es the same as our German ICE only with different colors. But all in all it was a comfortable and quick way to travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow.

The speed was also quiet OK. Maximum speed was 200km/h.

Posted by Jo. 

Unsere erste Station - St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg in wenigen Worten: Eine absolut tolle Stadt, traumhafte Architektur, super nette Leute, leckeres Essen, unendlich hohe Absätze, eine tolle Gastgeberin, mehr Stretch Limousinen und Hochzeiten als in Las Vegas... Auf jeden Fall ein Platz, den mann und frau gesehen haben sollte!

 Unsere erste Couch auf der wir gesurft haben... Bequem, warm und überhaupt...

Und hier unsere sensationelle Gastgeberin Lada! So eine Gastfreundschaft haben wir noch nie erlebt! Reiseführerein, Köchin, Unterhaltung und noch vieles mehr in einem!

Peter der Große, Jo der Mittlere und Eva die Kleine...

Irgendwie kommt uns dieses Wetter ziemlich vertraut vor... ;-)

Iwan der Schreckliche oder so...

Absätze und kurze Röcke, wohin mann schaut. Jo bleibt in St. Petersburg und bricht die Weltreise ab!

Nach dem Vento endlich mal ein "Hummer" Auto!

Das ist noch nicht Moskau, aber mindestens genauso schön, wenn nicht schöner...

Die Himmelhunde auf dem Marsfeld...