There are a lot of good things about Russians: their literature, their sense of humor, the way they let you drink beer wherever the hell you want. But holy fucking christ their queueing behavior is postively abhorrent. It's not just that they push and shove and ooze around the sides of lines -- they'll cut right the fuck in front of you if you let them. Don't I sound uptight and whiny? But when you grow up in a culture that's basically orderly, this shit is seriously maddening. For our second round of buying train tickets, my head nearly exploded, Shane nearly punched out an old lady (ok not really, but she did kinda deserve it), and the train we wanted was sold out. We ended up with tickets on a train leaving just a few hours later -- better times, actually -- but still, I'd rather be hit with sticks than go through the process of buying train tickets here.
Anyway. Ekaterinburg, which is where we are now, is not really what you'd call nice. It's a big sprawling mining town where aesthetics were clearly never a high priority. There is a river and a lake and a few parks, which are sort of pretty. And, Ekaterinburg is where the Red Army took the Russian royal family, and eventually murdered them, after the communist revolution. Boris Yeltsin (who happens to be from here) had the house where the murders took place torn down, and now the Church on the Blood (the Russians do have a way with naming their churches) commemorates the family. Nicholas and Alexandra are what first got me interested in all things Russian, so Ekaterinburg was worth the trip for them alone. In front of the church is a big statue of the whole family, except for their dog. The Reds killed him, too. No mention of Rasputin anywhere.
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