Yekaterinburg, day 2

So, after we rested up, we went to the Greenwich shopping center food court. On the way upstairs, Sonia found a football shop selling the local team’s jerseys. Of course we went in. Her brother and nephew will be happy. Upstairs I got a plate of ratatouille and some tea. It was just enough. We came back, set the alarm for 8:30 and fell asleep pretty quickly.
The alarm goes off this morning, not at 8:30 but 9:30. No harm done. We needed the sleep. We headed back to the Greenwich shopping center food court for breakfast. I had Russian crepes while Sonia took off to the supermarket to get milk for her breakfast. We came back to the hotel and slowly got ready before we took off to Vysotsky Business Center tower where we took an elevator to the 52nd floor viewing platform. It was overcast and WINDY, but we could see for miles. One thing was really neat. Yesterday, sveta pointed out a building constructed during Soviet times. she said if you had a bird’s eye view of it, you could see it was in the shape of the Soviet hammer and sickle symbol. Damned if she wasn’t right! It was overal an impressive view.
When we came down, we went into the Vladimir Vysotsky museum on the ground floor. He was a poet and musician during Soviet times and is still an important part of the culture of the past. We called a taxi and took off for the Europe-Asia border. The lady in the tourist office yesterday had given us the number of the taxi and written down that we wanted to go to the border and then to Ganina Yama, the mine pit where the bodies of the czar and his family were dumped after they were assassinated. So I tell the driver that first we want to go to one place and then the other and he says he’s not going to drive us to Ganina Yama. Hmmmmmm,OK. So we drive 10 miles out of town and he lets us off at a rest stop near the border monument, which is right next to this major highway with a little park behind it. There were a couple of guys there selling souvenirs so Sonia got a few things, then we walked up to the monument, took our pictures and walked back. So, we still want to go to Ganina Yama. We try to call Uber. No car available. We try to call Yandex. No car available. We find a number for a taxi service in our tourist brochure. I call. They say no, they don’t understand me. So, here we are in the middle of nowhere. What should we do. We call the tourist information! Sonia gets another nice lady who speaks English and Spanish and she orders us a taxi, but it will be 20 minutes. Who cares! Meanwhile lots of tourists are coming a going, some of whom speak English. The guys selling souvenirs tell one of the other people there who speak Russian and English to ask if we are Ok. These guys were so kind and thoughtful! A few minutes later our taxi came and took us to Ganina Yama. the name literally means Ganya’s Pit. It’s the mine pit in which they threw the bodies of the czar and his family after they were assassinated in 1918. The Orthodox Church has canonized them and an entire cult has built up around them. In fact, this entire Monastery was only built in 2001 and there is a chapel for each of the 7 family members who were assassinated. Not only did we have to have something covering our heads when we entered, all the women had to put on aprons resembling long skirts. All the buildings are constructed of massive logs and there is a monument at the site of the pit and a wooden walkway around it. There were a number of visitors and ages varied greatly. It’s almost as if some people would like to return to the time of the czars. After we’d looked all around, we went to the bus stop to catch the bus back to town. It took about an hour and went through lots o& small owns on the way back. What an interesting contrast to the city. A lot of individual dwellings, lots of above ground pipes. In fact, the large pipes running parallel to the main road might have been for natural gas or oil. The bus let us off at the metro station so we road another five stations to the one nearest our hotel. We quickly stopped off and bought a box of chocolates fo4 the nice lady in the tourist office. The. We got a quick bite to eat and went by the tourist office to deliver our chocolates, but of cours3 the tourist office was closed. So we just headed back to the hotel to rest for a few hours before we wereto meet Sveta at Everjazz restaurant for a jazz concert at 10. After a couple of hours rest, we took the taxi to the restaurant and were a little early, so we decided to walk around a little. We ended up in a small park filled with young people smoking hookahs. I’m struck by how many young people here smoke cigarettes and e-cigarettes too. We headed back, met Sveta and went in to our table. It’s actually a very nice club and seems to b3 very popular. The musical group was ok. They had a decidedly Brazilian/Jamaican flavor. I got wild and ordered a large pina colada. I bet I hadn’t had one in 10 years. I figured it would help me sleep later. Wrong, but I did have a pleasant buZz on. We finally got in at about 1 am. It had been a long day.