Sunday, May 6, 2018
The long walk
It was another beautiful day today. I loafed around and read until noon, then I took off to meet Anna for lunch. We had decided to take a walk today. Did we ever. We had a good Lunch at Beanheart’s then took off on foot to the Kremlin and beyond that to the promenade along the Kazanka River where we had ice skated a couple of months ago! It and the river were finally ice free. But everyone and his brother was out today, either walking or riding their bikes. I admire the Russians that they are always out in the fresh air. In the middle of winter at 8 pm they’re out with their kids playing on the swings on the playgrounds! They have the right attitude. If they waited for “nice” weather they’d never get out.
And I was really impressed by the number of cyclists. I even so some on the busy roads and a couple wearing helmets. We are claiming out space more and more! But I still which’s the cyclists would keep off the pedestrian path and vice versa. How hard is it to understand the picture sign? And the paths along the river have been extended even farther than when I was here the last time. There was a lot of construction still going on, but the paths extend all the way to Millenium Bridge now. We walked almost to the end and then cut up the hill on Tolstoy Street because we were trying to see if there was a connection to Gorky Park from the River. If there was, we didn’t find it.
By this time we had walked several miles, so we parted near the Korston shopping center, Anna walked home, and I caught the tram. The entire way home, I noticed all the construction. Almost the entire sidewalk on the right side of the road was being rebuilt and at my tram stop, you can now see what will be the new Metro station. The metal protective walls are down around it. It looks as if it’s just the landscaping around the station that has to be completed now. It will be an easy walk/ bike ride to this new station. I can’t wait to see if the prices go up when it’s finished. Im thinking they want the city to look really good for all the foreign visitors who come this summer for the soccer World Cup. It’s going to be a big deal.
The next big event will be the Memorial Day celebration on May 9 commemorating the end of WWII. We’re all going to meet down at the Kremlin for that.
It sprinkled a little today and now it’s overcast, so I’m glad I’m in for the evening.
One more nonsequitor. Anna and I were discussing why English was more prevalent in Yekaterinburg than in Kazan. She thought that it had a lot to do with Boris Yeltsin being from Yekaterinburg and the head of the Russian government for almost 10 years. I think that’s a good point.
A pleasant, sunny day
The morning started quietly. I got my wash and my dishes done. I even got my lesson plans done already! The kids can’t write their names yet, but they can recognize the letters in their names so we are going to work on strengthing that skill.
Valeriya bought a new bike on Friday so we planned to ride together to Gorky Woods to check out the new bike trail there. It was gong to be a little tricky because she isn’t too keen bout riding on roads. (I’m not either, in Kazan.) But I had wanted to check out Gorky Woods Park because a friend told me bout the great bike trail they had there. To get there involves riding on some of those crazy parallel side roads. And, if We could get there safely, it also meant that I could get to IKEA and Ashan safely because they are both just down the road. So I checked it out on Google maps first and it looked like a go. And,damn, it was easy.
It only took us about 20 minutes to get there with minimal encounter with very slow traffic! That means I can get to IKEA in 30,and that’s faster than I can do on the tram, by the time I walk to the tram stop.
The park itself is gorgeous. It is absolutely brand-new. The playground equipment is sturdy wooden stuff. The bike paths are parallel from the walking paths. But maybe only about 1/10 of the bike path is marked already. And even though the two paths are separate, it doesn’t keep the pedestrians from walking right down the bike path in front of cyclists! Come on, people. I don’t want to run into you. Let’s have some mutual respect here.
There are bike rental places, a skater/BMX-type Park, and a nice little restaurant. The only thing that seems to be missing is that there are no bike racks in front of any of the playgrounds. there should be some place to lock up. We did find a bike rack at he bike rental shop next to the restaurant. We wanted to lock up there, but it was full so we chained up on the water pipe next to it. When we got back, the guy was crabbing at us for doing it. So get some more bike racks!
We got cake and coffee at the cafe and just took a nice long break before we headed home again. And again, there was absolutely no problem with traffic. So I think we will be gaining confidence for other rides.
I had a couple hours to rest before I took off again on foot to meet up with the gang. Lorene’s parents are here from France so they are doing some sightseeing. They went out to Sviazhk today and then the others met them at the big Ferris Wheel near the river when they got back. To do a ride and see the sunset before we should meet for dinner. I was not up to a ride on a Ferris Wheel so I just met everyone downtown at the restaurant. It was a place I hadn’t been before and it was very nice. But, since we were 7 people, they made us pay a deposit of 5000 rubles and told us our bill could not be less than that. They also said we had to pay in cash; they would not take credit cards. Interesting. So we all ordered and it was the usual Russian style. Appetizers and main courses all came at one time. Strangely enough, I had ordered spaghetti and Fabrice had ordered a pizza. Our orders came 45 minutes after everyone else’s. Our bill totaled more than 5000 rubles and we were all able to pony up enough cash. It’s just a very unusual dining system here.
I got the Metro and was home about 11:30. It was good to get in bed.
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Home again
We got in this morning at about 11:30. The guys had left sometime in The middle of the night. And of course, this time I screw up the time change, so I wa the one who woke up Sonia to tell her we get off in half an hour. Wrong. We had a couple more. Oh, and I forgot to mention my other screw up last night. Coming out of the Subway to go to the hotel Sonia wanted to go right and I wanted to go left. So we each went the way we though was correct and she got back to the hotel about 10 minutes before me. Whoops! I’m usually so good with directions, but I got screwed up by the church on the corner this time. (That’s my excuse anyway.)
So, to continue. We got in at 11:30 and went straight back home with a taxi. I got a little straightened around and then took off for the post office, where package had been waiting for me since Saturday. it wa from Bikeability Scotland. It was a packet ful of great mAterials I can use in bike lessons AND it contained my certificate as a cycle training assistant. Hooray. Now I can lend some real credibility to our fledgling bike program.
Afterwards, Matthew and Valeriya had invited me, Sonia and Fouad For a picnic in the woods. The weather was pleasant, (about 59 degrees with a little sunshine). I even wore a light jacket. we grilled shashlik and just had a good time with good food and lots of jokes. So now I’m all caught up with my blogging and will get ready to go to bed soon because we have school tomorrow. It’s only a two day week. Yessssssss!
Y burg, day 3
After a long night, Sonia’s Alarm went off at 8:30. We shut that off quick enough. I slept another hour and then woke Sonia up at 10 because we wanted to meet Sveta at 1 at the Boris Yeltsin Center. While she was fixing here breakfast, Iran down to Burger King and got a quick breakfast sandwich. By this time, Sveta had texted and said she couldn’t make it, so we packed up all our stuff, took it down to reception and left it there because we had to check out, and took off for the tourist office. I wasn’t sure if it would be open because May 1 is such a big holiday here. But it was and we gave the lady here thank you chocolates. One big difference we noticed between Yekaterinburg and Kazan is that a lot more people in Y burg speak English and all the tourist signs are posted in English as well as in Russian. And another thing that really impresses me abou5 Y burg is the architecture. a lot of old buidings from two centuries ago are nicely preserved, but the newest buildings are very, very attractive. I didn’t see a lot of old Soviet style cement clumps. Many of the the new buildings have very original designs and are very colorful.
We took off for the Yeltsin Center and enjoyed the fakt that traffic had been shut down on most streets because of the May 1 Labor Day rallies. There were lots of speeches, lots of balloons, and just lots of people out enjoying the nice weather on scooters, by bike and on foot.
Talk about an attractive building! The Boris YeltsinCente4 was completed 3 or 4 years ago. It houses a conference center, offices, stores, the Yeltsin Museum and and interactive section where kids and adults could do everything from learning to inline skate to making origami. It was a great place. The museum itself was very interesting and Shed a light of light on that period of Russian history for me. We spent three hours there! It was totally absorbing.
We grabbed a bite to eat there at the museum then left to follow the red tourist line on the street which takes you past the church built on the site of the old mansion where the czar and his family were assassinated. Every year, on the anniversary of the deaths, the people hold a procession and walk the four hours from the church to Ganina Yama, the pit where the bodies were originally buried. It’s just so interesting to me that they would make all the family members saints.
Now it was about 6 and we had to pick up our luggage at the hotel at 8, so what to do? We decided on a “Tour de Fast Food”. We were both dying for MacDonald’s ice cream, but we needed something hardier in our stomachs before the ice cream. So we hit KFC, where we had hot dogs. (So-so) Then we went to MacDonald’s and really enjoyed the ice cream (two thumbs up). And we decided to go to Subway after that to get a sandwich to take along in the train.(good idea)
So back to the hotel we went, picked up the luggage, and took off for the train station. We got there at about 8 so we had about 2.5 hours to kill. I got a lot of reading done and we ate the sandwiches before we even got on the train. (I suspected that would happen.)
We got to the train and, what a surprise, Sveta came to see us off. We had about a half hour to talk. She’s just a very pleasant person and I can’t wait to see here in Kazan sometime. We share a compartment with two middle-aged guys who didn’t speak any English. We basically just made up our bunks and went straight to bed. It wasn’t a very restful sleep, but it was sleep.
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.
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.
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