FROM SHANGHAI TO LONDON BY TRAIN: Russia: Yekaterinburg

Again we had no accommodation set up in Yekaterinburg and I had decided to get to Moscow a day earlier than planned so the first thing we did was book our onward tickets. Fabio to St. Petersburg and me to Moscow. Next we asked some people how to get into town and they told us to take tram number seven but we went in the wrong direction and ended up in the suburbs. Two trams and a helpful guy later, we got to where we wanted to go, only to find, surprise surprise, that the Lonely Planet was well out of date and there was no accommodation agency or internet café, as marked in the thoroughly useless Lonely Planet. So we just walked into the nearest large hotel and stayed there. We paid a reasonable rate for our rooms and as we walked through the corridor to our room, we observed the plush doors and thought how lucky we were to get such good value for money. Then the corridor darkened, the doors became less frequent and the décor took a turn for the worse. Yes, this was the budget corner. We had to pay extra to have a shower. In fact, this is a common theme in Russia, where you have to pay extra for something you would expect to get with your original payment. For example, when you buy a sleeper ticket on a train you have to pay 52 roubles extra to have sheets on your bed. And you aren’t allowed to not have sheets on your bed. And you can’t use your own sheets. It’s like buying a car but having to pay extra for the engine.
Yekaterinburg was much nicer than Novosibirsk. It seemed the further west we travelled across Russia the more pleasant the landscape, the weather, the towns and the people. Yekaterinburg featured parks, European style streets and well presented shops and restaurants. On the flip side, just like the previous Russian cities I’d seen, there were large derelict areas, crumbling buildings and many people wandering around with a bottle in hand, especially after 6pm and at the weekend.
That evening was to be mine and Fabio’s last night together and by chance we found an amazing restaurant with a nice English speaking manager. We could help ourselves as many times as we wanted from a large selection of salads, fish, meat dishes, breads, vegetables, fruit, cakes and other desserts. Having spent over three hours sampling everything, Fabio wanted us to go to a nightclub, but the frustration in Irkustk was enough for me. I accompanied him anyway and we found an area with two clubs and followed some people to see which club was the more popular. They happened to be a nice group of four nineteen year-olds, three of whom could speak pretty good English. One of that three was a really beautiful girl called Vera who immediately took Fabio’s interest. I could see where this was heading so after chatting to them on the street for an hour, I headed back to the hotel by myself. Fabio was 35, which made him almost double her age and sure enough, as he reported happily the next morning, he made-out with her in the club. Fabio was a nice guy but there were times when I was reminded of what a player he was, and his constant Italian-style lust for new women could get grating from time to time.
The morning was grey and cold but slowly the sun poked through clearing cloud as me and Fabio wandered around Yekaterinburg, in and out of shops, amused at the securitisation from the beefy security guards in every shop. It seemed in Russia that everyone was guilty until proven innocent, and the constant holes being burnt into me were unsettling. Fabio met Vera at 3pm which I attended for the first few minutes before saying goodbye to Fabio for good. I headed back to the hotel to pick-up my bag and got the surprisingly roomy and gothic-looking metro to the main railway station. My last impression of Yekaterinburg was being met with a shrug of the shoulders as I showed the metro ticket woman where I wanted to go. Perhaps she forgot it was her job to give tickets to people or she couldn’t make the link between a tourist with a backpack holding a note with the name of a metro station written on it (in Russian) and the fact that I might want a ticket in order to get there. A shrug of the shoulders?! I was truly sick of this attitude, having encountered it for so long now. The conductor on the platform looked nice, which was a good start. Maybe this last epic train ride across Russia would be great, and it was. One of the passengers, a guy called Roman, took me under his wing, actually having asked that I be moved into his room, having discovered I was stuck with some old grumpy farts. He paid for my bed sheets without even telling me and proceeded to pay for snacks and beer for the rest of the evening. At one point he unpacked a huge hack of smoked salmon, longer than my head and about six centimetres thick, and cut it up for us. He explained he was in military school but was working right now for the army in administration in Moscow. The other guy in our compartment was also in military school who couldn’t speak English but after a few beers, spoke fluently to me in Russian anyway. I quickly got drunk on the strong beer and had a great time. Even the carriage conductor got friendly with us, providing us with tea and occasionally sitting with us, chatting and laughing. And the train was by far the best I’d been on. Polished wooden panelling, spotless rails and handles and shiny metal fixtures made it look brand new. I felt just great as I chatted to Roman between bouts of listening to feel-good dance music on his mp3 player and drinking the beer. His kindness was so natural as if he did this kind of thing every day.