Trip to the Center of Birds of Prey on May 26th
Dear friends,
On May 26th we are off for a new one day cheap-trip to visit birds of prey common in the Urals and other parts of Russia.
Wild nature, fresh air and falcons up in the sky…in the Falconry Center “Kholzan” (30km of Yekaterinburg) you will meet birds of prey including rare species: eagles from Russian Far East and the fastest bird in the world called Sapsan. Take a photo with Harry Porter’s friend – a white Polar owl. Hear legends and true stories about falconry hunting. Have a tea party with a Russian samovar and BBQ in the woods!
Sunday, May 26th
Itinerary:
11.00 Meeting at Dynamo Metro Station, Yekaterinburg
We are taking a comfortable mini-van to get to the Falconry Center in Sysert
12.00 – 14.00 Excursion in the center: meeting with birds at the rehabilitation center, watching birds of prey hunting while drinking tea from a samovar, taking photos with falcons. Plus watching a documentary on the life of birds of prey in the hunter’s house.
For additional price you can do hrse riding (600rub an hour), archery (30rub)
14.00 – 15.00 Free time for a picnic and BBQ
The center only offers tea with sushki (hard biscuits) as well as a BBQ-set. Please, bring your own snacks, drinks for the picnic and sausages for grilling
15.00 Departure to Yekaterinburg
16.00 Arrival to the city back to Dynamo Metro
Price per person \ for children under 14: 50rubles off
group of 8-17 persons: 1200rub\1150rub
group of 18 – 30 persons: 1000rub\950
Please, book the tour in advance until May 21st!
For more information and for booking:
Tel +79122800870
Email: yekaterinburg4u@gmail.com
all potos from the official website: www.holzan.falconer.ru
Maslenitsa in Aramashevo village
Last weekend (March 16) we gathered an international team of expats and travelers from the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Russia to go to the village of Aramashevo (110 km of Yekaterinburg) to celebrate Maslenitsa (Pancake festival before the Lent)
We’d chosen the village as my colleagues (other guides in Yekaterinburg) recommended it as the best place for Maslenitsa. And even though the pancake feast is celebrated in every village and in many parks of Yekaterinburg, I’m sure we were at the right place for a true folk fest!
Aramashevo was founded in 16th century by the Cossacks. The village is located on top of the cliff on the bank of the Rezh River. It’s worth coming here in summer to enjoy a wonderful view from the cliff. The river is also god for rafting. The Museum of the History of Rural Life in the Urals will be an interesting visit any time of the year.
The best thing of the museum is that you can touch everything, put on the clothes of the farmers or play the music instruments. For the guys from New Zealand and Australia it was a true fun to play a babushka and dedushka:
Meanwhile the Russians rally enjoyed the Soviet room of the museum:
We also had a workshop and made vesnyanochka – a doll, the symbol of the coming spring
After the excursion we went outside and joined the villagers in different types of competitions.
After energetic dances we got to the main part of the festival – burning down Maslenitsa which symbolizes farewell to winter.
The weirdest thing about the Maslenitsa in Aramashevo was that there were no pancakes! We expected lots of pancakes but instead got pirogi (pies) and shashlik (BBQ). The local sbiten – a honey alcoholic drink was nothing but herbal tea with vodka in it. Nonetheless, we had a lot of fun and did the main thing – said good bye to the winter. As we returned back to Yekaterinburg in the evening, it was + 10!
Dog sledging in the Urals
Dog sledging is something that you expect to have in Alaska or in Yakutia but Ural winters are snowy enough to offer this type of entertainment for travelers.
This winter I discovered two places where you can meet Huskies and feel yourself like Nenets (indigenous people of Northern Arctic Russia)
Ethnic center Akvilon is located in Chelyabinsk Region (Southern Urals). The center is aimed to show the life of northern people: a guide who is dressed like a snow maid will show you a chum (igloo), you will have a cup of tea with a local shaman and talk to a Yakutian Father Frost. However, those people are far from being indigenous – most of them work and teach history at the University of Chelyabinsk.
Having met all those characters we finally got to the field for dog sledging. But because there were about 40 people in our group we could only sledge one time which lasted about 2 minutes.
Advantages:
One big advantage of Akvilon – they have a lot of dogs and apart from huskies that are for sledging, you will spend some time playing with the cutiest creatures –Samoyed Laikas.
Samoyeds are very friendly and playful dogs. They are named so after the Nenets people who were also called Samoyeds by the Russians. The word means ‘selfeaters’ in Russian but there is the second meaning: ‘self riders’. When the Russians saw the sledging Nenets at a distance, they couldn’t see their white dogs in the snow so they thought that the Nenets were moving on their own.
Disadvantages:
Akvilon is 30 km of Chelyabinsk which makes about 230 km of Yekaterinburg. So it’s certainly not worth going just for two minutes of dog sledging unless you have some other things to do in the region. Chelyabinsk is not the most interesting Russian city to explore either. Although, thanks to the meteorite that dropped near the city in February 2012 it may attract some curious individuals. The citizens of Chelyabinsk are planning to erect a monument to the meteorite in the near future.
Price: 540rub per person for dog sledging; 890rub for the whole program at the center.
Dog sledging in the village of Chernoistochinsk (near Nizhni Tagil)
Irina, the owner of five huskies had been waiting for two years until her dogs grew up and got trained well enough to sled. In the winter of 2012-13 she started organizing dog sledging in her native village. Next winter (2013-14) one more puppy should be big enough to pull sleds.
Advantages:
You can sled this husky family for one hour and pay more to prolong it if there are no tourists coming after you. As we came in a group of 30 people, we booked two hours and paid the same price as those who book one hour: 100 rub per person. If you book and individual tour, you can sled in the forest which makes it more fun compared to the small circle in the center of the village that we were offered.
Chernoistocbinsk is 160 km north of Yekaterinburg. Apart from dog sledging you can also visit a nearby deer farm: to feed Kaspian deer, Yakutian horses and African ostriches that live in one place. It is also on the way to Belaya Mount (711m) – a mountain ski resort with a beautiful view of Northern Urals.
Disadvantages:
There is no infrastructure in Chernoistochinsk. The nearest place to eat and have a cup of tea is in Nizhni Tagil (20km) or at Belaya Mount (10km) Otherwise, take your own flask and snacks.
Price: 1 hour - 1500rub for individuals; 100rub per person for large groups
10 Must-dos in Yekaterinburg in winter
Karim Farah, an exchange student from Egypt arrived in Yekaterinburg in December for a few weeks. And of course, it sounded as a crazy plan in the first place, considering that last December was the coldest month in the Urals with temperatures around -25. For someone from the countries like Egypt it must be a one month long nightmare, you would think. However, Karim asked me to share his photos because he would be happy ‘to advertise the wonderful city of Yekat!'
So here’s the advertisement: Don’t be afraid to come to Russia in winter. There’s much more to do in Yekaterinburg in winter than going on conventional excursions in summer months.
Be different and try out a Russian style winter holiday in the Ural capital!
10 Must-dos in Yekaterinburg in winter:
1 Go to the Europe-Asian border and roll in the snow in the nearby forest
2 Visit the Monastery Ganina Yama, which looks like a fairytale in winter
3 Go to a Russian banya (steam bath) and jump in snow this time absolutely naked!
4 Drink Russian vodka, that always keeps you warm, with Russian friends or without
5 Get cultured and watch ‘Swan Lake’ at the Opera and Ballet Theatre
6 Try Wikitravel’s must-dos in Yekaterinburg: English club at the Keeer restaurant on Wednesday night to meet new people. And the Limpopo Aquapark to feel like on a tropical island when it’s still – 25 outside.
7 Learn skating with your new friends from the English club
8 Make a snowman. Ask local kids to help you – they’ve been practicing since they were born
9 Do the city tour: dig out the QWERTY monument and walk on the surface of the city pond – something you can only do in winter!
10 At night take photos of the amazing ‘ice town’ in the Square on 1905
photos by Karim Farah
Welcome to vodka tasting on the Europe-Asia border
The Your Yekaterinburg newspaper and AskUral.com invite you to join a vodka tasting tour!
We'll fill you in with history of the Urals, Russian drinking traditions and of course different types of vodka. You will learn Russian toasts and sing Russian drinking songs with us!
January 20 at 14.00
Meeting point: 51, Lenina, in front of the University
price: 950 rub
please, confirm that you are coming and pay in advance
tel: +79122800870
email: yekaterinburg4u@gmail.com
Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre. Live performces at the museum
Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre is celebrating its 100th Anniversary. While it’s difficult to get a ticket to the theatre in October, you can get backstage, see the interior of the theatre and event listen to live performances at the Museum of Local Lore (Kraevedchesky Musey).
Opera and Ballet Theatre opened on 12 October 1912. It had taken 20 years for the Yekaterinburgers to collect money (300.000 rubles) for the construction. The theatre with 1500 seats was classy enough to invite the Tsar. The very first performance staged here was a tragic opera by Mikhail Glinka ‘A Life for the Tsar’. 6 years later the same stage was used to announce the assassination of the Tsar in Ipatiev’s house of Yekaterinburg.
The museum exhibition gives you a chance to see the costumes from the collection of the theatre.
The best thing about it is that you can try on any costume or a mask here.
You can also try pointe shoes on and do a few moves.
Standards for ballet dancers have changed over the last 100 years. A ballet dancer in the early 20th century was short and rather plump compared to their counterparts of the 21st century. Today, a ballet dancer is skinny, she has an average height, a small head and a long neck. Her weight is about 45 kg.
To hear the voices of the divas of Yekaterinburg, you can use the headphones. Besides, there are live performances of the local opera singers every Wednesday and Friday at 7pm in the exhibition hall.
The exhibition dedicated to Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre is open until November 25th on Malysheva street, 46. The museum of Local Lore is open daily 11.00-20.00, on Thursday till 21.00.
Admission: 150 rub. Live performances are included in the price. Concert list is here http://uole-museum.ru
Tours in Yekaterinburg and around
To make it easy for you to decide on what tours you would like to have in the Urals, I've made these pictures with short descriptions in English and in Russian (just click on each picture to read the description)
These are 8 most popular trips in Yekaterinburg and around. Some are short and some take a whole day. So when you travel by Trans-Siberian, make sure to see one of these sights of middle Urals!
For prices and details contact me: yekaterinburg4u@gmail.com or on Facebook page: Yekaterinburg For You
Trans-Siberian trip by Dutch travelers. Video
This video made by Dutch tourists Serge Kapitein and Bas Derkink in May is a MUST for everyone who wants to see REAL RUSSIA!
From Moscow to Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg is on the third minute. We drank champagne on the border of Europe and Asia the I took the guys to the Mafia cemetery and Mayakovskogo park.
Komrads on the Transsiberian Railway 2012 from Serge Kapitein on Vimeo.
Red line tour in Yekaterinburg
When walking in the center of Yekaterinburg you can see a red line drawn in the middle of the pavement. Some locals still think it’s a divider for pedestrians or a lane for bicycles. But the truth is the red line is a guideline for tourists. Just find it on Prospect Lenina and go down the line and in three hours you’ll get back to the starting point with photos of all the main sites in your camera!
The Red Line project started in 2011 as a blog by Dmitry Kalaev. The Internet users were voting for the best sites in the center of Yekaterinburg. Eventually, 35 historic objects were chosen including the Church on the Blood, Opera Theatre, the Beatles monument, QWERTY monument, Literary Quarter etc. The Red Line was drawn on June 18 2011. Its length is 6.5 kilometers.
walking to the Church on the Blood
This summer (2012) activists of the Red Line project are planning to draw QR codes for each site along the line, to print maps and to add full descriptions of the objects on the webpage www.ekbredline.ru
The Beatles monument on the redl line
QWERTY or giant keyboard is a must-see according to Wikipedia and to the red-line volunteers
You can walk along the Red Line on your own or get a guided tour to learn more about the historical places. Sometimes there are free excursions arranged by volunteers for special events.
As a manager of the English newspaper Your Yekaterinburg, I invited the readers of the paper to take a guided tour down the Red Line when the annual Night in the Museum event took place in Yekaterinburg. It took us 2.5 hours to do the whole tour. The weather was great and so was the company! The photos for this post were taken during our tour and you can see me with a yellow scarf 
The first map of Yekaterinburg of 1723. Those days the city was smaller than the Red line route
Celebrating Easter in the country. Bym, Permsky Region
Permsky Region in Western Urals is doing its best to promote not only Ural cities but small villages. This spring a small village of Bym (30km to Kungur, 260 km to Yekaterinburg) welcomed tourists to celebrate Easter in a traditional Russian style. The village is planning to host similar fests every year. Their first try was certainly a success.
Very few people among those who arrived from Perm and Yekaterinburg knew folk songs and dances but everyone participated in a cheerful fest.
On that day everyone could go to the bell tower of the church to ring the bells and to enjoy a breathtaking view of the Urals.
The highlight of Bym is Belogorsky Monastery – a beautiful church up on the highest hill.
click here to see more photos:
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About the Project
AskUral.com is the blog dedicated to my lovely region known as the Urals or the Ural Mountains in Russia.
My name is Luba Suslyakova. I am based in Yekaterinburg (Russia), and I would love to share useful information about my area as much as possible and be your travel adviser.
Just keep asking me via the contact form and I will come back to you with answers!