Yekaterinburg City tour in winter
Standing in the middle of the frozen city pond you can see many famous sites of Yekaterinburg including the Church on the Blood, Sevastyanov house and Yeltsin center.
Have a look what it's like in winter!
Soviet Datcha Museum in Yekaterinburg
The word ‘Datcha’ has become international and these days most of the tourists who come to Russia know what a datcha means. Now in Yekaterinburg you can visit a small area with real Soviet datchas in the western suburbs of the city in the direction of the border of Europe and Asia.
Sasha Tsarikov, a radio DJ and a journalist from Yekaterinburg turned his datcha into a museum of a Soviet lifestyle and welcomes visitors to see this tiny district that will possibly disappear in the near future. To the Soviet people a datcha meant more than just a small piece of land where they could grow some vegetables. It was their private corner as privacy was something hard to get in the USSR of the 1930s-1940s. In the 1950s everything changed with a datcha, though historians still debate about why exactly Stalin allowed the people to own datchas.
Sasha Tsarikov, the creator of the Soviet Datcha Museum
In the USSR it was very difficult to find materials for building a house that’s why people had to become really creative. They used everything they could find, steal or trade at their work places: railway slippers, frames of the bus windows and doors of the same old buses. For the same reason all the datcha houses used to be painted in green or blue color. The only place to buy a paint or exchange it ifor a bottle of vodka was a military base and the military bases used only green and sometimes blue paint.
Greenhouse made of the train doors and bus window-frames
For his datcha Sasha collected old Soviet furniture and items of decoration. Many of his friends and listeners from the radio liked the idea of the Museum of the Soviet Datcha and donated their personal belongings for the collection. Technically it’s possible to stay overnight at the datcha – it has a bed and an oven but mostly it’s for visiting, for taking photos and for trying the berries and vegetables of the locals. They are really proud of their crop. Plus you will hear interesting stories and facts about the life in the USSR.
The location of the datcha is really good – it’s a 20min drive from the city center and if you come in winter Sasha promises to keep you warm with a home-made liquor. But hurry up as the developers of Yekaterinburg have a plan to demolish the datchas by 2023!
You can contact the museum of the Soviet Datcha via the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/dachamuseum/
or book a tour here: https://yekaterinburg4u.ru/en/tours/soviet-datcha-tour
Museum of Soviet Household in Yekaterinburg
In 2017 Yekaterinburg has got a new museum – the Museum of the Soviet Household.
Irina Svetonosova, a former journalist was inspired by the idea of the similar museum in Kazan and decided to open a similar nostalgic exhibition of the Soviet memorabilia in her home town.
Irina, the owner of the museum
photo by E1.ru
She rented a 100 years old house in the city center and started collecting old stuff from the attics of her friends and relatives. The citizens of Yekaterinburg who have already been to the museum now bring their own items for the museum, so the collection continues growing.
The building of the Museum
photo by E1.ru
Of course, for Russian visitors it’s a reason to feel nostalgic about their childhood days. I believe, it’ll also be interesting for foreign visitors of Yekaterinburg to understand how people lived in the USSR and may be to compare the life style with their own.
Address: ul. Sakko I Vanzetti, 40
Opened daily 11.00 – 20.00
Admission: Adults – 200rub \ School children – 100rub
Ice Town 2016
Happy New Year 2016, dear readers! And traditionally I'm happy to share the pictures of our ice town in the Square of 1905 of Yekaterinburg.
This winter the recession in Russia affected everything including the Ice Town. There were no foreign sculptors invited this year only local. However the ice town is as specatcular as usual!
In 2016 the theme is Russian Fairy Tales.
The Square of 1905 is not the only place to see ice sculptures in Yekaterinburg. The contest 'Star of Bethlehem' for best ice sculptures started in front of the Church on the Blood on Christmas day (January 7th).
Click at the gallery to see more photos:
Yeltsin Center and the Museum of the First Russian President
On November 25th 2015 the street of Boris Yeltsin in Yekaterinburg was closed for traffic. Even pedestrians were not allowed to walk there in the evening and the owners of the appartments were asked not to look out of the windows as snipers were sitting on the rooves. All the precautions were made for the openning of the Yeltsin Center. The fact that President Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev as well as other polititians of the past and the present were invited to the opening had made so much fuss in the city.
The next day the center was opened for public. Despite the apparent lack of interest in Yelrsin in Russia, the museum has become the most visited place in the city with over 5000 visitors over the first week after the opening. The Yeltsin foundation hired Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the company that designed the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Ark., and the new Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow.
A replica hall of the Parlament in Moscow
The center includes a research center, conference halls, an art gallery and a museum that depicts the sweep of history during Mr. Yeltsin’s life — from the Gulag (Yeltsin's parents were repressed and exhiled to the village of Budka 150km east of Yekaterinburg) to World War II, from perestroika to Mr. Yeltsin’s resigning on 31.12.1999, a few minutes before the millenium.
Nuclear weapon breifcase (with electronics removed)
Yeltsin’s daughter, Tatyana Yumasheva, one of the organizers of the center said that it is aimed “to tell the truth about the 1990s”, from the constitutional and economic crises of the day to the first Chechen war.
Empty shelves of Russian supermarkets during the perestroika
Empty shelves of Russian supermarkets during the perestroika
Yeltsin Museum is very interactive. One can give a speech from the Parlament stage, sit on the sofa in the Yeltsins' living room and watch TV or get on a real trolley bus that Yeltsin used when he was a Moscow official.
A trolley bus and Moscow of the 1980s
In the trolley bus (Mr Putin, Mr Medvedev, Naina Yeltsina in the back) Photo by 66.ru
The museum is divided into seven zones – "seven important days in the history of the country": the August coup of 1991; unpopular economic measures; the birth of the Constitution; Yeltsin's second election campaign; Yeltsin’s farewell to the Kremlin.
Yeltsin's office in the Kremlin with authentic furniture. 5 minutes before resignation
Yeltsin's phrase 'I'm tired, I'm leaving" before New Year of 2000
The museum already has audio guides in English and is preparing to translate them into Spanish, French and German.
Opened: Tue - Sun 10.00 - 21.00
Admission: 200rub
Urals through the eyes of an Englishman
Yekaterinburg from Vysotski Business Center
I met Dave Moles on Facebook when he asked to send him a guide book to Yekaterinbook. The book was sent to the UK and then Dave informed me that he was doing a website www.dkworld-photography.co.uk about his travels including Russia and the Urals in particular.
Nature Park Deer Streams
"During my travels I have been lucky enough to visit countries such as Russia, Ukraine and many more in Europe, but I do have a passion for Russia and the former soviet countries. These countries are full of history and beauty, you see and witness a culture you will only see in these countries... and with trips being planned to other former soviet countries, there has never been a better time to visit these countries, and hope through my website you will get inspired to visit yourselves."
Abzakovo ski resort
The page about the Urals and why visit http://dkworld-photography.co.uk/russia/urals/index.html contains the information and Dave's photos of Yekaterinburg and around as well as ski resorts in the Middle and Sothern Urals. Dave even visited a very off the beaten track town of Karabash, an ecological disaster zone that not many tourists venture to go to.
Karabash, Sothern Urals
The website has a very detailed description of the Red Line and other sites of Yekaterinburg that will be useful for other travelers.
Novo-Tikhvinski Convent, Yekaterinburg
Ural Guide by Park Inn
Park Inn by Radisson has posted a guide to the Urals and Yekaterinburg.
What to see, where to eat and other tips for visitors : http://blog.parkinn.com/a-guide-to-the-ural-region-ekaterinburg-and-beyond/
How to spend 2 days in Yekaterinburg? A short guide in pictures.
There is plenty of information in guide books on what to do and see in Yekaterinburg. But it's always easier to understand what it's all about by seeing photos of previous travellers. So how to spend two days in Yekaterinburg? Here's the answer in the pictures kindly shared by Dave Cox from Bristol, UK
In front of the Bolshoy Ural Hotel
Dave and his friends came in August 2014. We did all the top tours in Yekaterinburg and around and the follwing day the friends explored the city on their own before they got on a train to Siberia.
1) Do the sightseeing in the historical city center
Memorial Black Tulip to the soldiers of the war in Afganistan
2) Go to the border of Europe and Asia
Border of Europe and Asia on the 17th km of the New Moscow road
3) Then go to the Tsar's obelisk on the border to drink champagne on both sides of the continent
Tsar's obelisk on the border of Europe and Asia on the 30th km of the Great Siberian Road
4) Learn about the last Russian Tsar's family in the monastery Ganina Yama
Monument to the children of Nikolas II in Ganina Yama
5 Stop at the mafia cemetery
Shirokaya Rechka, the central cemetery
6) Join the Beatles
7) At the train station take a look at the Soviet frescos on the walls that tell the history of Yekaterinburg in pictures!
The picture shows the crash of the U-2 plane piloted by the US spy Garry Powers in 1960
Ice Town in Yekaterinburg 2015
Traditionally after Christmas I’m posting the photos of the ice town of Yekaterinburg. In 2015 the theme of the ice town is the 70s anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The ice figures in the Square of 1905 were made by an international group of sculptors.
The Brest Forest is the pavilion in the center of the ice town. 3D films about the Second World War are played inside.
'Mystical animals - world protectors' by Japanese sculptors
Of course, you will find an ice tank T34 in the ice town as the Soviet tank was produced in Yekaterinburg at the Uralmash Factory.
Other ice sculptures are located in front of the Church on the Blood. Every year sculptors create here religious-themed figures for Orthodox Christmas on the 7th of January.
This year the ice town works till January 25th only. So hurry up to see the ice beauty!
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- ‘Mystical animals – world protectors’ by Japanese sculptors
Yekaterinburg city tour: Novo-Tikhvinsky Convent
Novo – Tikhvinsky Convent on Zelyonaya Roscha st, 1 is one of the tourists’ attractions in Yekaterinburg. Since the reopening of its main church of St. Alexander Nevsky in 2013 it has become a part of every city tour.
The convent was opened in the 18th century. Before the revolution it was the largest convent in Russia with 1000 sisters. The sisters received education and were taught crafts. There were six churches, residences for the sisters, and buildings where various workshops were located: gold-embroidery, iconographic, silk-embroidery, photographic, spinning, enamel, and the sewing one.
In 1920s the convent was requisitioned by the Bolsheviks and most of the sisters were killed. The territory of the convent was used as a park and partly given to the military hospital. The Church of St Alexander Nevsky was turned into a storage.
In 1994 the convent was given back to nuns. However, the area is much smaller now so the nuns (today there are over 100 of them in Yekaterinburg) have to live in the outskirts of the city. They come to Novo-Tikhvinsky Convent every day for their obedience such as icon-painting, sewing, at the publishing house, souvenir obedience etc.
The church of Alexander Nevsky is interesting from the mineralogical point of view. Inside it is decorated with various minerals, the so-called Ural gems.
Another must-visit place in the convent is the souvenir shop. In winter the shop looks like a museum of pre-revolutionary Christmas decoration. You can buy Christmas decoration and toys made according to the traditional design of the 19th century.
If you are looking for a unique hand-made Russian souvenir and not a corny matryoshka doll or shapka (Russian hat), Novo-Tikhvinsky Convent offers a good variety. This year I bought all New Year presents there
photos of the church were taken from the website of Novo-Tikhvinsky Convent http://www.sestry.ru/eng
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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!