Ykaterinberg (or Ekaterinburg, depemding on....) and Kazan

An addendum to yesterday's post.  The final pictures were of Lenin Square, and the opera house, Russia's largest.  (Novosibirsk is, by the way, Siberia's largest city, and third largest in Russia after Moscow and St. Petersburg).  One of my fellow travelers and I talked seriously about returning in the winter for the opera - they are doing Boris Gudonov, one of my favorites.....

Then back on the train towards Ekaterinburg. 

If you've been following along on the map (and maybe, some day, for another trip, I will have the technological chops to be able to provide one - I have visions of a progressive route in red...) , this is considered the border between European Russia and the East...

And, if you have been reading your history, you know this as the death place of the last of the Romanovs.  Train lectures included a history of the Romanovs, the building of the Trans Siberian Railway (a result of the failure of transport in the Crimean War, as well as the ego of the Tzars....)

The first stop, though, was - believe it or not - the Yeltsin Library, meant, I think, to be the first of the presidential libraries (although we did not see any others).  Why I don't have any pictures I can't imagine - it was architecturally grand, very inter-active, one of these new, glitzy places.  I must have caught the disdain of the tour guides - both local and otherwise; Yeltsin is, of course, held in some contempt...)

Next stop, accompanied by more emotion, was a memorial to the victims of Stalin's repression.  ...

(there is a cross on the third side of the obelisk)...

......and the park and marker separating Europe from Asia....

.....Ekaterinburg (named, by the way, not after Catherine the Great but after after Catherine I, Peter the Great's peasant wife) has changed from a village to a city, as you can see...

.......and finally, to the Church on Blood (or, to give it its full name, the Church on Blood in Honor of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land, and yes, I had a memory aid for that one...)

.....which stands over the spot when Nicholas and Alexandra and the Children were shot (the house itself was, of course, razed years ago).  The family has since been canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. 

I have always had a soft spot for Nicholas and Alexandra.  I don't know why.  I first read the book Nicholas and Alexandra when I was susceptible to love stories, and theirs was a love story.  And they were not evil, just scared, and out of their depth.  And I have always thought it rather mean that his royal cousin in England never took them in.... I don't know, but in any event, I thought this place moving.  So do the Russians, apparently - it is well attended and lovingly cared for....

Then, back on the train, overnight to Kazan....

......quite the train station, no?

....this is the capital of the Republic of Tartarstan.  The Tartars, who make up a majority of the population, are actually Turkic Muslims with an ethnic makeup the same as that of early Bulgarians.  We see a mosque ( a replica, the original having been razed by Ivan the Terrible)

...and a replica of a a Tartar village.....

(the effect marred, a bit, by the view of the big city.  It was a lovely city, though...)

.....out local tour guide's lack of English skills was more than made up for by his enthusiasm...

and Kazan's kremlin ( a word meaning fortress, if I have not already said)...

......complete with modern art installation on the grounds....

A meal at a local restaurant was followed by an afternoon at leisure in the town, and a return to the train.

Tomorrow, the first view of Moscow..... (back in Vancouver, jarringly, I am off for an afternoon at the theater...)