Dear friends,

On May 26^th 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 26^th

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

In Europe the war was over on May 8th. But when the end of the Second World War was announced it was midnight in Moscow and early morning of the next day in the rest of Russia. Therefore in Russia 9th of May is a public holiday and a parade day in the largest Russian cities.

This year citizens could tell a story of their relative who fought at the war and get a poster with his photo.

The Victory Day finishes with fireworks in the evening all over Russia. In Yekaterinburg the fireworks will take place at 10.30 pm (local time)

photos by Artyem Ustyuzhanin, www.e1.ru

Tourists often ask if there are guide books to Yekaterinburg in English to read. Since Yekaterinburg had been closed to foreigners till 1991 publishing English books here is still considered a waste of money – why do we need to make them if the backpackers from abroad come only in summer for a day or two with their own books and maps. But as one of the English travelers said:  - We are visiting so many Russian cities on the Trans-Siberian it’s impossible to remember anything even after all the excursions, so a small book with photos would help to revise everything at home once again.
That English traveler came in time in April when I was able to show her our first guidebook to Yekaterinburg in English!

 Last summer Marina Tchebotayeva, a private publisher who like me is doing her best to promote the Urals abroad, asked me to write English texts to a new guidebook to the Red Line tour of Yekaterinburg. I thought it would be a great idea because the red line tour was a public project created by ordinary people of Yekaterinburg who love their city (I’ve already written a post on this walking tour)

 Besides, the book was to contain additional streets and sites which are not on the red line but worth seeing too such as the KGB town and Boris Yeltsin Street. In fact, Yeltsin Presidential Center became the general sponsor of the book.  

The guidebook has a map and descriptions of 68 major sites including most of the city museums each accompanied by a photo or two so you can easily recognize them or match with your own pictures made in Yekaterinburg.  I asked my expat friends Philippa Hawkes and Kimber Ross from New Zeland and USA to edit the texts as I’m never sure about the use of the English articles (we don’t have those little things if the Russian language, you see). However, I had to write the name of the city with E (Ekaterinburg that is) in compliance with the policy of the local authorities.

A Travel Guide to Downtown of Ekaterinburg is available in some of the local bookshops and museum souvenir shops. You can also buy the book from me for a lesser price of 200 rubles. I can also send a book to you by post in case you’ve already been to the city and find it difficult to return back just for the sake of buying it!

I’ve already sent one book to  Makoto, an FB friend of "Yekaterinburg For You" Facebook page from Japan. It cost him 10$ together with the shipping which you can always send via Paypal.

Welcome to Yekaterinburg this summer to explore the city with the book or with a guided tour or both!  

It’s always nice to report that a new hostel is opened in Yekaterinburg. Hostels here open and close so quickly that I don’t have time to write about them. The reason for this – Russians haven’t developed the habit of staying at hostels yet and prefer to pay more for apartment rental while backpackers from abroad come to Yekaterinburg mainly from May till September. So if a local hostel has been working for already a year, it’s quite an achievement. And I’m sure, Domino Hostel is certainly going to last!

Domino Hostel: 6 beds, free WiFi, tea and coffee

I learnt about Domino Hostel from Daniel, a German tourist. He contacted me asking to pick him up from Chelyuskintsev Street, 60 for an excursion. To be honest, it took me a while to find the entrance as there are many entrance doors and no sign of the hostel. So look for the entrance with a big lamp above the door! Otherwise the location is very good: it’s only a 10 min walk from the train station, a few min to get to Dynamo Metro station and about 10 min to the Church on the Blood and the city center.

Look for the entrance with a big lamp above!

Domino hostel has 6 beds for 600 rubles (at least it was the price during the low season) with free WiFi, tea and coffee. Vasily, the owner of the hostel has created a nice Facebook page, so go to Domino Hostel on Facebook or find it at booking.com. By the way, they accept Visa and Master cards.

See the hostel on the map:

http://dominohotel.ru/contacts

Domino guests: a Russian music band Est-Est-Est

 Travelers who stay at Domino Hostel have special discount prices for Yekaterinburg tours by askural.com! Ask Vasily to show you our photos of Yekaterinburg tours with descriptions and a price list.  

The yard of the orphanage

The bad news is that the state orphanage still lacks medicine and necessary vitamins which are not that expensive but the State financial support is not sufficient to meet the needs of about 50 little patients.

The good news is that there are people who find ways to help even from abroad: In winter I received an email from Texas. Sherry and Joey MacKenzie were to come to Yekaterinburg in March for the concert of their music band Quebe Sisters Band. They brought a big box with toys and woolen socks that they collected from their local community in Texas. Sherry couldn’t buy necessary medicine in the USA as it should be bought in Russia for the orphanage to accept it. So when the band arrived in Yekaterinburg Sherry and I met in the hotel and went to the nearest pharmacy to buy some vitamins from the list that I got from the orphanage.

Sherry MacKenzie in front of the pharmacy in Yekaterinburg

Quebe Sisters Band stayed in the Urals only one night and there was no time for them to visit the orphanage. Probably, next time if you come here, guys!

Meanwhile, the parcels were delivered to Revda by my friend Irina. She came after lunch when children were asleep. But you can see the pictures of the Revda children in my previous post:  http://askural.com/2011/04/orphans-of-sverdlovskaya-oblast/

The delivery got to Revda (in the orphanage hall)

If you’d like to do charity when traveling in the Urals like the Texans did, you may contact Dom Rebyonka to get a list of medicine

tel.: +7 (34397) 5-11-32

fax: +7 (34397) 5-11-34, 5-39-66

or contact me yekaterinburg4u@gmail.com and I’ll forward you the list of medicine in Russian that you can use in any local pharmacy.

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 16^th 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!

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.

http://www.akvilon74.ru

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

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

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

The theme of the ice town is ‘Global Mind’ this year. The slogan is taken from the bid of Yekaterinburg Expo 2020.

The Eifel Tower is here to remind us that Expo 1900 was held in Paris. That year Yekaterinburg’s Kasli iron cast Pavilion won Grand Prix. The elaborate pavilion is now exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts and the ice version of it was made in the square.

Eifel Tower in front of the Shopping Center 'Europa'

the pride of Yekaterinburgers: Kasli Pavilion made of ice

inside the pavilion

Click to the gallery to see the ice scuptures made by the international team of scuptors:

[View with PicLens]

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