Natalia, our guide picked us up at 11.00 a.m. and when all piled into the bus. Today, unlike yesterday, the bus had air conditioning which was a real blessing as it was such a hot day.
Natalia spoke beautiful English and shared lots of interesting information with us on the drive to Nevyansk, including:
- Information of the apartment buildings you see all over Russia. These were built during the days of the USSR to house families. The buildings normally comprised very small apartments where whole families live. They were built quickly in pre-cast concrete to cope with a severe shortage of housing. Doctors were consulted to determine how high to build the buildings given they did not have lifts - it was decided that five stories was a good height. Today all over Russia you see precast concrete buildings of up to five stories such as the first picture below. Of course today, like all cities in the world you see new and very modern apartment blocks in Ekaterinburg but many people continue to live in the apartments built during Soviet times
- We also passed a number of Dachas on the way to Nevyansk ... but the bus was going too fast to photograph them. Dachas are where families traveled to get out of the city and have been a part of Russian culture for decads. During WWII Dachas were key to survival as families moved away from the cities which were being targeted by the Germans to the countryside where they had their Dachas and planted and grew their own food. Even though families were allocated their own Dachas and each one was built to a common size/standard with shared communal bathrooms. Today, whilst not as popular as in the past, people do now buy their own Dachas and have transformed them into holiday homes with their own amenities, etc.
- A number of buses full of children with a police escort passed us - we learned that these were children heading off to summer camp. Another relic of Soviet times that exists today ... camps where children who live int he city will get the opportunity to experience country life and participate in all sorts of outdoor activities.
- The highest mountain in the Urals is only 1,895 metres tall (compared with Mt Cook which is around 3,700 metres tall)
- There are 800 different minerals found there, including emeralds and gold. They experience snow for 6-7 months of the year and the most ferocious and scary creature found in the Urals is the mosquito :-)
We arrived at the Old Believers Church and the Leaning Tower or Nevyanski -which could probably more accurately described as the "incline tower of Nevyanski"
It is very hard to see that the tower is on a lean but it is more obvious from some positions than others. We had a tour guide Olga which Natalia translating for her ... and head off on a tour to the top of the tower.
Some of what we heard saw was very interesting. The one thing that was quite fascinating was the room where you could whisper into the walls and be heard in the opposite corner as clearly as if you were sitting right next to the person - as a number of us said "much better than Viber". Here is what Wikipedia says about it here is one mysterious room in the tower, the purpose of which is still being debated. Archaeologists dubbed it the "acoustic room". It is a 20 square meters (220 sq ft) room, located between the fourth and the fifth floors. If a person stands in one corner of this room, he or she can whisper words to another person in the opposite corner and they will be perfectly audible. Scientists still do not know whether the room was built like this on purpose or not. It could be that Demidov used this acoustic room for gathering "intelligence" on his high-ranking guests."
The climb to the top was so scary - those of you who know me know how much I hate climbing ladders or stairs where you can see through ... and how I hate even more coming back down. I was petrified but I made myself do it. Here are some pictures of the type of stairs we had to climb.
I could not take photos of the worst ones!!! Some of them were not only steep but also very narrow with very low ceilings. I was absolutely shaking by the time I got o the top and spent most of the time up there worrying about coming down:-)
The view from the top was great
After climbing down from the bell tower we found out that we only had one hour left and we still had to have lunch .... so we did not have time to look at the church or to walk around the village - this was very disappointing!!! Our colleagues who are working with the Ekaterinburg City Council to make the city a key destination for tourists duly took notes to add to the findings .... they had asked us for our feedback on what worked and did not work during our stay :-)
I did manage to go in and take a quick peek at the church .... which only made me more upset that we had wasted so much time at the tower. If we had known there was a time limitation we would have split our time between the two. The church looked so interesting - full of amazing icons. My colleagues who have already seen the Church of the Blood did tell me that the icons there were even better.
Lunch, which was supposed to be typical Russian food was pretty ho hum - and basically we were there for 30 minutes max and fed three courses and herded back on the bus. I did sneek off quickly and take a few picture of houses on the street as this may our only opportunity to see homes outside the cities.
The journey back to Ekiterinburg was very funny as Natalia shared with us her view on Russian men. There are way more women in Russia than men and the view is that the women are far better looking than the men.. This led to a discussion on men in general with Divya our sole female from India being brave enough to say that she felt it was the same in India - brave as there are three males from India on our trip. I twas all very light hearted and fun and had everyone laughing.
It was Abhinav's birthday so Katya (SCS) bought him a cake and we all surprised him in his room with a cake and a chorus of happy birthday.
We took the cake and whole of lot of snacks down to the meeting room and had an impromptu party for his birthday. Rafael and I went out and bought some drinks including a small bottle of vodka - and I tasted my first Russian vodka. It is very different from what we drink at home - much smoother!!
As well as being a nice way to celebrate Abhinav's birthday it was a good way to celebrate our first week here in Ekaterinburg.
Whilst it was Abhniav's birthday it was Katya who got the presents. She is like a little girl opening presenting - has to feel it and decide what it is before she will open it - I must try this in future as she really gets so much joy out of opening the present
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