Yekaterinburg

The birth of the city happened in 1723 when the River was damned and the fortress built.

Lenin street and the Lenin Statue

Central Yekaterinburg

The Europe - Asia border near Yekaterinburg

Gania Yama -The new monastery built on the abandoned mine where the Romanovs bodies were destroyed

Memorials to the Romanov Family; The last Tsar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, their four daughters and one Son who were murdered on 16th July 1918

All female visitors to the monestry had to cover their hair and wear a skirt.

The Church of the Blood

Built on the sight of the house where the Romanovs were killed. The basement where the murders took place has been reconstructed after the house was deasroyed in 1977 and The Church of the Blood was built on top.

The Trans Siberian Railway - Part One

Moscow to Yekaterinburg

One night - 25 hours 19 minutes - two time zones

Train number 16

Waiting to board

Our very messy cabin. We were on a brand new train, it was not what I wasexpecting at all. We even had a TV in out room.

We shared a four bed cabin with a lovely Russian woman and her 5 year old son Artem. They were going to Yekaterinburg for the summer holidays to visit the grandparents. She thought we were crazy being on this train as part of a holiday and couldn't believe we were going all the way to Beijing.

We stopped here for 25 mins so we stretched out legs down the platform

I don't read Russian but I am fairly sure this sign is telling me not to climb out of the window.

The train schedule and the length of the stops

Our train is on the right

Yekaterinburg Station

The Kremlin

The Kremlin from the outside, The Kremlin walls, Kutafya Tower and The Trinity Tower

View form outside the Kremlin of The Great Kremlin Palace and Cathedral square behind

The Cathedrals inside the Kremlin

The Great Kremlin Palace, The Palace of Congress and The Arsenal

The Tsar Bell and Tsar Cannon

The Senate

It would seem that being a guard in the The Kremlin is an exhausting job

Red Square

St Basil's Cathedral / The Church of the Saviour

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Commissioned by Ivan the Terrible and completed in 1561

Moscow

Dad arrives and we head straight to Red Square

The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. This is a replica as the original was demolished by Starlin

The Gum shopping Arcade

The Bolshai Theatre

The Moscow metro

Minsk to Moscow

It would have been nice to be able to say that I was traveling all the way from London to Hong Kong overland, but I am cheating between Minsk and Moscow, and flying.

I just needed to workout how to get to Minsk airport first.

A taxi to the airport is 40€ and the bus is 2€ - So bus it is.

We asked the girl in the hostel to write us a note which said something along the lines of "please can we have two tickets to the airport on the 8.25 bus, on 30th June". We had walked through the bus station numerous times on the way into the city so thought we were set.

We got to the bus station and checked all the bus stops but couldn't see where the 300E stopped. We also couldn't see the ticket office which we thought was a bit strange.

We went to see the woman at this counter. We gave her out bit of paper. She read it twice. Looked confused, shook her head and gave it back.

Минск

The main chose to go to Minsk was because it was directly between Warsaw, the last stop on my Interrail pass, and Moscow, the departure point on the Trans Siberian Trip.

I quickly discovered it is not a typical tourist destination. In fact it is not a tourist destination at all, at least for British people. First of all you need a visa, to get a visa you need a letter of invitation from a friend or relative in Belarus. (I don't have one of those) or a tourist agency (I don't have one of those either). So I got a 48 hour transit visa, this came at a cost, which meant that this was going to be an expensive 48 hours.

On trip advisor when you search for things to do in Minsk there are 27 suggestions. Compare this to my last city, Warsaw, which has 92 Suggestions and my next city, Moscow, which has 903 Suggestions.

The advantage of visiting a city with doesn't have a huge tourist industry is that no one is dictating what you see and you see the place as it actually is. Not a marketed and packaged version full of tourists.

Minsk has a feeling of space; the roads are wide and quiet, there are lots of trees and parks and there is no litter or graffiti.