Gangsters and QWERTY in Yekaterinburg

We arrived in Yekaterinburg and we all made our way to our joint hotel, where we ate dinner and got the kids to bed.  Bob was excited to drink a White Russian in Russia……

The following day, we walked to the Church on Blood in Honor of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land (a mouthful of a name).

This church was built as a memorial to the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his family.  It was at this site that the Tsar and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks as part of the 1917 revolution.  The church was beautiful, built in the early 2000's at great expense and with elaborate detail inside.

Yekaterinburg’s tourism industry seems to be mainly focused on the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family.  You can visit the place where they were killed, which now contains a monastery built on the exact spot of their execution.  However, we chose to visit another site related to death instead….

Back in the ‘90s, Yekaterinburg suffered from a lot of violence between warring mafia and crinimal groups.  Alex had read about a cemetery where elaborate tombstones can be found for some of these individuals.  Having already seen one Russian cemetery with very elaborate graves in Moscow, this sounded like an off-beat but interesting spot to visit.

The cemetery is for the entire city of Yekaterinburg, and it was interesting to walk through the wooded property and look at the various tombstones.  An interesting observation is that most Russian tombstones seem to contain a photo, sculpture, or etching of the person who died.  It’s a nice touch that humanizes the people who are buried.  While we saw a lot of photos, sculptures, and etchings, there were definitely ones that stood out from the others.

Some of the graves had tables, benches, and/or decorative walls carved out of stone.

Others contained images of cars, athletic medals, guns, and/or buildings.

The next day, we headed to a marker designating the divide between the European and Asian continents.  It was a totally touristy thing to do, but when else will we be right at the border of Europe and Asia?

After that we walked through Yekaterinburg...eventually finding some lunch and then this random monument to the QWERTY keyboard.  

It’s touted as “the largest monument to the QWERTY keyboard in the world”……I’m pretty sure it might be the only QWERTY keyboard monument in the world, but props to the Yekaterinberg Tourist Office for exclusive-sounding marketing.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Helen, Alex, and Benny.  It was great to spend time together traveling in Russia….memories that we’ll never forget!  From there, we headed back to the train station….