Yekaterinburg

After the island trip, we jumped on the night train to Yekaterinburg - Boris Yeltsin's old stomping ground before he was promoted to Moscow. More importantly for a lot of Russians, it's where the last czar and his family were murdered (apparently the excuse was that someone was planning to break them out of their house arrest and killing them would very effectively prevent this). They've built a church on the spot of the murder and the czar and his family are venerated by the orthodox church - not, it seems, because he was a particularly good chap - he seems to be regarded as responsible for millions of deaths by various means. All adding to the impression that there is a considerable blurring between church and state.

We ate Japanese that evening at a microbrewery drinking wheat beer - there's as cultural mix for you. The Russians do seem to love their Japanese food. There are Japanese restaurants everywhere.

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