The place where a 80 year old naked man hit me wildly with a handful of wooden sticks.
Long distance trains are better
The train I rode from Kazan to Ekaterimburg was the nicest one on my entire transiberian trail. Some time later I realized the train was more expensive than normal and it had a very low identification number. It was a long distance transiberian train, the ones that had special names and cover the entire route from Moscow to Beijing. The decoration was green instead of red and it looked pretty new. It had even some electrical plugs. The bad news is that nothing special happened in the train this time so it was a quite boring night.
Time difference
At 11:20 moscow time, 14:20 local time I reached Yekaterimburg. The temporal vejavu had just started. In Russia all the trains run in Moscow time. The departure and arrival time that appear on the tickets is not the local time unless you are in the western areas of Russia. This is pretty confusing for Russians and locals alike. Once you reach Ekaterimburg on your way east you change the timezone every day. For the two first days I used two watches, one in local time and another in Moscow time but then I realized that the local time is not needed at all because it is much better just to eat when you feel hungry and sleep when you are tired.
Rodna
Juliana was my host in Rodna, a small town in te vicinity of Ekaterimburg. Rodna is the first European city in the Urals. Ekaterimburg is the first Asian city. Juliana works in Asia and lives in Europe. How cool is that? Rodna is a small rural town and it looks really different to any other city I saw so far in Russia. It looked like a war zone. In fact war zone is a good description of Russia to the east of Moscow. The city has old buildings and old streets that are asking for renovation and people here forgot how to smile long time ago.
Juliana cook soup with beer
Juliana cook natroska for me. This is the most loved national food in Russia. It is what we understand in Spain for a russian salad (cutted vegetables wth mahonese) with the addition of quas, a beberage that taste like beer and looks like beer but it is not beer. Or it is beer with a really low alcohol level. Natroska is a cold soup that many Russians love and I admire but not appreciate. Vegetables and mahonese floating in beer is not for me!
On the transiberian rails
After lunch we went to her dacha in a machuska (an small van that carry people like a bus). They are all over Russia, they are private owned and they cover the routes where there is no public transportation.
The dacha is the house in the countryside. Russians don’t live in the dachas all year long, it is more like a summer house in a green, more relaxed environment. The Dachas don’t have electricity in the winter and they are innacessible because of the snow. All the dachas I’ve seen are built by the family and have a green garden where they plant all kind of vegetables. They don’t breed animals so there are not rabbits or chickens here. The Dacha is a institution in Russia. When you leave a city you can see huge extensions of small wooden houses with a bit of terrain. They look like German Cottages but they are quite much bigger than that.
Some Dachas have a Banya for the family. The Banya is the Russian sauna and it is always a special building hand built by the families . When you enter there there is always a space where you take off the clothes and a main space where the stove is. All the banyas I’ve seen heat the water with coal. Once inside the sauna is very hot and very humid. Another characteristic is that they wip themselves with a special kind of tree that has a balsamic effect on the skin.
Juliana’s grandparents lived in the Dacha in summer. When we arrived there her grandparent were having a small dinner. They were not drinking water but vodka. So it is true, Russians drink vodka instead of water. He offered a shot and I could not say no to this first taste of real homemade Russian vodka. It didn’t taste bad at all meaning that the vodka was extremely good or maybe it was watered down. I offered them the last pieces of the Iberian Salami (Salchichón ibérico) and strong Spanish sheep cheese I had with me. They ate the salami without much interest but they really liked the cheese. I understand it, I didn’t taste a good cheese in Russia!
Drinking real vodka
The Datcha was one of the weirdest moments of my life and one of the highlights of my trip. Juliana’s grandfather and I were inside. Let’s picture the scene. A 80 year-old-Russian who drinks vodka like water was with me in the datcha, hitting me with rage with a handful of wooden sticks all over my body. All over my body. The datcha was hot, very hot and the man didn’t stop pouring water on the coal so humidity was very high. I have never seen my balls the size they were in this moment. Once finished (they guy push me outside when he felt I was fainting) I dress up and I went outside to meet Juliana and her grandmother. I don’t really remember the moment but there are pictures and I look completely relaxed with a huge smile on my face. Thumbs up for the sticks, the humidity and Grandpa!
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