Meeting Point

After we refused Sergei’s entreaties to start drinking again at 2pm, we left the train at Ekaterinburg at about 7.45pm local time. For some unknown reason, despite the fact that Russia spans about a gazillion time zones every single train in Russia operates according to Moscow time. This means that not only do you have to remember to keep adding on hours as you pass through all of the time zones, but you also have to keep Moscow time straight in your head so you don't end up missing your next train. It is really quite stupid.

Anyway, on leaving the train we were supposed to take the tram to the hostel but this proved to be significantly more difficult than we anticipated. Firstly, we could not for the life of us figure out where to buy tram tickets – although the little office was staffed, the curtain was down and my repeated entreaties of ‘dobry vyecher’ were met with the unhelpful response of the cloaked official turning the light in the booth off. We decided to ask the surrounding passengers, but the first person I asked (the Russian is getting a little better) directed me back to the station, and the second person at said station directed me straight back to the tram stop. We eventually decided to get the tram and risk another fine courtesy of mean Commie-era officials, but then said tram decided not to turn up for half an hour, during which Katie’s feet began to freeze. Discarding the possibility of a taxi after the driver we asked quoted us an astronomical fee, we thus decided to walk the two miles; Katie with her backpack and me with my big fat red case, which whilst enabling me to pack my computer and have enough clothes to live for six months in China, is not designed to be wheeled around a snow-covered city in the middle of winter.

The walk seemed to take an age; the wheels of my case got completely stuck in the snow and refused to turn, meaning that I was essentially dragging a 25-30 kilo weight for about two miles. The situation was not helped by Katie singing ‘the wheels on the bag go round and round.’ Then again, she didn’t do too well either – not being particularly good at remaining upright at the best of times and hampered further by the combination of heavy bag and slippy ice, she managed two complete wipeouts in two miles. One looked horrid and both myself and some Russian women standing outside the philharmonia feared she’d broken herself, but fortunately she was okay apart from a bruised knee, so the trudge continued with us nearing giggling hysterics.


(A cool ice wall with graffiti we saw along the way)

Fortunately, once we finally found the hostel (by this time it was way after 10pm), it was worth it. Called ‘Meeting Point,’ the hostel has only been operational since the beginning of January, and is quite unlike anywhere else I’ve ever stayed. It’s been opened by Katia, a young Russian who having travelled abroad herself and stayed in backpackers’ hostels, decided to quit her job last year and turn an old apartment owed by her family into the third hostel in Ekaterinburg. Although the hostel is at the moment mostly airbeds in an apartment, Katia’s put in internet, and provides free tea, coffee, breakfast etc. She’s also incredibly friendly and welcoming with excellent English, and is still so excited about having hostel guests that she keeps coming round to chat and caters to your every need. We’ve had a really nice couple of days exploring Ekaterinburg and just chilling out in what essentially feels like your own flat. There’s some amazing old Soviet furniture here that would probably be worth a fair bit back home, and Ekaterinburg itself just feels like a nice, relaxed place to be. Given that there are only two other hostels in Ekaterinburg, I think Katia’s new business will do well – she’s got herself on all the internet hostel list sites and we’re all going to write nice reviews about her to entice the travellers here.


(An amazing Soviet lamp in Katia's hostel)

Although the hostel is very new, it’s already busy; in addition to Katie and I on the first night there were Natasha, Christina and Emerald (three English friends on a pre-university gap year), and Sophia, a German economics undergraduate who volunteered to be an exchange student and was unfortunate enough to be reluctantly sent to Tomsk, Siberia. She had spent her three week winter break in Moscow as a refuge from the -48 C temperatures in her temporary home town, and was stopping in Ekaterinburg for a couple of days on her way back east. All of them are very nice, and crucially, after an incident in Napoleon Hostel, Moscow in which I came very close to murdering a hapless sleep disturber named Marcus, not one of them snored.