This is how my adventure started with a bang: I decided to fly to Ekaterinburg with Lufthansa, to make sure there will be no problems. But unfortunately when I came to the airport I found out that there were problems: the Lufthansa flight was cancelled and I was instructed to come back the next day and fly with Aeroflot through Moscow. So I ended up on a flight from Moscow to Ekaterinburg scheduled to arrive at 2 in the morning.

I had notified my contacts at the university and they said they were ready to meet me at the airport. I arrived at the airport in the middle of the night and unfortunately I couldn’t see anybody who looked like they were there to pick me up. After waiting for about an hour I started to look around to see if there was anybody who spoke a bit of English. Finally I found some guy who was able to have some conversation with me. We talked for several minutes and all of a sudden it became clear to me that I was not in Ekaterinburg.

My plane had landed in Chelyabinsk, and could not land in Ekaterinburg because of fog. I was told that everybody else of course knew this and that it was announced in the airplane several times, but unfortunately always in Russian, which I didn’t understand enough. This was very surprising to me because the crew was well aware that a foreigner was onboard, for example they politely asked me in English about what I wanted to drink. But nobody thought of telling me that we were landing in a different city. So then I asked the person what the plans are for getting to Ekaterinburg and what the airlines have offered to help passengers. I was told that the flight may continue at 10 in the morning on the next day and that we simply had to sit there and wait.

Nevyansk, the monument to the city founders	My training at the American Center

I was very surprised but he indeed confirmed that Aeroflot had not offered any help for passengers about getting to Ekaterinburg, nor was there any help offered about where to spend the night. Usually Western airlines would be obliged to offer hotel rooms for stranded passengers, and also to offer alternative transportation in cases where this is feasible. So in this case they would have offered buses or taxis to go to Ekaterinburg and/or hotel rooms to spend the night. When we talked to the Aeroflot people, it was indeed confirmed that they had no intention at all of helping us in any way whatsoever. And my new acquaintance confirmed this is usual in Russia. So most people were just sitting around the airport, next to or on top of their suitcases waiting some nine hours for the next day to arrive. It was amazing to me that nobody complained to the airline.

To this day I feel ambivalent about this part of the Russian attitude.

At first I very much admired Russian people for never complaining, no matter how bad the circumstances were, and no matter how badly they were being treated.

But now I also see another side of this. And sometimes it seems to me that this is part of the reason why there are so many problems, with transport etc. May be if people would start to complain, things would start to change? In the West it seems most positive change has started with people complaining about some problem.
So we all were just sitting there waiting and falling half asleep but not being able to actually sleep in very uncomfortable chairs. I talked some more with people who spoke a bit of English, and after another hour or two during the conversation somebody mentioned that a taxi to Ekaterinburg would only cost about $60. I talked to some more people and finally 4 of us decided to share a taxi instead of waiting for the next flight. We drove through the night and arrived in Ekaterinburg early in the morning, certainly before the airplane. Of course we had to pay for the taxi ourselves, no compensation was ever offered by Aeroflot, not even a refund since we would not be using the morning flight. Now you know why my stay in Ekaterinburg started in Chelyabinsk.

Banya and Dacha
 

For foreigners visiting Ekaterinburg I would certainly recommend to have a typical Russian experience.

For me on top of such a list would be the experience of banya and dacha.

These two experiences are very much connected, since almost every dacha has a banya, and most Russians go to visit banya in some dacha. For those who have not heard that word, I would probably translate dacha as a summerhouse. But it has a different nature and purpose in Russia. In Western countries only rich people have summerhouses, and such summerhouses are rather luxurious, often more so than normal people’s regular houses. I have read that in Russia more than 50% of the population has a dacha, so it seems most people have someone in their family with a dacha that they can visit.

Of course you can only visit a dacha if you are invited by an owner, so this isn’t something you can do on your own, but if you spend some time getting to know Russians it’s quite likely you’ll receive such an invitation. Unless of course you’re visiting in the middle of the winter, at which time most dachas are not functional. The Russian dachas are usually situated in or close to nature, and are certainly not luxury apartments. Often there is no running water, and the toilet is a simple outhouse, another reason why people don’t usually visit the dachas in the winter.

My personal experience of banya	Ulitsa Vainera, monument to Efim Artamonov, the russian inventor of bicycle

The Russian banya is very close to what you would call sauna.

The exact differences are still not clear to me, but it seems that banyas are more humid. Also there is a tradition of hitting each other with the branches of certain kinds of trees. I’m sure every Russian can tell you exactly what kind of trees and where to get such branches. And going to banya together is certainly a social experience, one that lasts many hours, enough to get to know each other. While I would not recommend it, it is certainly not unusual to be offered some alcoholic beverages even during and certainly after banya.

Most dachas have some land around them where the owners grow fruits and vegetables. So you can enjoy this, especially in the summer. And indeed many Russian families get a lot or even most of their food from their dachas.

My Favorite Time to Visit Ekaterinburg: Summer
 

My favorite time of the year to be in Ekaterinburg is the summer, July and August. The weather is usually good and you can really enjoy the few beautiful parks in Ekaterinburg, and also many cafes and restaurants offer outdoor seating. One of the biggest advantages is the fact that many people leave the city, and so there are much less problems with transport and traffic.

To me it would make more sense if everybody would leave Ekaterinburg in the extremely cold winter, but for some reason Ekaterinburgians like to leave in the summer, making this a very pleasant time to actually be here. It’s very rare that the summer gets too hot, it only happens during a few days per year. But every winter there are many days or even weeks when it gets too cold to be comfortable.

I’m not very comfortable when it gets below -10C, but +30 is no problem.

The Highlight of the Winter: Ice City
 

But even in winter Ekaterinburg has something very unique to offer, that I haven’t seen anywhere else – the Ice City. This city within a city is made out of ice and is built every winter in December and stays for several more months depending on the weather. Every year it has a different theme, taken for example from fairy-tales, as it’s especially geared towards children and families, but even I am not too old to enjoy it. Just make sure you dress very warm and try not to fall on the ground too often. Even on extremely cold days you can see children enjoying several kinds of rides where they are certainly exposed to cold winds. The designs are often very creative and it is interesting to watch and participate in some attractions.

Monastery Ganina Yama

The Worst in Ekaterinburg: Traffic
 

In my view the worst part of Ekaterinburg is certainly the many problems with transport and traffic. I was told that traffic was not much of a problem some five or ten years ago. Now it is a daily problem with rush hour extending throughout most of the day. This is of course true in many big cities, but most other big cities would have a better alternative in public transport. In any big European city, and certainly also in Moscow, one is much faster using public transport than driving in a car.

But for some reason in Ekaterinburg they did not manage to separate public transport from car traffic, and so buses and trams get stuck in traffic just like cars. Sometimes it can take you two hours to get from one part of the city to another, covering a distance that without traffic only takes 20 minutes.

There is a subway in Ekaterinburg, but it never goes anywhere that I need to go. And people are fond of telling me that apparently it is mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records as the shortest subway in the world. If I had to choose one recommendation how to improve life in Ekaterinburg it would be to separate public transport from traffic, and of course also to make it more efficient and increase frequency so that one can have a better chance to find seats.

Buses and trams are so packed here, something that I have never experienced in Germany or America. They probably have a law against it. And the transport problems are also what often keeps me from feeling that I can be effective in Ekaterinburg, since I waste too much time in transport.

So What is the Best Part of Ekaterinburg?
 

Clearly it’s the wonderful people that you can encounter here.

In many ways Russia is a country of extremes and in my experience people are either extremely friendly or extremely unfriendly. This is different from Western Europe or the US, where most people always obey a certain level of politeness, but are reluctant to become too open. When I meet people here through some personal contact they are almost always extremely friendly, warm, and extend hospitality. They are soft-spoken and become aggressive only when driving a car.

But for example when I go shopping people can be extremely unfriendly, even rude. You may ask to buy something and they simply shake their head without opening their mouth, and when you point out to them where they actually have the product in the store, they are giving it to you without saying a word and making you feel that you are bothering them and they surely have no interest in keeping you as a customer.

Luxurious park, Ascension Hill (Voznesenskaya Gorka)

It was surprising to me how many exchanges here are done without any party opening their mouth, for example when paying for transport or purchases in a store. In most other countries people would use the local words for hello, please, thank you, goodbye, etc. The advantage of course is that I can do many things without revealing that I have a poor knowledge of the Russian language.

In many public places such as restaurants or stores service can be very bad and people can be so unfriendly that they would immediately get fired in a Western country. Especially in the post office you will often, but not always, have such an experience. Of course this is probably a management or even a social problem, as many people here are underpaid and don’t have much incentive to try not to be fired.

I noticed how people react when they find out that I am a foreigner. This usually happens when I open my mouth. Then people who were friendly to me become even friendlier because I’m a foreigner and they follow the tradition of hospitality. But people who were unfriendly to me become even unfriendlier, because they find out that I don’t even speak their language very well. They see even less reason to be helpful. So be discriminating when deciding whether to reveal your foreignness.

Like in any place, so also in Ekaterinburg you will have good and bad experiences, just overall I would say it is a bit more extreme, extremely bad and extremely good.

Feel free to email me at: scheiffe@math.berkeley.edu or visit my web-page

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