Perm and Yekaterinburg

Train ride survived! The first three hours were great, we had the four-bed compartment to ourselves. After that, we were visited by a heavily scented fellow passenger who accompanied us for the rest of the journey. Because the compartment was inexplicably heated to 25°C (we briefly considered unpacking our bikinis), the strong smell quickly intensified. In the end, we both had headaches and a terrible night. Our Russian fellow passenger was otherwise very friendly and tried to communicate with us using gestures.

Perm was rather small and cozy for a city of a million people. It was a welcome change after Moscow. In the hostel, we met a Finn who gave us some good tips for Vietnam (and wrote down Vietnamese phrases for Jolene to get vegan food ;) ).

Then we continued in the third class (64 beds), which was okay except for the toilet (see video: https://vimeo.com/244059657?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=29220). The Russian military guys next door were, of course, playing Durak (which means idiot, as we found out afterwards after shouting the word twice).

Yekaterinburg is wonderful so far. Alexey from the Moscow hostel had arranged a contact for us here, namely Sergey, who showed us around today along with Danial. Mainly to the Eurasian border of Russia and through the Ural Mountains. We have completely fallen in love with the landscape. We particularly liked the frozen Isset Lake, which looked simply beautiful. Tomorrow we will explore the city center.

Conclusion so far: The people in Russia are very nice and helpful, but they rarely understand English.