Vodka for Lunch....

September 5th 2017 continued...

Lunch was at a place called Factory Kitchen, a throwback to the days when the Main Street was basically surrounded by factories. Our guide thankfully ordered for us so we could try some Russian and local specialities. We had borscht, a beetroot and meat soup and pelmeni, dumplings. We decided to try the Ural speciality dumplings which had beef, lamb and pork as the filling and were to be eaten with either mayonnaise or mustard! Everything was delicious! Konstantin also ordered vodka for us; it was called Mamont and was interesting! It was actually really good vodka (about £40 back home!) but having it with lunch was just odd....Russians always drink vodka straight and with food, so maybe it is us that are strange. Apparently a 300ml measure is small, we (mostly Iain) managed 200ml and felt pretty merry.


Soup - Borscht


Pelmeni - Dumplings with Mayo and Mustard


Vodka 


Before I had too many!

After lunch, and after saying our goodbyes, we decided to get the tram back to the main square. It is only 28 roubles a journey (about 40p) and really simple to use. We decided to go to the Yeltsin museum which was highly recommended by our tour guide.

The museum was a 5 minute walk from the main square; it was only 200 roubles (about £2.80) for the museum and another 100 roubles to get the audio guide in English. The only caveat to that was leaving you passport behind at the entrance! Eek! After leaving our jackets and rucksacks with the cloakroom staff, and going through metal detectors to enter, a nice girl explained to us which way we should go. I have never seen so much security in a museum in my life! 

We were a bit worried to start with as there was virtually no English translations on the ground floor but once we got to the main area, we were happily surprised! The museum took you through recent Russian history and how Yeltsin was the first elected President of Russia after the dissolve of the USSR. It covered his two terms in office and the struggles that he went through including the aftermath of the break up of the Soviet Union and the war in Chechnya. All in all, it was a really interesting look at the life of a local hero; he was from Yekaterinburg!



After a few hours in the museum, we decided to head back to our hotel via the supermarket. Neither of us were particularly hungry so we thought we would skip dinner. We bought some beer, nibbles and some Russian champagne to try (£3); it was a bit like demi-sec and quite drinkable! 

Below are some of the things on offer in the supermarket; we did well just to spend 1200 roubles (£15).


Some of the cakes in the Supermarket


Frozen Dumplings


Pour your own draught beer


Russian Champagne 

We sampled our delights in the hotel and had an early night as we were off to Moscow in the morning.



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