>>5642482https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjvBP7JzbFMIn more mundane circumstance, you’d be forced to ride the Trans-Siberian railway eastwards.
Luckily, the Set-Mobile is made of sterner stuff than your average automobile and aside from the occasional rough patch on country roads, handles the journey with no complaint.
Still, you make a point of trailing it as closely as possible for a few reasons; namely novelty, bragging rights, its easily recognizable trail, and the fact that it can be followed all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
For now though, your destination is the city of Yekaterinburg, a part of the Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Ural Federal District. From what you can gather, oblasts are a rough equivalent to states, and federal districts are some government invention to centralize regional power. A cynical part of you whispers that it sounds more like a personal fiefdom that anything else, but it’s not like you’re an avid scholar of federal politics, Russian or otherwise.
Anyhow, you wouldn’t have pegged the Ural Mountains as a particularly attractive place to settle down, but that might be your homegrown sensitivities kicking in.
During the drive, you compose a mental checklist of the spots where you’d prefer to play tourist.
The first on your checklist is the <span class="mu-s">Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land</span>, which is something of a mouthful. For your own sanity, you’ll just abbreviate it to the “Church on Blood,” which is a pretty goddamn cool name for a religious site.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G136GODWKhcApparently it’s kind of a hybrid between a church and a museum, which is pretty understandable given its reason for construction; namely that it’s built on the former execution site of the Russian royal family during the civil war.
The finishing touches of its construction was only finished a few years back, and it’s been a popular tourist destination ever since, especially in Russian Orthodox circles.
With the bulk of your focus on the road, the trip passes in what feels like the blink of an eye. The tundra is eye-catchingly beautiful, but you’re a little more focused on not getting the van stuck in mud or something equally annoying.
When you finally reach Yekaterinburg, the others are happy to drop you off at the location of the church. You extend an offer for the others to join you, but nobody seems to be that interested. In your heart of hearts, you’re a little glad; as much as you’ve thoroughly enjoyed the time with your pals, spending time in an enclosed space with them for days on end has you more than a little stir-crazy and eager to have some time to your lonesome.
