The Real Yekaterinburg

Last weekend, while I was hanging out at my friend Katie's farm and trying to forget about the ill-fated run-in with Bambi's mother, I realized something: most of my friends have no idea what Yekaterinburg is really like (other than what I've said on this blog, which is mostly that it's cold and located in south central BFE). Obviously I've never been to Yekat, but the truth is, it's actually a very large city. A large city located in the middle of nowhere, I grant you, but no small Russian village, certainly.

Yekaterinburg has a population of 1.4 million people. It's the fourth largest city in Russia (I think I've been telling everyone it's the third largest; probably wishful thinking on my part). There is apparently a Target-like store called MEGA. There is an IKEA. You get the idea. Basically, I will be cold and pathetic with my virtually non-existent Russian, but I will be able to get toilet paper and a HEMNES coffee table.

At the moment, John is in Tver, another Russian city where he is doing two weeks of language immersion, and apparently it's a bit run down (I think his exact words were, "Everything is broken.") I'm hoping Yekaterinburg is a little better, since it's a rapidly developing city and it looks so darn pretty in pictures:

Of course, the REAL Yekaterinburg remains to be seen (I swear those photos are computer generated). I promise to report on all the nitty gritty details when I get there. For now, I'm just going to go on pretending that Yekaterinburg is the third largest city in Russia, that everything is sparkly and pretty, and the streets are paved with...well, just paved would be good.