10 Things You Must Know Before Moving to Yekaterinburg (Unless You Like Freezing Your Balls Off in October)

i moved here thinking it'd be like berlin but with more bear statues. i was wrong. it's like if russia took a mixtape of soviet brutalism, post-communist grit, and a tea addiction and threw it into a blender set to "manic depressive." you’ll survive. maybe. //

first: the weather isn’t "chilly." it’s a war crime. october? your boots freeze solid by 3pm. november? you walk past people wearing two coats and three scarves like they’re prepping for mars. the city records -35°C in winter. that’s not a temp. that’s a personality flaw. //

second: rent. you can get a decent studio in the city center for 25k-35k rubles/month ($270-$380). outside? 18k. yes, that’s cheaper than a shoebox in tokyo. but here’s the catch: half the apartments still use Soviet-era plumbing. i lost a sock in my shower drain. i haven’t seen it since. it’s probably in the urals by now. //

third: the banya. don’t skip it. the steam rooms here aren’t kaftan and chamomile. they’re wood-burning, bare-assed, and probably run by a man who’s been yelling at his wife since 1987. but after 10 minutes, you feel like a new person. or at least a very sweaty one. //

fourth: food. forget instagrammable cafes. the real gems are in the basement of the metro station. try the pirozhki from old lady Irina (she doesn’t speak english, she stares until you nod). then go to chayka restaurant for the zrazy. it’s beef wrapped around pickles. weird? yes. life-changing? also yes. //

fifth: public transport. buses run on time. sometimes. the metro’s clean as hell, but the Peace Monument Station smells like decades of regret and wet wool. get a troika card. don’t ask why it’s called that. //

sixth: the locals. they don’t smile at strangers. that’s not rude. it’s survival. smile at them unprovoked? they’ll either panic or offer you a cigarette and ask if you’re from the west. (reply: "no. i’m from the future. i lost my time machine in perm.") //

seven: the art. yekaterinburg is full of abandoned factories turned galleries. visit the chkalovskaya station murals - 70s era propaganda meets punk graffiti. it’s insane. and yes, someone’s probably spray-painted over your favorite mural by dawn. that’s the culture. //

"they say if you cry in the winter, your tears turn to glass on your face," overheard a guy at the banya, wiping his nose with a towel that once belonged to god. //

"i’ve lived here 22 years. i’ve seen three geniuses, two bears in the park, and one guy who tried to marry the statue of Lenin. he’s now in a state sanatorium. don’t try to get married to statues. trust me."

eighth: the dark. it gets dark by 3:45pm in december. literally. the whole city goes quiet like someone pulled a plug. there’s a reason they invented kvass and chestnut cakes. //

ninth: crime. statistically, safer than moscow. but don’t walk home drunk past the old factory on ulitsa Mira at 2am. i know this because i did. a woman with a cat on a leash hissed at me. then gave me chocolate. i still don’t know what happened. //

tenth: it’s only 700km from perm. that’s a 7-hour train ride into pure, quiet weirdness. 1100km from novosibirsk. 1500 to kazan. you can see three different russia’s before your next coffee runs out. //

links i actually used: tripadvisor yekaterinburg | r/yekaterinburg subreddit | yekaterinburg food review on yelp | urban explorer photos on flickr

i don’t miss wifi that works. i miss the way the ice cracks underfoot like a thousand tiny secrets breaking free. and yes, i’ve started singing to the streetlights now. they sing back-in russian, always. //

if you’re still reading… welcome. bring warm socks. and a sense of humor that doesn’t require sunlight.

10 Things You Must Know Before Moving to Yekaterinburg (Unless You Like Freezing Your Balls Off in October)

You might also be interested in:

About the author: Hugo Barrett

Comments (0)

Join the conversation

Comments (0)

Join the conversation