Ekaterinburg

Ekaterinburg is well over a million people in population, making it the biggest city I've been to so far on my journey. It's an attractive, vibrant, dynamic place that seems to hop somewhat comfortably between its varied historical eras.

Conversationally, and as far as the railroad schedules are concerned, Ekaterinburg is still Sverdlovsk - the name the city had during the Soviet period. The 19th-century city center is interspersed, too, with good examples of Soviet architecture. That is to say, examples of good Soviet architecture - from modernist constructivist buildings to Stalinist classicism. My hotel, for example, was designed to house KGB families during the 1930's. More strikingly, it was designed to look like a hammer and sickle from the air. It makes for a long walk to your hotel room from the lobby, but its kind of fun to think about the ideological frenzy in which it was built. On the whole, the new buildings give the city a modern vibe while it still retains its historical character.

And history, after all, is an overbearing force in Ekaterinburg. This is the city where the last tsar was imprisoned and executed along with his whole family - on the orders of Sverdlovsk himself. I took a guided tour of the enormous, lavish cathedral that occupies the same spot. The next day, I took a suburban train to the middle of nowhere and hiked into the woods where the remains of the royal family were found decades later. The church is constructing a sprawling monastery there to honor the royal family as martyrs for their faith.

It's all a little bit of a stretch at times, a little emotional at others. Nicholas II is probably one of history's most criminally inept rulers and responsible for literally millions of deaths. But at the same time, gunning down a man and his whole family in a basement in the middle of the night is not my idea of 'regime change'.

So, I've gone full circle on the Romanovs. I've seen where they've started, how they spent 300 years in power and how they lived in extravagant luxury. And now, I've seen the muddy hole in the ground where they dumped the body of the last Romanov tsar. Poor Nicholas II - the last man at the party - the guy who got stuck with the check.

Actually, the last tsar was exiled first in Tobolsk, the city I had just left. I got a decidedly better reception than he did in the Ekaterinburg of the future; strolling its streets and parks and shivering in its outdoors cafes. In all, a wonderful place for a couple of days.