Kungur and the Ice Caves

Our arrival at Kungur was definitely our first real step outside our comfort zone. The local time was 07:46. There was no sign of daylight in the sky. Due to the darkness and the hour (considering we wanted to find and check into the hotel) we decided to hang around in the station waiting room for an hour or so. We plonked ourselves down only to find we were looking at a sea of staring faces. We did manage to attract the attention however of one person. Another drunk. It was about 8am and this guy stunk of vodka. He must have been about our age, and after some drunken ramblings we gathered that his sister was in France, she went to a lot of countries (European air hostess perhaps?) and he was either a student or woodcutter. We were hoping student, as he was either off to drunkenly sit in a class or operate heavy machinery… We escaped to the train station café to get a good old cup of tea to start us off for the day. This was also the café for the dregs who needed their 8am beer before slurring their way out of the train station and heading off to work.

We had instructions to find Hotel Iren; get on bus number one for two stops, get off and it should be there. Armed with these detailed instructions and no map we loaded ourselves onto minibus no 1 (taking up most of the room with all our stuff). We bundled off, much to the relief of the cramped locals, at the second stop. As the bus drove away we both had the rising sense that this was too easy. There was now more light in the sky as Sam and I headed off down the street looking for Hotel Iren. It was a cold wind, snowing and very icy. We walked up and down for a bit, I then went to ask directions and got a short description, which I took to mean ‘down that way and there is a big sign above it’. So with renewed vigour we set off again. To no avail. We then go into the supermarket to ask. I managed to pick the most yokel person; she understood what I said but when she set of with her toothless Russian directions I was totally lost, I understood nothing! Apart from there is a sign above it (made clear by arm waving). We were by this point getting pretty cold and had blue fingers. So Sam left me with the bags in the supermarket and set out down the street again, asking someone else on the way back, with not much luck either. In the end we found a taxi and jumped in. No wonder we couldn’t bloody find it, it was a good couple of km away down a big hill, a few left and rights and there it was (with a small sign next to the door). The next challenge on this day was getting our room for the correct price. The dragon behind the desk was started off charging us R1200 - more expensive than the price list - on the desk - in front of us. So Sam had a moan, more calculator tapping R1280, louder moaning, ‘tap-tap-tap’ R1500!! By this point Sam was blue in the face and was too angry to speak. Eventually we wrestled the price back down to R1040 (which was still R250 more than the price printed directly in front of us, but because this was the only joint in town we had no choice, something she clearly knew) and so we gave her R1020 before walking off with the key and listening out for the soviet tutting and sighing.
Russian hotels, to put it bluntly, are really really crap. We realise that’s a sweeping statement, and I’m sure there are great ones in Moscow and St Petersburg, but the vast majority are rubbish. For a start there is a complete lack of, or care, for customer service. You walk into the reception (same in the shops) and the woman behind the desk will just sit and stare at the computer. They try their hardest to imagine that you are not there… no movement, no blinking - look dead ahead now… if I cant see them then they cant see me! When they do acknowledge you its with a stare and not words. Then there is the pricing, overcharged as foreigners even if the price is written in black and white in front of you and the amount you pay even as a Russian is no way relative to the quality, they are grossly overpriced for what you get. Russian hotels, even if they are empty, will not bargain on price, they would rather the room was empty than offer it at a reduced rate.
Once you have paid you then have the effort of getting the key. If you are lucky the grumpy cow at the reception desk gives it to you, otherwise you are given a small piece of paper which you have to exchange with the floor babushka, another grumpy miserable woman who is the protector of your floor.
Then what really put Russian hotels above all other hotels is the décor. Russian hotel designers really are crazy cats… they manage to pair colours and fabrics that no sane person would ever dare attempt. I can’t really begin to describe the shocking interior of this particular establishment (unfortunately we didn’t take photos) but it involved bright lime green walls, bright red furniture with a really wild leopard skin blanket complete with large picture of a leopard in the middle. Also the amount of static in the place is enough to start an electrical storm. If you were to think of the wildest most disgusting interior design plans gone wrong, then there is probably a hotel in Russia that looks like it.
Staying in hotels in Russia is defiantly an experience.

After catching up on a few Z’s (after our previous sleepless night on the train with stinky guy) we donned the long johns for the first time and head out to check what Kungur was like. It seemed to be market day and the streets were busy with fur-clad locals milling around. The goods on offer were very different to what we had been seeing in Moscow, most stalls were selling old Lada parts, basic foodstuffs or what looked like junk from people’s attics. The town was established as a trading town in the 17th Century and at the time was quite important, with grand wooden buildings. The town now has about 63000 people (Guildford has 66000 apparently) and is quiet with a run down feel to it. It spans a river that was completely frozen over. Although the population is close to Guildford size, the amount of shops and commerce area is much less, and the few shops that were there were not labelled or signed so you had no idea what was about. Our first impressions where what the hell are we doing here in this hick town… we couldn’t find anywhere to eat and the locals seemed a little hostile. Most frustratingly it took ages to find a bar!

Kungur definitely grew on us. After waking up the following morning with a bit of a hangover we showered (last one for three days!) and left our bags at reception. Bus number 9 took us out to the edge of town and the conductor kicked us out in the middle of nowhere, pointing to the other side of the road, which we assumed was where the ice caves must be. A short walk down a hill and we came across hotel stalagmite, a huge communist style monster of a hotel right next to the entrance of the ice caves. We stopped off for a quick cuppa in the deserted hotel (which charges over $200 to stay) before heading off in the direction of the caves. After paying we were taken down into the caves by the site engineer who could speak a small amount of English. The ice crystals were formed by (relatively) warm air coming out of the cave and hitting cool air entering, the formations and shapes were amazing, as was the fact that it doesn’t change all year. The cave also has numerous stalactites and mites made of ice and a large frozen waterfall, all of which remain frozen year round. The cave system was about 10km in total of which we were able to explore about 2km, some on our hands and knees through some tight squeezes! Deeper underground the temperature remained at a constant 9oC with the water forming huge crystal clear lakes, all very beautiful. We were shown a laser show in one of the larger grottos that explained the formation on the ice caves (battle between the god of water and god of the mountain) and its more recent history. After this actually pretty good show we were then proudly introduced to a fully decked out Christmas tree, which had been proudly sitting underground for seven years! Due to the cold and clean air is hadn’t decayed (just gone a sickly pale green and was looking a bit worse for wear).
After our short term as cave dwelling creatures we caught the bus back into town to grab some food before our train at 2am.
In the restaurant/bar that evening Sarah and I discussed many things, one of which being how Russian women don’t seem to drink much and that we hadn’t seen any drunk. Once again we had spoken too soon as we noticed the three mature women on the table behind us were not having a relaxing time drinking mineral water as we had originally thought but were in fact knocking back whole water glasses of vodka. By 17.30 they were so drunk they were missing their mouths and stumbling all over the place. One feature of every Russian restaurant we have been to so far is they all have a dance floor or an area that can be cleaned to act as a dance floor, and some huge speakers with disco lights. Often when we go out to eat we are blasted by stupidly loud awful music. The music usually starts a little later in the evening and always happens regardless of how few people there are and regardless if they clearly want to sit and talk. The women who were blind drunk asked for the music to be turned up to a stupid volume and proceeded to dance some crazy moves up and down between the tables even though there was only us and one other table of people in the room. It was very funny but annoying if you are trying to eat, especially as every two minutes they were trying to get me to dance with them. One of these dancers clearly thought she was a cheerleader or pole dancer as she was gyrating her pelvis all around us, which wasn’t the nicest thing.

After a long wait at the station we boarded our train, unfortunately yet again we were with another person who had clearly drunk far too much. Our tickets were third class as it was only a 10 hour journey; our roomy for this journey truly was the most disgusting person in the world. He was so drunk he couldn’t see and smelt so bad it was unreal. If you imagine the smell you get when you walk past the local village tramp, someone who clearly hasn’t washed in months and really smells like they have soiled themselves then you are halfway there. It was my turn for the bottom bunk and to endure the stench of this vile person. The guy also happened to have some kind of bronchitis or chest problem, so every five minutes he would erupt into fits of hacking and coughing which would blow the most putrid air in our direction. This vile person kept trying to drink, smoked all night despite his obvious health problems and was truly an awful person. We have never been kept up all night just by a smell before so this was a first. It really was another level having to sleep so close to someone that was so disgusting and clearly didn’t care about himself. At one point I was going to throw his shoes out of the window. The stench, the burping, the hacking his diseased air over us, the obscene drunkenness and the smell of his soiled clothes really made it a bad night. At 6am he was still drinking. Fortunately the stop 3 hours before ours was a big city, most of the carriage departed the train so we went and found clean bunks in a nice smelling area.
We had a day in Tuymen, which was ok. Not really much there but we had a chance to stock up on fast food at a KFC type establishment and check out some ice sculptures in the town square. We just wasted time waiting for our train at 20.00.
Fortunately our roommates on the next journey were friendly, clean and sober people. The second day we had the cabin all to ourselves, which was very nice and relaxing. The journey was the longest so far, 46 hours, but the time fly’s’ - games of cards, chess, eating, having a beer, amusing the provodniks with our bad Russian, watching the scenery and reading.

At 22.45 local time, 5 hours ahead of Moscow and 8 hours ahead of London we stepped onto Irkutsk station and breathed in the -16 degree air… ouch!