From the moment we arrived in Yekaterinburg, Russia, I had the song "The Cold Part" by Modest Mouse playing in my head, which is a dark and desolate song that sings "so long to this cold, cold part of the world". I don't think the city is as cold and dark as I chose to display in the video, but I do think the video fits with the soundtrack that was playing in my head at the time.

The scenes at the end are from our homestay in Yaketerinburg. We stayed with a local named Eleana for two nights in former Communist housing blocks. She was nice, but was caring for a friend who was sick at the time and we have both become ill after staying with her. The housing was warm on the inside, scary on the outside.

Yakaterinburg is famous for the deaths of the last czarist family in Russia, the Romanovs, who were killed in a cellar in the city by the Communist Revolutionaries as a symbol of the end of their imperial rule. A sad and controversial story.

Yekaterineburg is at the imaginary border between Asia (and Siberia) and Europe, so the song even fit as we left...

so long to this cold, cold part of the world