For something away from the city and closer to nature, do take the opportunity to visit Ganina Yama when  you are in Yekaterinburg. I don’t know the specifics of taking public transport to this place as I was lucky enough to be driven by my host’s mother to this place for a short sightseeing tour. It was funny how we communicated because she could speak some English words and I tried to guess the meaning when she spoke Russian. We had a fun day trip together and she even brought me to her sister’s place for tea as she had to help her water the plants as well.

Ganina Yama, also known as Ganya’s pit, is an abandoned 9 feet deep mine located approximately 17 kilometers north from the city of Yekaterinburg. Ganina Yama is one of Russia’s most sacred places, as it carries the mournful history the last emperor of Russia Tsar Nicholas II & his whole family.

During the dark summer of 1918, the last emperor Tsar Nicholas II and his whole family were murdered, and their bodies were secretly transported to Ganina Yama and thrown into this pit, and was subsequently cremated.

Only after 61 years later, on the 29th of May 1979, where this sacred burial place was discovered by geologists. The royal family had been canonized, and the grounds of Ganina Yama had been dedicated in honor of the last Russian emperor Tsar Nicholas II. Seven Chapels of various architectural design features were later constructed in this compound, each chapel representing every member of the royal family.

Within the compounds of Ganina Yama, there are various statues of the Tsar, as well as exhibition pictures of Tsar Nicholas II & his family’s lives as royals during his reign up till his imprisonment by the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg.