We had organised our TransSiberian trip to Russia through a tourist agency in Melbourne as they looked the best and had the domain www.transsiberian.com.au (so now you all know who to use too!) They had organised people to pick us up and give us an orientation tour, a place to stay, all the train tickets and all the paperwork for the Visa required as you can’t get in without an invitation. We landed in St Petersburg unsure of what kind of security we would find waiting for us or even if they would let us in, but as it so happened with a quick stamp of the passport and a ‘nothing to declare?’ we were through onto Russian soil.
We found a man holding a sheet with SZEMIS written on it (YAY!!) and met our guide, Sergey. Our first Russian, born and bred, and he spoke the most beautiful English I have heard on this trip so far. As he drove us to our accommodation he told us the history of St Petersburg and showed us lots of the sights along the way, very proudly pointing out the parts that make the city the ‘pearl of Russia’.
We pulled up to our accommodation and found ourselves outside an apartment block. I had read, many times, and Sergey did keep on saying it, we were staying in a home-stay. For some reason I was expecting a hotel but no, we were going to be staying with someone, in someone’s house, someone we didn’t know. Another first and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. We were taken upstairs in an elevator that was an add on, built onto the side of the building, that was made of wood and probably the scariest elevator I’ve ever been in, to meet an absolutely gorgeous lady named Margaret who would be our host for the next few days. She showed us to our room, which was equipped with everything one could possibly need, and we quickly settled in, relieved to find such a nice host and such a nice place.
Things became more interesting when Sergey left and we found out that Margaret didn’t speak any English at all. But as she was talking, to my delight, we found that Andrew could understand a few of the words that were the same in Polish! So when Margaret spoke Andrew would hear ‘blah blah time blah blah blah departing blah blah’ and put together that she wanted to know what time our train was departing. It made things a LOT easier.
So we were settled in, went out for dinner where I had real Russian Beef Stroganoff, and after all that traveling had a really good sleep.
The next morning Margaret woke us up with the smell of her delicious pancakes and Sergey came to pick us up for our orientation tour of St Petersburg. But before I could walk out the door Margaret saw I wasn’t wearing a coat and after finding out I didn’t have one with me she rushed off to her room and brought out a warm coat for me to wear. It was a little large and very red, but was so sweet of her to lend it to me and I was so grateful for it when I stepped out the door as it was quite chilly that day.
For a city that is only 300 years old St Petersburg has a ridiculous quantity of history. Sergey took us everywhere and barely stopped his monologue about the history of this building and that cathedral and those ships and that palace and that palace and that palace, there are seriously a lot of palaces. Everything was so interesting and so beautiful that the time went very quickly.
He showed us the battleship Aerora, one of the few that survived the war and is now docked as a museum in the harbour that has the most powerful cannon in the world, where one blank shot began the revolutions;
the main Russian Orthodox cathedral that never closed down even through communistic rule and which I had to wear a head scarf to enter;
the cathedral where the gates are made of real Turkish cannons, barrel down and chained together to show that they will never fire again;
the “Big House”, former headquarters of the KGB and current headquarters of the FSC;
and to St Isaacs, the third largest domed cathedral in the world where the dome is covered in sheets of pure gold.
By the time we said goodbye we had been given a wealth of historical knowledge and we were more than ready to explore the city in more detail on our own.
So we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring and then in the evening we went to a Russian Folk Show at the stunning Nickolav Palace. The show was a demonstration of Russian singing, dancing and acrobatics, which was absolutely stunning. Very tourist but very worthwhile. Andrew especially enjoyed the caviar toasts that they served in the break.
To anyone who is scared to visit Russia – don’t be! I had my doubts and even had a sore shoulder from gripping my bag so tight that first day in fear I would be pick pocketed. Sure, you have to be wise, as you would in any city, but to be honest the fear isn’t a reality.
St Petersburg impressed me. For starters I felt like a bum in my sneakers as all around me the women looked amazing, dressed smart, all in ridiculously high heels and so fashionable I would have fitted in perfectly with my leather jacket and ankle boots that I’d sent back to Australia. Then the metro was incredibly deep as it runs under the main river so that the escalator that takes you down to the station took 2mins 45seconds to get from the top to the bottom that you couldn’t see for half the ride. And the traffic lights all have a countdown timer on them so you know how long you have to cross the street before the light turns red!
But more than that it was the atmosphere that really sucked me in. Walking around, without the hordes of tourists, enjoying the beauty of every streetscape; basking in the sun in a square outside the winter palace while watching the locals play roller hockey;
seeing the statue of Lenin that the locals nickname ‘ Lenin hailing a cab’ or ‘Lenin belly dancing’ and watching the locals skateboard in front of it, how times change;
checking out the Leningrad War Memorial where a group of cadets were learning their ceremonial drills;
grimacing in shock as old tanned men in little blue speedo’s sunbaked and swam in the MAIN river next to the St Peter & Paul Fortress;
laughing at the walkthrough McDonalds and couldn’t believe the massive billboards depicting Sony, Samsung, Mercedes, Nike etc.
The view of Russia that I always have had depicted to me may have been real at one time, but it’s definitely a thing of the past.
Andrew asked me what I thought was the difference between here and any other city in Europe to which, after thinking for a while, I replied ‘the Cyrillic writing everywhere’. At least that’s what it’s like in St Petersburg. But despite the commercialisation there still remains a unique vibe and beauty to the city that makes it one of my favourite cities in the world. It’s hard to describe, you’re just going to have to go see it for yourself.
On our final evening we said goodbye to our beautiful host and caught the overnight train to Moscow, our first train of many in the great journey to cross the largest country on earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment