St. Petersburg - Russian History 101

From Helsinki we started on one of the most interesting, exciting and unique legs of our journey – Russia, Mongolia and China.  Our plan centered around the Trans-Mongolian (a.k.a. Trans-Siberian) railroad from St. Petersburg, Russia to Beijing (Peking), China with stops in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk (Lake Baikal) and Ulan Bator (Mongolia).  We would be traveling by train for 28 days while covering roughly 8,600 kilometers and five time zones. Passing across the Urals, Siberia and the Gobi Desert, the train followed one of the classic historical routes from Europe to Asia.



After answering some fun questions on the immigration forms, including: Have you ever worked for a nuclear weapons facility?  Have you ever been charged with espionage?  Are you trained in explosive materials? (seriously who would answer yes to any of these?), we arrived in St. Petersburg.  We stayed at a small hostel run by an Australian guy, Richard, who moved to Russia five years ago.  He does not speak Russian but teaches English, races his motorcycle with local Russians at night, and had no idea how to start his kitchen oven (after sticking his head in, priming it and using his lighter for the flame, he figured it out though!) All around a fun guy and a great host.  He even tried to help us register our stay with the Russian government, although that ended up being trickier than we expected (it took 4 days to eventually get it).  Russian laws can change monthly, and the requirement that all visitors register not only changes often but is one of those laws that everyone seems to bend to their situation. This didn’t stop us from exploring St. Petersburg though.

The next day we headed off to Peterhof, the palace of Peter the Great, founder of St. Petersburg and generally ruthless leader.  Relying on public transportation, we took the metro and jumped into a minibus for just 60 Rupels per person ($2) for a 45 minute drive.  Private minibuses (or minibi?) are the locals’ transport, run just about anywhere and are fun to take since you get to interact with locals (or rather they get to laugh at the silly tourist who doesn’t really know where/when to get off, not that that happened to us)… At Peterhof the main attractions are its fountains and parks (huge, grounds taking 4-5 hours to walk) and luckily we had fantastic weather for seeing it at its best.  Strangely enough we also saw oodles of Russia women posing for pictures with over-the-top dramatics and sexiness (even with their kids) unlike the friendly smile you would expect from American/European pictures.  Our host in Moscow later explained it’s largely because Russian women look to models and magazines as the image of beauty, and so want to emulate them.

On Thursday we were off with public transport to Katarine’s Palace in Pushkin (the palace of Katherine the Great). After waiting in line for an hour we entered the palace and were bombarded with the opulence of the late Tzars.  Opulence is the key word; because, while the rooms were stuffed with gold brocade furniture and gold paneling, door frames, light fixtures, etc., it struck us as severely monotone without much thought for creating a comfortable and real residence that was reflective of Russian culture (compared to say the Scottish castles, the Alhambra or the palaces of Rajasthan India).  Although the Amber Room that had just recently been reconstructed, was amazing. However, such ridiculous and pointless extravagance must have helped bring about the Tzars’ fall, just like Versailles helped propel that fate in France.

That night we went out with our host, two other guests from Lithuania and two of Richard’s Russian friends.  We learned a few things about Russia that evening, including when and how to bribe Russian police, the go-to Russian holiday spots (e.g., Egypt, Greece and Turkey) and further mind-boggling confirmation that Russian women love high heels (think face-plant high heels) and miniskirt fashion, even in the dead of winter (Jazz = popsicle, if she had to wear a miniskirt during a Russian winter).

Our last day was spent enjoying the city with a grand walking tour of St. Petersburg. We started off along Nevsky Prospekt, the main shopping and walking street, and made our way to The Russian Museum (of Art). We purposefully did not go to the Hermitage (one of the world’s greatest museums) because we are familiar with European art, while the majority of artists and artwork inside the Russian Museum are unknown and / or has hardly ever been exhibited outside of Russia.  The visit turned out to be amazing, with artwork that gave us a unique perspective of Russian culture.  Each of us had a favorite; Lee liked “The Wave”, a foreboding painting depicting a ship wreck, while Jazz enjoyed “The Bath House” and “A Warrior on the Crossroads” (these topped the list for Lee as well).  From there we walked by the Blood Cathedral, stopped to join two weddings (including watching doves set free and a groom carrying his bride across a bridge for good luck), continued on to the Eternal Flame and then across the river to the St. Peter and Paul Fortress.






After a quick coffee break, we continued on our sore feet back across the river and through the city parks running north from the Hermitage along the river. After our epic seven hour walk we had a quick dinner, followed by packing before catching our midnight train from St. Petersburg to Moscow.  This would be the first leg of our Trans-Siberian journey and we were definitely excited.  Next up: Moscow – Red Square, Kremlin and more.

Tip: Check out the rest of our photos on Flickr, as there are a lot of good ones from Russia that we have not included in the post.