Day 22: Saint Petersburg

We finally arrive in St. Petersburg after what can only be considered a hot and horrible train ride. It makes us wish we did what the Chileans had done (which was take the bullet train between the cities, during the day). Oh well, at least this time our driver was present and waiting for us on the platform. The walk from the train and its platform to the station seemed to drag on and on. The train had at least 20+ carriages on it, and we were at the far end 😦 Once we do make it to the station it is only a very short walk for us to get to the car. Things then became even more un-dramatic as we are driven to our hotel – the distance is less than what we walked from our carriage to the strain station. At least we were able to get there in one piece in our sleep deprived state. We get into the room and crash.

Around 9 or so we wake up and head down to meet our guide who is to give us the lowdown of this city. Immediate difference from Moscow is that her English is rather good and she just seems a bit more relaxed and friendly.

We had heard that St. Petersburg was a beautiful city, especially when compared to Moscow, and we weren’t disappointed. You would turn a corner and lo and behold there would be one VERY nice building there. Why? Well why not! The Czars spared no expense when it came to this city it seemed. Buildings are covered in intricate carvings and painted in different colors –  all of which seemed to match. The amount of history within these buildings was also amazing – if only they had ears and a mouth to tell their stories. Many of the buildings we saw didn’t have the same communist feel as the ones in Moscow did, but instead felt a lot more like the rest of Europe.

Yep, just another normal street.

And this one is red to balance out the pallet of the one next to it we are certain.

During the communist rule the buildings were never destroyed, even religious ones – that would be wasteful after all. Instead they were repurposed and turned into places for the public good. We learned that one church was converted into an indoor skating rink and that one Lutheran church was turned into a swimming pool. Apparently at the right time you can go into that church and still smell chlorine (or the ghost of chlorine past?).

But presence from the communist era wasn’t nearly as prevalent as it was in Moscow. There was little communist iconography present and we never saw a hammer or sickle. The bridges here were instead ordained in decoration that showed the might of the oceans and their gods.

The building below is actually store that sold overpriced, yet lovely looking food.

The window display of the store. The inside was gorgeous – however photos were only allowed if you bought over a specific ruble figure.

Catherine the Great (and her minions)

Also Catherine the Great… there seemed to be a few of them in town.

Not an add for fast food, but instead one of the local statues, as denoted by the tiny cat on the platform. It is said if you can toss a coin up there and it stays you get your wish granted. It didn’t stick for us when we tried.

More fun statues. The wear patterns are interesting. It doesn’t matter what the statue is, but animals have the highest wear.

So back to the buildings – I know! It needs more statue!

As our guide continued our tour we started to get a bit peckish. She first brought us into a chocolatier where we had the issue of having too much choice. So in a hungry and confused state we then visited a nearby store which sold this delightful snack. It is walnuts on a string, covered in a semi-sweet gummy thing. They were really good! Thank you Armenian food!

I forgot to mention this store was up a tiny alleyway, and this church was at the end of the alley.

And we then wandered by another palace, which has now been converted to a museum. Catherine the Great was here too.

One of the highlights on the walk was this place: the Church of the Spilled Blood. Like anything in this city, there is a story behind it. In this case one of the Czars was the result of an assassination attempt involving a bomb going off under his horse drawn carriage. It went off and he was ‘mortally wounded’. So mortal was his wound that he survived and ordered an altar to be build around the location where his blood was spilled, and for a church to be built around it. Since the attack occurred along one of the canals, in order to accommodate for the structure, the canal had to be shrunk and permanently has this large square jutting out into it.

We skipped going in for the sake of timing, but were told we should return to see the mosaics inside. As we continued we passed this place, the former headquarters for the Singer Sewing Company. It still has the Singer café on the ground floor. The background of this building was that Singer was one of the first foreign companies to enter Russia, made rarer still by making a large headquarters here .

The Singer building, with a church off in the background.

And this church also had special significance, as it is the place where all the Romanoff icons are stored (the bodies are kept elsewhere). Also – this is the place where that delicious recipe comes from.

We only went in briefly, but wanted to return another day. The inside is what can only be described as take the grandeur of a catholic church, get rid of the gold and then mix in some Russian Orthodox. The inside was absolutely stunning.

Saint Issac’s Cathedral (the 4th largest domed church in the world).

This does help put it into perspective – slightly.

And here is one of the scars from the siege of St. Petersburg, which is more commonly known as World War 2. The kept the shell impact markings on most of the buildings to serve as a reminder.

Us with our guide and Saint Isaac’s in the background. She was amazing and we learned so much from her about the city and regular living. We talked about mundane aspects of life to see how different things were when compared to home. The big difference – house prices and size. She recently put a down payment towards a bachelor apartment which cost about double what our entire house is worth.

Even though our tour was officially over and our guide had to get home for a water delivery*, she still directed (and then led) us to her favorite restaurant in town. It was run by the Hare Krishnas and had some delicious food (mostly lentils and other things we would typically have at home). After a delicious meal we then headed back to the hotel to get some much needed sleep, as we were dragging our butts. And they did drag – we woke up in time for a late dinner. We had looked up a Georgian restaurant that looked interesting and hoped to go there for dinner (a co-worker of mine raved about Georgian food, so we had to have it while here).

One of the many places we passed. By now we’ve figured out how to do some basic reading of Cyrillic. This is Subway (in this case the branding helps significantly)

Normally Alicia is on the ball for directions, however tonight was not one of those nights. She leads us in the completely opposite direction of where we want to go. An hour or so into our nice wandering walk in the rain we decide we should not be picky and just eat anything before they all close down, as it is nearing 10pm. Not that you could tell based on the sun, since it was still sunny around this time (go northern cities in the summer). We get back closer to the hotel and find a cafeteria-style place that is still open and have a surprisingly good meal. We manage to leave the restaurant after a major downpour and make it back to the hotel without getting too wet. Not bad for over 3 weeks of travel for us to experience our first real bit of rain! We make our way back to the room and continuing doing what we had practiced all day for – more sleep.

* why water delivery? So there turns out there is a consequence for building a city on several rivers and a swamp using poor water management systems. The local water that comes from the taps is completely undrinkable. It can be boiled and then drank, but not doing so risks giardia and many other water-borne illnesses. Amazingly this is the first place on the trip where we couldn’t just drink the local tap water.