Venice of the North - St Petersburg

Saturday 24th October
Up at 5 and left the cottage at 6. Surprisingly heavy traffic, light rain but reached T2 for 7:15. Although we had checked in online, KLM have made the mistake of leaving the airport check in robots at the entry to the queues for the baggage drop, so people that hadn't already checked in were obstructing the flow of pre-booked boarding card holders. Once at the baggage drop, though all was very swift. The usually dreary queueing to get through security was remarkably swift and the whole operation very efficiently completed. We found a restaurant and ordered our full English; although we had to wait a bit, when it arrived it was very good but we had to get on with it as by then our flight was starting to board. Fortunately, our gate wasn't far away and we were in the lounge in good time.

We were waiting on the apron for a few minutes as some woman took it into her head to go to the loo as soon as she boarded and we couldn't do the safety demo in her absence which meant in turn that we couldn't start taxiing. Memories of Bangkok sprang to mind! She was duly prised out and off we went, arriving in Amsterdam about 15 minutes late. I was a little concerned about the connection but I needn't have been. The departure gate for our flight to St Petersburg was only a couple of gates further down the pod and had its own security checks, so we were in good time for our flight.

We arrived in St Petersburg, having completed our immigration and customs declarations while on board; I am sure that the lovely lady customs official smirked as she looked at my passport photo – clearly thinking that it didn't bear much resemblance! We went through the red channel but were told that for what we had, we should proceed through the green – fair enough; at least we had volunteered the information and been officially told we didn't need to bother.

Out in the main concourse we found our taxi driver and he helped us with our bags to his car; I had a feeling we were in for an interesting ride as it was a Nissan V6. This proved to be the case and he swiftly carved a way though the traffic into the heart of St Petersburg while making various arrangements on his mobile phone, clamped firmly to his right ear. Of course, being an automatic with power steering (and probably autopilot too) his right hand was strictly speaking not needed although once or twice, I would quite have liked all his brain power being devoted to managing the traffic. I am aware of fairly normal speed limits (60kph in town) being expected in town but it was quite clear that this expectation was not shared by the majority of drivers. We had evidence of a certain disparity of expectation when we came upon a disagreement that had occurred between two drivers now being mediated by police.

Once at the hotel, we checked in and tried to get some cash out of each of the two ATMs in the hotel; the bellhop who accompanied us to the tills went for help but was assured that occasionally the machines ran out of cash – not to worry, our card would not have been debited. We couldn't help being a little concerned – not only had we entered two lots of cash without any return but we were still without any Russian rubles. We couldn't pay for anything in cash.

After depositing our bags and settling in, we went for a walk and stopped off at the first hotel asking to use their ATM fortunately this time it worked! We had a nice walk in the fresh air (4°C) around the block past the St Isaac's Cathedral, up to Nevsky Prospekt, getting a glimpse of the Hermitage all lit up, down Admiralty and much surprised to see a fountain playing before heading back to the hotel.

We decided to eat in the first night. I had Borscht followed by stroganoff, which was truly excellent while Sue had pickled vegetables followed by Salmon en croute with hard boiled egg, which was also very good. Drinks appear to be quite expensive unless you go for local stuff – local wine is about £8 a bottle while others start at around £20 per bottle!! Beer, at the hotel is not cheap either with the local ale at around £4 per pint. Anyway the wine we had was quite good fruity stuff with a bit of punch and some character, unpretentious, rustic and very drinkable.

Having taken our watches forward an hour for Amsterdam and two more for St Petersburg, we had to turn them back an hour before bed as daylight saving comes to an end here as well as at home.

Tranquil canal returning from Mariinski

Sunday 25th October
The room being very warm didn't help with a good nights sleep but managed enough. Up reasonably early and had a continental breakfast in the hotel. Once out made our way to Nevsky Prospekt then across to get a good view of the Hermitage. We retraced our steps back to Nevsky Prospekt and towards the Griboedova Canal, just before which was Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral.

Our Lady of Kazan

There was a service on and the choir produced the most extraordinarily beautiful sound which seemed to go over the heads in every sense of the many people who were visiting visiting, thronging the cathedral. Most people were obviously believers making the sign of the cross several times before solemnly bowing. Leaving aside the level of bling that would make the most insensitive of wags blush, you had to admire the craftsmanship at work and the sheer decorative impact. Llewellyn Bowen eat your heart out!! The other thing that struck us is that churches here have discovered how to heat themselves, which is different to back home.

Bank's Bridge, Gribodoeva Canal

We followed the Griboedeva Canal to Sennaya Ploshchad, passing some lovely footbridges on the way. The Bank Bridge is the narrowest and rather charming, flanked by 4 griffins. The Lion Bridge is surprisingly flanked by 4 lions. Depending on your point of view, Sennaya Ploshchad is lively or rather seedy. We didn't spend much time there as it seemed a bit lively, carrying on along the canal until we reached St Nicholas Cathedral. It is undergoing considerable restoration at the moment, being covered in fabric.

St Nicholas

The bits that you can see look as though Wedgewood had a hand in its design with white reliefs against a blue background. The massive golden globes on top are very eastern. Inside once again, nice and warm and full of iconography.

On leaving we decided it was time for lunch and made our way to Christopher Columbus restaurant, where it is kitted out as a ship inside. We had a splendid meal of thick chicken and turnip soup followed by Pork loin with sauteed potato wedges.

Before returning to the hotel, we had a look in Malaya Morskaya Ulitsa

Tchaiskovski lived here

for 13, where Tchaikovski died, 17 where Gogol lived and 23 where Dostoyevski lived; then crossed the road to the hotel.

Gogol lived here

After a rest, we went to the Mariinski for a performance of Swan Lake.

Outside the Mariinski

I am a complete philistine when it comes to ballet; I just don't get why blokes equipped on their lower half with simply a codpiece and spray-on tights (so that you don't have to work out who is who, white for the goodies and black for the baddies); who walk with their toes stuck to the floor then prance about as though they have been stung by a bee while showing a degree of cleavage that a builder wouldn't dream of, should appear so fascinating.

View of the stage from our box

Having said that , you have to admire the stamina, athletic prowess, control and sheer physical strength of all the dancers; the leading lady was very tall and stick thin but she must have weighed 8.5 stones and the blokes were lifting her with no apparent effort at all. Very impressive. The leading man appeared to be a bit simple; he was given a loaded crossbow and started prancing around with it; I suppose I should credit him with working out which is the sharp end but I was always taught not to wave a loaded weapon about.

Sue in our box, Royal Box in the background

Continuity had a bad evening too; in a solo dance with music provided by a trumpet solo the dancer was waving a stringless lute about – I couldn't work out where that was coming from. Another thing I didn't get was after every dance, the dancers would stop and milk applause and after each act, larger and larger bouquets were delivered to the leading players. The final bouquet for the leading lady required two men to bring it on, so I imagine it must have been about 17 stones. The applause after the final curtain went on for some time I have often wondered the etymology of the expression 'clapped out' – now I know!

Final Curtain, Swan Lake

The theatre oozes a sense of history with every fibre of its existence and is so intimate that you can't help but be involved. The royal box is suitably aloof and appropriate filled with the power of the future; a number of Chinese. The stage is absolutely huge, necessary for some of the routines but not intimidating. Despite the lack of apparent appreciation, I did enjoy the spectacle and would not have missed it for the world; Sue thoroughly enjoyed it.

We clocked up 8.13 Kilometres today!

Monday 26th October
Had a better night having worked out how the air conditioning works – you switch off the fan, turn off the radiator and open the window for half an hour. This cooled the room enough for it to be comfortable to sleep in! We were not in too much of a hurry to go out as it had been raining steadily for some hours and no immediate likelihood of stopping.

Church on Spilled Blood

But up reasonably early and down to breakfast at 9:30. We had a very good, healthy breakfast that left us replete and ready to face the day – and we needed to be. We got ready for the day with full waterproofs and sallied forth – to find that the rain had just about stopped. We found the siege plaque in Nevski Prospekt and I don't know why we found it so unremarkable bearing in mind its message – 'citizens, this side of the street is more dangerous during an artillery bombardment' was simply a reminder put up during the siege of Leningrad during the 2nd World war.

Church on spilled blood

We made for the Church built on spilled blood, erected on the spot Alexander II was murdered in 1881. It had apparently been allowed to fall into disrepair but has been restored in the last 20 years or so. They have certainly done a good job; both interior and exterior are simply stunning and at least to western eyes so unusual architecturally and vibrant.

Having filled our eyes and minds there we walked across the Field of Mars, where we saw the eternal flame burning brightly before crossing over the Neva by Trinity Bridge and turning right to walk along the waterfront to see Peter The Great's Hut (which was closed, but we hope to see it tomorrow), guarded by the Manchurian Lions, then on to the Cruiser Aurora which fired the signal that started the storming of the Winter Palace in 1917. The Aurora is now a museum but we decided instead to go on to the Peter & Paul Fortress and look around there. The fortress was the first set of buildings in the Tsar's new capital and although originally designed for defence against the Swedes, was never used for that purpose – instead it served as a prison and torture chamber and had several notable people incarcerated within its walls; the Tsar's own rebellious son Alexei! Dostoyevski and Trotsky were among other notable inmates.

Church of Sts Peter & Paul, Peter & Paul Fortress

The Sts. Peter & Paul Cathedral is in the centre of the fortress and is yet another exquisitely beautiful building, inside and out. The interior decoration is much more restrained and at least to my eye, rather more beautiful than many of the other blingy interiors we have seen.

Our legs were beginning to feel the effects of the distance we had travelled by now but we steeled ourselves for the walk back to the hotel past the Rostral Columns on Vasilevskiy Island. While peering along the vast width of the Neva at this point we noticed a huge streeeeetch limo pull up and a bride and groom got out. Immediately afterwards, a bus pulled up with a load of guests who piled out. Quite a number were holding glasses of bubbly.

The wedding party, scruffy photographer with regulation black leather jacket

Photos were to be taken around the column and a couple of white doves released by the couple. Everyone was in a good mood, fuelled by quite a number of bottles of bubbly that someone had thoughtfully provided. It was a privilege to be a bystander at this and I managed to capture the release of the doves. We wish them every happiness. Onward and across the Dvortsovy Bridge back to the mainland, through the Admiralty Gardens and to our hotel. An exhausting an exhilarating day.

10.24 kilometres today.

written by

rickandsuejohnson on October 26, 2009 from Saint Petersburg, Russia

from the travel blog: Venice of the North - St Petersburg

Send a Compliment

1 comment...

Before going anywhere it is a good principle to research the area and what to see. Guide books are good for this of course but we found in addition an excellent website with lots of good ideas, pictures, a virtual tour and information – www.saint-petersburg.com

Getting to Saint-Petersburg in the first place required a leap of faith;you had to book your accommodation first (checking that they have 'visa support', which effectively means that they provide documentation to confirm that you are invited to Russia and have a place to stay). Once you have the two items of confirmation that are required you apply for a visa. The form that you fill out is very bureaucratic and complex to complete; we found that the Russian Embassy website less helpful than a couple of others in giving guidance as to how to complete the form. It is worth spending some time researching other websites to give you additional information on how to complete various parts of the form.

While on the flight to St P, migration forms are handed out and declaration forms too, if needed. It is worth researching these for guidance on how to to complete them; we took copy examples to help us complete the forms on the flight. The site above is a good source. We read that if you didn't declare something on the way in, it could be confiscated on the way out, so we declared laptop, mobile phones etc and went through the red channel (appropriate really). However, the customs officer said we didn't need to declare these and should proceed through the green channel!

When I was first out on the road in sales, my first lesson from an old hand was – the most important thing is to find out where the toilets are on the patch and then the telephones. It was good advice then and although the mobile phone has arrived recently, the first part remains invaluable in any new environment. Saint-Petersburg does not have large numbers of public conveniences and cafes and hotels may be a bit sniffy about you walking in from the street just for the loo. It is worthwhile learning to recognise ТУАЛЕТ – 'too-alyet' – to be able to recognise when there are any, though usually there is also a 'WC' sign if less prominent. All the public toilets we discovered charged for entry; usually about 20 rubles (80p). We discovered toilets at:
South of gardens of Saint Nicholas Cathedral
At the end of the square opposite the Mariinski Theatre
On main road west of Church on Spilled Blood (movable)
In Gardens North of St Isaac's Cathedral
Outside Hermitage (moveable) and several inside
Ladies in particular (though it would also apply to men) might like to note that toilet paper is required to be placed in a bin beside the toilet rather than in the pan in public toilets.

We gathered that tipping taxis and restaurants is common and when we asked the concierge if the private tours that we had arranged through and paid the hotel for whether a tip would be expected as well we were told that if we liked the service we could pay a tip but if not, we were not obliged. In other words – yes a tip is expected. We never did work out what exactly was expected though at one restaurant, it showed a 10% gratuity would be expected, so roughly what you may pay on the continent.

Food in the Hermitage Cafe is good value but you must have cash to pay for it – cards are not accepted.

Supermarkets or grocery shops in the city centre we found hard to spot. It was easier once we worked out that they are often in basement or semi-basement positions like the one underneath the building next door to our hotel. It was a useful and cheap place to get water and supplies for the day and was open from about 8 in the morning till late at night.

We don't often stay in hotels and rarely in 4 star when we do, so it may be commonplace anyway but the hotels we saw near ours all appeared to have a very active conciergerie who will make any arrangements that you require, booking restaurants, shows, taxis or tours, which certainly makes life a lot easier when you can't speak much of the language. Their rates, at least at our hotel appeared to be competitive, although it has to be acknowledged that we didn't do any more than a quick comparison and concluded that they weren't far off the mark. It should be borne in mind that there appear to be different rates for Russians and foreigners for a number of things like theatre and palace visits. In the case of Peterhof, you apparently can't get in as an unaccompanied non-Russian until 4pm, with closing at 5pm.

In a number of the palaces, overcoats and large bags have to be left in a cloakroom by the entrance and while most will allow photography in most places, you need pay for a photography ticket (often 200 rubles (ca £4)) and pay attention to any signs as sometimes, despite the photography ticket a single room will be forbidden to any photography.

Saint-Petersburg apparently used to be one of the crime centres of Russia in the 1990's. While this has apparently largely evaporated and there was no obvious evidence of any to us, it was notable that there are significant numbers of security guards at hotels and public buildings. There were also higher levels of obvious policing than we would normally expect in a city centre.

Being a relatively young city I guess that it grew as a planned development rather than the more haphazard way many older places grew. Being intended from the outset as the Capital would also account for wider main streets. Nevsky Prospekt, the Oxford Street equivalent has 3 lanes in each direction and traffic flows very quickly most of the time; I reckon it was not uncommon for vehicles to be doing 50 or 60 mph. However, we noticed that it seemed a very pedestrian friendly place with pedestrian crossings respected, unlike Paris, where you become a target. We mentioned this to Irena and she chucked and said that this is a very recent innovation as the law was only passed 2 weeks before! Irena also said that traffic was unpredictable and the city was prone to gridlock for no obvious reason at all; we experienced this first hand on our return from Peterhof at 2pm on a Wednesday.

It was interesting to note that cars constructed up to about 2000 are fairly modest affairs. Most of the newer vehicles are big cars usually with big engines. The current fashion appears to be the Chelsea tractor; a large engined (often pseudo) 4x4 with huge numbers of these pounding the streets. I suppose these are necessary items to get to their dacha at weekends. I wonder how they managed before?

We also noticed that Russian bureaucracy doesn't run to leaving signs in roadworks to warn motorists of raised ironwork – it is pretty self-evident or to pedestrians to warn them not to trip over the uneven surface. There were no signs warning of an uneven paving slabs on footpaths or even cordoned off areas awaiting treatment. Pretty refreshing really being required to use intelligence instead of being nannied all the time. Either the average Russian is more intelligent than us or the state thinks that people should use their common sense and faculties to keep themselves safe – a very dangerous concept that could seriously reduce bureaucratic jobs if it caught on here.

Roofs to deal with snow outside our hotel room

Huge downpipe

Talking of health and safety, the huge downpipes from all buildings are needed to cope with the huge amount of water, snow and ice that comes down during the melt. Most roofs had a V-shaped strip to channel melt as it slipped down the roof and very many appeared to have a fence along the roof too, to prevent a ton of snow falling on passers by. The benefit of the V strip is that it kept water well away from the edge of the roof and so reduced the amount of icicles that form there. We were told that sadly, there are a couple of fatal accidents each year as a result of falling icicles, usually children.

Venice of the North? Venice was founded around 800 AD, although some of the other islands in the lagoon were colonised from around 600 AD. It became a republic in around 1200 and grew rich in the next 500 years, based on successful merchants monopolising the eastern Mediterranean trade routes and becoming a city state and independent nation. It had become somewhat overblown by the time Napoleon marched in, determined to cut the decadent fat cat down to size. Venice capitulated rather than fight for its continued independence. Napoleon started the city's 150 year decline into oblivion. The faded former elegance was what appealed to the romantics and they in turn probably unwittingly kick started its slow renaissance. The ongoing work to turn back the clock is at once worthy and probably Canutish. To walk through the city is to sense the layers of history permeating its core. The canals have carried all the trade on which the city was based for over a millennium and still do. Venice without its canals would not be Venice.

Saint Petersburg was founded in 1703 by an absolute monarch initially to provide a defence against Sweden and by 1712, it was made the capital of Russia by which time the threat had largely dissipated. The city was built by conscripted serfs from all over Russia and by Swedish prisoners of war, who all died in vast numbers, many of them from falling masonry apparently. This being where the court was, all the noble families built residences to reflect their status and wealth. The royal family itself appears to have had some problems with staying put and each built their own particular palace to reflect their own style, so there are no fewer than 6 in the area. When under threat by a warring army, the city did not capitulate and paid a huge penalty for it. The courage and determination of the residents is a lesson to all. There is an energy and dynamism in the city now that promises well for the future. The canals appear largely tranquil except for the huge number of tourist trips and provide a pleasant scenery and a convenient way to drain the land. The canals serve to divide up the city into areas but have little or no effect on traffic which flows considerably faster. Like the Italians, Russian drivers have a foot down mentality, even in built up areas, but in Saint Petersburg, they have free rein. Saint Petersburg would be diminished without its canals but it would still be Saint Petersburg.

So, Venice was built over a millennium on trade by a republic. Saint Petersburg was built over 200 years at the whim of an autocratic, if far sighted monarch and by his wealthy court. Both are sites of extraordinary architectural and cultural significance and both have problems with flooding. I think Venice is unique, so is Saint Petersburg. There is little they have in common other than a lot of water and a lot of glorious architecture. If I had to vote for a Venice of the North, it would be Bruges, with which it has more in common.

written by

rickandsuejohnson on November 14, 2009 from Saint Petersburg, Russia

from the travel blog: Venice of the North - St Petersburg

Send a Compliment

comment on this...

Venice of the North - St Petersburg

a travel blog by rickandsuejohnson

Getting ready

Shrewsbury, United Kingdom

Churches, bridges and men in tights.

Saint Petersburg, Russia

The Hermitage no self-respecting hermit would contemplate

Saint Petersburg, Russia

The City and beyond

Saint Petersburg, Russia

From the plushness of Puskin to the heights of St Isaac's and shopping at Gostinyy Dvor

Saint Petersburg, Russia

Last day in Saint P, a sub zero sunny day and a hidden jewel

Saint Petersburg, Russia

Reflections

Saint Petersburg, Russia