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Published: March 11th 2007
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Winter Palace in the snow
And me trying out for the ballet! After all the hype in the last blog entry our train from Moscow was brilliant, we must have had our fingers burnt by the trans Siberian where the people in third class were alcoholic gold toothed skinheads! The train to St Petersburg was full of families and middle aged couples. We had a group of Russian uni graduates next to us who could speak English so we winded up chatting away having a few jars and asking heaps about Russia. The beds were far too short for me but we had a decent night’s sleep and all for 12 pounds so not bad at all.
We arranged to meet up in St Petersburg with one of the blokes from the train the next day which turned out to be really disappointing. We were expecting to meet up at some places off the beaten track but he arranged to meet up with us at a random Irish pub where it was 4 pounds a pint (In an ordinary bar in Russia its more like fifty pence) and he ordered a few jars for himself but when the bill came he explained he only had a pound and that he had no
more money!!!! When we explained that we were traveling and watching our pennies he asked about the cost of our hostel and took the attitude that we were wadded westerners who could bank roll his night. So we were really downhearted by that as we had expected a good night.
Although that incident put a dampener on the start of the visit we loved our stay in St Petersburg. Our hostel was right next door to the Winter Palace and right in amongst it all, the temp increased to a reasonable -5c so we were able to get about and wander around the city. The city is unbelievable in terms of its architecture it’s definitely the most stunning city we have been to so far. The snow and iced over rivers added to the atmosphere so we have a great few days exploring.
We had one night where it snowed and the flakes were huge! I wasn't too cold and hardly anyone was about so we just messed out around town, it was one of the best evenings so far.
Unexpectedly, as we are not huge art coinsures, we loved the Hermitage in the Winter Palace. We
visited twice to see the same paintings we enjoyed it that much, it’s the first time we have ever seen any of the big names artists work such as Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Rembrandt, and it was so inspirational. We really liked the works of Rockwell Kent he had visited Patagonia and did some really cool landscapes which reminded us South America. Clare even bought a book about some of the exhibitions so that shows how much fun we had. The Hermitage is in the Winter Palace which was a highlight in its self thought it only really showed how much the Tsars "pimped" it up, there was a gold room , you can imagine, and others of equal opulence the love of gold obviously has a history in Russia! The added bonus of the Hermitage is that we got in for free with our expired student cards twice!
As we are both pretty big history geeks we booked a walking tour about the October revolution (when the Bolsheviks seized power). The bloke who did the tour turned out to be a big stoner who had just got back the previous day from a month eating hash with Buddhist
monks in India, not bad work if you can get it. He was a lovely bloke but he kept forgetting names etc and I think he was happy just to talk to us rather than do the tour. So we didn't learn much about the revolution but we had some good chats about Russia now and the mess up it is becoming. One example of this is the coming election where the police arrested the bloke who was funding the only real opposition for no apparent reason and a few days after we left people who were peacefully protesting about the current government were manhandled off the streets. We had read a lot of bad things about here before we came and most appear to be true. Corruption is rife men have to spend a year in the army and the most popular job is a traffic officer as they never give people points for speeding the just ask for a bribe and its all good. The bribe is not set too so they reduce it or increase it based on your ability to pay so even the bloke in a Lada can pay his way out of trouble!
The river Neva iced up!
Still had to give it a kick to see what would happen though! We have loved our trip to Russia as equally as the place has frustrated us, it’s just so intriguing as everyone looks like us but act so differently and have polar attitudes to ours.
Next up we are heading through the Baltic's to Poland, the original plan was to head through Belarus but they have changed there visa regulations so that you need an original invitation letter( I.e. not bought off the internet and scanned to you as per the Russian invitation letter)!
Hope you are all well
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