Advertisement
Published: August 8th 2008
Edit Blog Post
St. Petersburg, Russia 08-08-08:
We arrived very early yesterday morning, by overnight bus from Riga, Latvia. The first Thursday of every month is free admission to the Hermitage, one of the top museums in the world, so even though we were tired, we couldn't pass up the opportunity. To say the Hermitage is a museum is a bit of an understatement. It was the Czars' palace, and is a huge and beautiful building with many works of art of all types. It would take several days to truly do it justice. There are several rooms just dedicated to Cezanne, several more to Van Gogh, a couple for Monet, Picasso, all the big names. Erin loved the Degas rooms. And there is a lot of ancient art, from all over the world as well. Statues, coins, pottery. Plus hundreds, if not thousands, of tapestries. In all, it contains several million works of art, and they say if you spend one minute looking at each one, it will take you 5 years to go through the museum. The palace itself is just as impressive, with marble and gold everywhere you turn.
Then we walked along Nevski Prospect, St. Petersburg's main thouroughfare, and
arrived at a huge church with many domes. This beautiful building was used during the Soviet period to store potatoes!
It is a very large city, with many beautiful buildings, museums, fountains and wonderful city parks. But we somehow found Riga to be more charming. Maybe because it was smaller, more quaint. I never liked huge cities...
As far as the people, there were many warnings before we came here, including the guidebooks. We were warned about corrupt police who stop you and ask for bribes, mafia, young thugs who pick on foreigners, pickpockets, drunks... We have been careful, but (so far) have felt safe, and haven't encountered any of these things. People haven't been especially friendly, but we haven't experienced anything like the level of rudeness I ecountered in Ukraine a couple years ago. Nobody has yelled at us, except a cleaning lady in our hostel when Erin tried to enter the bathroom while she was mopping the floor (it's not the first time a cleaning lady in a foreign country has yelled at Erin). In fact, they've been generally helpful when you ask for directions, etc. Still, it's hard to avoid the feeling that the Soviet mentality,
including the attitude towards customer service, hasn't gone away completely.
Then again, as a spoiled American, I have always found customer service in Europe in general to be lacking.
Still, the attitude in Latvia seemed more Western. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, though our guide there (our friend Katia's mother) spoke of some differences. She said, for example, that before a store would open, Latvians used to put flowers by the door, with a handwritten note saying "Sorry. We have not yet opened", whereas Russians would put a mop with a dirty bucket of water to signify the same thing.
I have also noticed that a lot of people here don't thank you when you buy something from them.
Our hostel is a dump. We have to walk down two floors to use the shower (because the one on our floor is broken), and we paid $75 a night for an ugly little room with two tiny beds. When we asked if there were towels, we were told we could buy one for $15, and were shown something that resembled a small dish towel (we decided to use the free bedsheets instead). I
thought about changing hotels last night, and went across the road to check on another. That hotel, not a fancy one by any means, was $250 a night and fully booked. We decided to stay where we are...
That brings me to another topic: prices.
This is actually my second time in St. Petersburg. I was here in 1992. Of course, the place has changed. That was right after Communism ended. I remember going to a restaurant back then. I didn't like the first entree they brought me, so I ordered another. At less than $1 each, I could afford to pay for both. Then the waiter asked me if I had any dollars to change. Now, if he wanted dollars, he could easily buy them freely on any street corner exchange place. I also remember back then, it was 150 rubles to the dollar, and I went to get a haircut, and it cost me 10 rubles. 7 cents! I tipped the barber a dollar and she was over the moon.
Well, times have changed... yesterday, we walked into a random cafe and got a cup of tea and a cup of coffee. The bill was $20.
Then, for lunch, we went to a cafeteria. The food was crappy, cold. The meat was fit for a dog. Maybe. Not if you liked the dog. $40. Ouch! The problem is the menus are in Russian, so we don't know if they're ripping us off coz we're foreigners, or if these are the prices. We've been a lot more careful since. But it's certainly not cheap anymore.
I was reading an interesting interview with a foreign chef, from Portugal, who works here. He said when he first came here, about 10 years ago, locals were not even allowed into the fancy hotels, because everyone knew Russians had no money. If a Russian man walked in, they thought he was up to no good. If a Russian woman walked in, they assumed she was a prostitute. Well, now there are many wealthy Russians, not just foreigners. They eat at the best restaurants and stay in the best hotels here, buy fancy cars, and travel abroad.
I also remember seeing more beggars last time. Don't remember seeing any now. Outwardly, at least, Russia is doing well.
Another thing the chef said in the interview, when asked about restaurants in
Russia, is that there is a lot of money here, and they spend millions to make the interiors of the restaurants look nice, but there is no culinary school here, so the chefs have little training. In other words, it's more important to them that the place LOOKS good, then that the food tastes good.
And, this says a lot about things here in general. Many places look great on the surface, but then you go to the restroom and there is no toilet paper and no soap. You stay in an international hostel, a place for tourists, and they are rude and unfriendly and unhelpful.
But, there are beautiful buildings here. And parks. And the Hermitage alone was worth the trip.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.251s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 16; qc: 60; dbt: 0.0578s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb