Back in the USSR

Europe » Russia » Northwest » Saint Petersburg
October 13th 2009

Published: October 13th 2009

On 1 May, 1703 (Russian calendar), during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans on the Neva river in Ingria. A few weeks later, on 27 May, 1703 (May 16, Old Style), lower on the river, on Zayachy (Hare) Island, three miles (5 km) inland from the gulf, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. He named the city after his patron saint, Saint Peter, the apostle. The original name was meant to sound like Dutch due to Peter's obsession with the Dutch culture. The city was built by conscripted serfs from all over Russia and also by Swedish prisoners of war under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov and later became the centre of Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war.

We arrived at St Petersberg just after midday on the Friday. Michelle and I were both excited and nervous at the same time. We were excited as we had finally made it to Russia; a place both of us had wanted to explore for so many years. Nervous, because we were not sure how easy it was going to be adapting to probably the vastest of European cultures. We hadn't quite done any near enough Russian language study as we had originally planned, and various travel reviewers had noted their frustration at the lack of English signs and English speaking residents. You can imagine our relief upon entering the airport terminal from the plane when we saw translated airport signs in English (that was more than we got when in Brussels).

We collected our bags and headed to the exit where our driver was waiting for us, holding up a sign with both our names on it and so began our 40 minute drive to St Petersburg city.

After I was taken by the sight of the roads, I had expected everyone to be driving around in rather small cars as seen in the 1995 film James Bond Goldeneye, to my surprise the traffic didn't seem that indifferent from any other country I had visited so far. In addition we passed a number of car dealerships leaving the airport; Ford, Volvo, Toyota, Land Rover and BMW all had large car yards prominently placed on the side of the motorway. I sat back thinking this wasn't quite the Russia I was expecting.

We arrived at the hotel, exiting the car we were instantly greeted with the dry coldness of Russia, vapor was drifting from our nose and mouths as if we had been smoking. Our hotel was located just off Nevsky Prospect, one of the main streets in St Petersburg, and right across the road to one of several canals which St Pete's is famous for. In total St Petersburg has over 70 canals, with over 500 bridges connecting them all up. The largest of these bridges located in the main square is over 90 meters wide; you wouldn't know it was a bridge if someone didn't tell you so. Essentially, St Petersburg is a collection of islands, 42 in total.

The check-in process was longer than previous experiences mainly due to the registration process all visitors must undertake when they arrive into Russia. Visitors that stay at a hotel simply hand their passport over to reception and the staff takes care of the registration. On the other hand If you were staying with family or friends you have up to three days to make your way to the registration office in the city and register yourself there. The registration papers that are created must be kept with your passport until you leave Russia. In addition, your passport must remain on you at all times in case the authorities want to check your credentials. Unfortunately our check-in process wasn't helped by the fact that the registration system was down so we headed up to our room to settle in while reception worked on our passports.

Our room, like the one at Monte Carlo in Vegas was located right down the end of the hallway, well out of wireless range unfortunately. The room itself was quite spacious, especially compared to the hotel room in Brussels. Aside from not having a fridge (which was fixed by placing all liquids right up against the window at night, a trick I learnt from skiing in Melbourne a few years back) the only other item which was rendered useless was the TV since everything was in Russian.

After settling in we finally got rugged up in our warm clothes and headed back to reception to check on our passports. I was glad that lugging around my heavy coat through the United States and Europe had finally been justified. As it turned out our registration papers were still not ready, reluctantly, at the receptionists suggestion we took our passports anyway (it's better than nothing) and headed out for a brief walk around the suburb. It was cold, but the scenery was so incredible that the cold didn't matter. Walking down the main street Nevsky Prospect with the tall traditional looking Russian buildings running down either side of the street was an experience neither of us had ever felt before. The only thing that was missing was the Soviet icons placed on the buildings and flags flying of the railings and you would believe you were back in the Soviet era, the street and the city itself in some respects just had a timeless feel to it. The buildings had that depressing cold-war look, having witnessed so much history and tragic events, but they were beautiful at the same time.

Not wanting to be questioned about our lack of papers our afternoon walk was brief making our way back to the hotel before nightfall.

The next morning with our registered passports in hand we were greeted by our tour guide who was to be our guide for our St Petersburg stay for the various tours we had booked. Our first tour was a generalized city tour, the perfect way to become familiar with a new city.

We visited many interesting sites along this tour including the Winter Palace of the Tzars, which is now the Hermiage Museum), the gold-domed St Isaac's Cathedral and many other magnificent churches, mansions and tree lined canals.

St Isaac's Cathedral, popularly known for its gold-domed top was quite an impressive site to see but like so many other buildings in St Petersburg shared its own piece of history. During the bombing runs the Nazis did over St Petersburg, the Soviets painted the golden domes of the Cathedral, along with any other buildings boasting gold domes and trimmings in a grey indistinguishable colour making it difficult to spot targets from the air.

Our tour continued on to visit the Church of the Savior on Spilt Blood. The interiors of this cathedral were breath taking, featuring over 7000 square meters of religious mosaics depicting the reign of Jesus Christ. The site of the church also marked the location of the murder of social reformer Alexander II in 1881.

Inside, an elaborate shrine was constructed on the exact place of Alexander's death. Amid such rich decoration, the simple cobblestones on which the tsar's blood was spilled and which are exposed in the floor of the shrine provide a striking contrast.

In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, the church was ransacked and looted, badly damaging its interior. The Soviet government closed the church in the early 1930s. During the Second World War when many people were starving due to the Siege of St Petersburg (known then as Leningrad) by hostile Nazi German military forces, the church was used as a temporary storage site for the corpses of those who died both in combat and of starvation and illness. It suffered significant damage. After the war, it was used as a warehouse for vegetables, leading to the sardonic name of Savior on Potatoes.

In July 1970, management of the Church passed to Saint Isaac's Cathedral (then used as a highly profitable museum) and proceeds from the Cathedral were funneled back into restoring the Church. During the restoration a un-detonated Nazi bomb from a fly by during the war was discovered in a damaged part of the Church. The Church reopened in August 1997, after 27 years of restoration, but does not currently function as a place of worship, currently it is a Museum of Mosaic.

Later that same day we journeyed to the location of the RRS Aurora the battleship-turned-museum. The Aurora was already a floating monument before the commencement of World War II. When this war broke out and the Nazis started bombing runs of St Petersburg, the Russians, in attempt to preserve their historic monuments deliberately submerged the Aurora in the bay where it was residing so it wouldn't be a target. Slimily various other monuments and statues were also removed and buried in grounds for safe keeping until the war was over. Can you imagine, war time in Russia would be depressing enough, but to have all of the city monuments removed and buried, the golden domes repainted, everything that makes St Petersburg colourful and lively all obscured and hidden, it would have been an extremely depressing time to of lived here.

Ironically, one of the most interesting parts of the tour that day was not the monuments or visiting the grand palaces, rather a now shabby looking brown building on the edge of St Petersburg square; the Hotel ACTOPЍЯ.

This Hotel, built in 1912 was the hotel Adolf Hitler had chosen to host his celebratory party for once Leningrad was captured. The egotistical leader went as far to have invites to the event prematurely printed and delivered to guests. Today the hotel is occupied by visiting presidents and world leaders when they stay in St Petersburg.

The second day included a river tour along the Fontanka River, the very same river that runs parallel and across from our hotel. As mentioned earlier, St Petersburg is a conglomeration of islands, so the tour in fact involved quite a few river systems. On the previous day our tour guide was umming and arring about the availability of doing the river cruise since heavy rainfall on outer parts of St Petersburg had meant the river was a lot higher than usual. Yesterday, walking along the waterside near the naval college and Aurora battle ship is you could easily see just how high the tide had become with part of the pathway around the bay completely submerged.

At the time I didn't think her concerns were justified, it turns out though she wasn't far off, although the cruise left on schedule various bridges only just cleared the top deck of the river boat some by less than 20 cm.

It was another very cold morning in St Petersburg; I loved it. To me, the only thing that could make the whole Russian experience even better would be if it snowed. So here we were on a river boat, cruising through various canals at 11am. The maximum temperature for the day was 5 degrees Celsius, of course being on the water meant in reality it was probably a lot colder. On a typical morning I leave the hotel wearing pants, shirt, a thick jumper I bought whilst at Cambridge, my long black ‘London' coat, a scarf and gloves, this morning was no different, in addition we also each had a blanket covering us as we sat on the deck chairs on the aft section of the boat. My fingers, despite the gloves and the rest of my body all wrapped up were still going numb, in fact, after a few minutes on the water my whole body was cold, but for some dumbfounded reason I just didn't care, I was in Russia, cruising on a river boat through the canals of St Petersburg. It felt great.

The cruise lasted about 40 minutes and took us through various canal networks showing a variety of architecture; some original 1800's architecture along with post World War II bombing zones which have of course since then been rebuilt.

The architecture in St Petersburg is very colourful. When Peter the first ruled St Petersburg he made it clear he wanted a colourful city. Being a fan of Venice, Italy, he invited architects from all over Europe to plan and design St Petersburg. Buildings were rendered and coloured in yellow, reds and greens. Owners of buildings which refused to comply with the colour scheme were taxed accordingly. St Petersburg became known as ‘The Venice of the North'.

For a 300 year old city, St Petersburg is drenched in history, the city name itself St Petersburg was not the only name the city had. After the death of Lenin, the city was renamed ‘Leningrad' in honorary memory of their former leader. It wasn't until September 6th 1991 after a referendum held in June of that year that voters chose to restore the name ‘Saint Petersburg'.

We are only two days into our stay at St Petersburg, and already in some respects it has completely lived up to my expectations. There quite simply is no other place like it in Europe.

Copyright Notice: All Rights Reserved