Magnificient St Petersburg...22 years later...

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It was back in early Spring 1991, I was in my senior high school year…and got the chance to visit Leningrad and Moscow…10 days of a trip I would never forget…and even 22 years later...today, I remember most of these days, one after the other one.



For our Senior year trip, we were given the choice between a beach in Yugolsavia…or 10 days in what I remember well, back in 1990 at the origin of planning this trip, was still USSR. 10 of us decided for USSR, around 40 for the beach…would it be the same today? I guess so! 17 years old at the time I had been to Turkey and Tunisia, but no further…I received my first passport for this trip! Yes, most of us do remember our first passport…well, maybe not Tiffany and Leslie!



The idea of the trip was built on an exchange program with a local school in Moscow. We would go there for 10 days, and we would welcome back the same group of students few months later in Belgium. I was in a school where we were only the second year of mixing boys and girls. So the 10 of us...were boys. And guess what happened…we ended but being welcomed by 10 girls! By now, we could all be excited…but hey, it was 10 way less than average looking girls…what did they truly had in their mind…we all know, they all ended pretty disappointed. And to be precised, we found out about this on arrival in Moscow.



That trip was a trip! Few weeks before, the Communists had attempted a last ditch of a military coup hitting the “White House” of Moscow, aka the Parliament. This is what at the time allowed us to see Boris in power for few more years, even with his pronounced taste for vodka. Don’t try to tell me I’m re-writing history here, it is 22 years ago, and I may mix one or two facts…but not the one that Boris loved vodka!



At the time, most of us lost weight during these 10 days, we can even say, we were hungry with such bad food most of the time. The Berlin Wall may have been down for less than 15 months, the Soviets were not that far away…and our “liberty” while visiting, a pretty vague notion. I still managed on one occasion in Moscow…to sat bye to my “girl” in the middle of nowhere, and went on exploring the city for few hours on my own. Well, I was not the only one which did it…and this leaded to our two professors being summoned by the Russians about our independent moves…we were saluted…the world was changing….fast…



We spent 7 days in Moscow, and 3 days, 2 nights in Leningrad, taking the night train on each way. On the way back, while everybody else was playing card…I ended up chatting with a second year student in medical school. No internet at the time, we ended up exchanging letters, he came to visit Belgium and Luxembourg in 1993, I came back to Moscow in 1994. No news from him since that trip…I had more than the feeling he was ready to join the orthodox church during that second visit…having the chance to meet Alexis II, if I remember well, the Orthodox Pope of the time, less than 4 hours after landing in Moscow….still a great trip.



My story with Russia didn’t stop there, as few years later, I was to date a gorgeous girl from Vladivostok for over a year….well, trust me she was a stunner…I was already living in Asia…and yet, I never learnt more than two sentences of Russian. I know, the story wouldn’t be completed without mentioning this. We are still good friends.



So this time, I’m bringing Leslie and Tiffany to Russia. Well, that was an introduction for a blog! Crossing the border was a breeze, by bus from Tallinn, and we even made it an hour ahead of schedule.



Few things have changed since 1991…well, for a first, the Baltic States are all independent and part of the EU…and next, it’s not Leningrad anymore, but back to beautiful St Petersburg. Back in 1991, I knew this place would be gorgeous with a fresh coat of paint…they had all the time to do a great job during these past 22 years!





Over the next three entries, it’s all about Russia, with Leslie and Tiffany this time. We first spent 3 days and two nights in St Petersburg. Our base for this stay, the W hotel, when they say location, location, location, here it is what they means. We were right in between the Hermitage and St Isaac. As always, we walked a lot, but enjoyed also few ride on the metro. Great welcome at the W...and thanks to Valentina for taking care so nicely of my little crew...they loved the candies, and Tiffany, even more the balloons!





We started with the Hermitage. And by today, Leslie can be lucky enough to be able admit that he has had the chance to see most of the major art museums in the world at only age 13...so he can do them all again after he is 20! Back in 1991, I remember we had to rush this place. Well, that’s what happening when you are most of your time in the limits of a group….you don’t see a lot, and still, you feel like rushing all over the place.



The Hermitage is huge. At the same time, I know that Tiffany and Leslie can give a maximum of 3 hours to this style of museum before losing all concentration, or even the more remote interest. In normal conditions, I would pick 2 or 3 areas in the museum and concentrate on those, as I knew we would come back sooner or later, aka the Metropolitan in NY. But here, it is a little different. So instead of focusing on something, we took a very long, very interesting leisured walk. We didn’t miss all those great rooms as well as all these furniture from the Tsar time. But what I discovered that I had not seen in 1991, was the huge collection of French paintings on the top floor…they have more Picasso than the Picasso Museum in Paris…or at least it feels like it. Never seen that many Matisse, Monet, Van Gogh or Rousseau in a single place…amazing!



But that was for our morning…our afternoon was another marvel of St Petersburg, actually just outside of it, I name, Peterhof! We went the easy, and not cheap way, by taking the jetfoil just in front of the Hermitage. I tried to pack as much as we could in these three days, without having our legs giving up on us…that alone what an exercise! On my last visit to Leningrad, this would have been impossible as huge blocks of ice were still going down the Neva…we went by bus. In 1991, due to the cold weather of spring, the fountains were not working. The statues were incased there wooden frames. So what a difference for me to visit Peterhof on a sunny day of early October…with those amazing statues, and those fountains! What a place. We also spent some time visiting the little palace, who had been through a gorgeous renovation.



It was already time to catch the last jetfoil (ferry) back to town…let our little legs rest…and enjoyed some nice crepes for dinner. Ah those crepes…those crepes with salmon or even salmon red caviar, I didn’t know those were Russian, but we’ll have a lot of them over the next few days, plus some amazing borshs and obviously, tons of pelmenis, the Siberian traditional dumplings eaten with sour cream.



On our second day, which was still a pure sunny day, we headed to the Fortress of Peter and Paul after a good breakfast. This is one place that I saw from the outside, but never visited before. Don’t know what we did back in 1991 in 3 days, but I can tell you in 2013, we did a lot more in three days! Peter and Paul Fortress is an amazing place to walk around. We skipped the museums and simply went on a leisured walk, before continuing to the cruiser Aurora. The cruiser Aurora has his importance in the Bolchevic Revolution, but I would have to do more researches on this. Time soon for our first Georgian lunch…and some more fun...specially as we didn’t speak the same language as our waiter, but a delicious lunch nevertheless…once they understood we were on some local delicacies….they pointed us the “what not to be missed considering you have children at the table”!



Little metro ride, and we were already at the Alexander Nevsy Cathedral. The Cathedral is simple and beautiful…but what you come here for is the cemetery…Tchaikovsky, Dostoyevsky, name them, they are all here….even if Leslie and Tiffany had never heard of them! The little feet were already out-of-order, it was time to head back to the room for some good bath, but just before this, a little stop by the Kazan Cathedral.



On our last day in St Petersburg, I knew I had to go smoothly on the walking if I wanted Leslie and Tiffany to survive our next stop in Moscow. So we went for culture…sitting culture…and a lot of it. First, we are in Russia, and this is the place for ballet, so late morning, surrounded by hundreds of school children and their lovely Mums…we were a Sunday…we went to the Mariinsky Theatre. You may better know this place as the Kirov, just second in quality to the Bolchoi…or are they really second? I went to see the Bolshoi (visiting Odessa) to see Gisele back in August. Today, Tiffany, for your first ever ballet, I give you Cinderella! It was actually a modern take on Cinderella…but what a marvelous moment, they loved each minute of it! It was already time for us to do our check-out at the hotel, but St Petesburg was not over yet…we still had few churches on our way. We visited St Nicholas, climbed to the Dome of St Isaac for a great view of the city…and keeping the best for the end, we visited the Church of the Saviour on the Spilt Blood. Writing this already from outside Russia, I can easily say that the Church of the Saviour on the Spilt Blood may have a complicated name, but it the most beautiful place we have seen in a full week between St Petersburg and Moscow.



Our train that night was not before midnight. We had check-out, and temperatures at night are already in the freezing mood! We could have gone to cinema, but they are only in Russian here (most of the time, forget about subtitles, they don’t do them)! And cinema, you can do everywhere, so instead, we went to the Circus, the Circus of St Petersburg. Cirque du Soleil, as much as we may love them, is a world apart from the traditional type of Circus. And the Russian may be the best at ballet, I guess we could also say the same about the circus. So to the Circus we went…to see the lions, the clowns, the acrobats…the kids that we all, still are, enjoyed!



It was time to say bye bye to St Petersburg. I’ll try not to wait 22 years to come back! But don’t forget this…love them, don’t marry them…this for me hold for this city too. I would visit once a year if I could for a great dose of culture and food….forget about moving here, with such a cold winter, it’s not happening!



We took our midnight train, the Red Arrow train, all the way to Moscow. This is a famous train for Russia…train number 1! It was gorgeous, and packed…and by 7.30am next morning, we were in Moscow…another great experience…coming soon…

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