Advertisement
Published: November 10th 2005
Edit Blog Post
Thank you and goodbye....
We wanted to start this off with a big thank you to all our friends, families and colleagues who helped us prepare for this trip and who sent us off in style. We will miss you and look forward to catching up with you during the next year either in person or if you have the time through this blog or by email.
First stop. St Petersburg
Venice of the North. What a fantastic city. Artchitecture, Art, Canals and plenty of Lada's - the Russian motoring icon and some even pimped. Xzibit and Westwood look out. Beatch.
The city is very Westernised, gave us a gentle introduction to Russia and would be a great place to visit for that long weekend. Thankfully English was occaisionally used so the locals only had to listen to our bastardised Russian from time to time.
Apart from the architecture, the first things that hit us were both the fashion (ahh my eyes!) and the pastimes of smoking, drinking and spitting in the street. We thought we were in a Saturday night Guildford timewarp!
The locals could be put into two camps, the younger glasnost
generation were very cool (fashion) and friendly and some with a good grasp of English. The older generation, were as you would expect not so focused on D&G's latest hipsters and initially quite cold and stern. However, get past that and you saw again a genuine warm, interesting and helpful personality. Personality being the word.
Visited the obvious sites: Hermitage (vast and building as great as art), Peter and Paul fortress (impressive and shocking naked OAPS sunbathing in the cold and showing off their Canadian geese), Peterhof (Peter the great´s Versailles with impressive gardens and fountains), Church of the spilled blood (crazy colours and mozaic interior) and lots more.
The Cryllic language is not the easiest to get your head round and we keep dropping into French from time to time so any requests typically included retarded Russian, Schoolboy French and English. With this in mind we decided to write out our request for an overnight train ticket to take us to our next destination, Moscow.
Overnight to Moscow
We took the overnight sleeper to Moscow for the price of a return train ticket to London (take note South West Trains) and a cab fare which gave
us a sleeper to ourselves - although state of the track meant the description ´sleeper´ was a bit of marketing slant.
We stayed in the Rossiya (Russia in Russian). Prince Charles would call it a concrete carbuncle as it is a 3000 room bohemouth built right next to St Basils cathedral and the Kremlin. Thankfully it is being pulled down at Christmas to be replaced with something a little smaller and more sympathetic to the eye and neighbourhood.
We heard that there was a big rivalry between St Petersburg and Moscow and the locals in St Petersburg intimated that the Moscow crowd were a little cold, spoke less English (crikey!) and were not as sophisticated. Initial impressions on the metro to the hotel seemed to back this up with less focus on appearance and a London attitude to life - out of my way I have to be somewhere......
We caught up with some locals and this coldness proved to be superficial and their friendship and hospitality was amazing - they took us to great local restaurants where we experienced the 'Russian kitchen' and strong vodka and subsequently the Russian toilet. Frequently. They also guided us through
some of the amazing sights, streets and history of the place up to current time. This included how to avoid the eyes of the Police (swarms of) who are keen on checking your Visa to ensure that it adheres to the correct standards. The standard is down to their interpretation which seems to differ from what every visitor has been told by the Russian consultate who supplied the Visa in their home Country. The rumour is that a $100 fine soon sorts things out and apparently their wives get to eat well that night! Go figure.
Like St Pete's the architecture here is amazing. However, much of the churches and older buildings have been rebuilt or renovated from the legacy of the 20th Century rulers. Given their view on religion it is quite impressive that so many survived. The metro stations are a work of art (in some cases literally) and at 25p a journey a great way to travel and avoid the crazy drivers - Parisians aren't even in the same league. 80mph in the City, wimp (or with us as passengers, more like whimper!)
As the financial hub of the Country Moscow reflects London with its
designer and luxury brands on offer to the fortunate few who like to travel by Bentley, wear Prada and shop in Yeliseevsky Gastronom - a local Harrods with decor (what chandeliers!) that could put Buckingham Palace to shame. Other outlets like Maccers and costa coffee appear to be in abundance although the prices are rumoured to reflect the UK´s which is not on par with local salaries.
So whats our View of Russia?
Russia has been an amazing experience. The people are so friendly, the architecture is breathtaking and the history is captivating. The new economy really seems to be moving things in the right direction (you can see many buildings that have been left to rot for years being restored to their former glory).
However, the many police seem to be on a different page and have a different view on openness (Glasnost) than that of the West. The one obvious thing that stares you in the face everywhere is both the inconsisency in thinking and in the building / construction standards. Things seem to be done because they always have been done that way and objects seem to be built and half implemented on a case
by case basis by the same employee i.e The builder does the plumbing, the electricity, the brickwork etc.
That said we imagine a return visit at some point, even if it is for Grace to go shoe shopping......
Da Svidaniya
We sign off to leave you to prepare for the mammoth train journey to Mongolia and then China as we stock up on essential provisions for the next ten days in case the ´Russian kitchen´on the train is too similar to South West trains finest. Russian pot noodle here we come!
See you soon - next update from China (let's hope their keyboards are not too confusing!).
Grace and Andrew
Advertisement
Tot: 0.152s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0583s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb