Back to the city formerly known as Leningrad

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Our Austrian White Christmas tour finished after breakfast this morning - and we had to depart the hotel early to get to Munich Airport by 09.30am for check-in on our flight to St. Petersburg. I was last in this city (when it was known as Leningrad) in August 1980. I was a Tour Manager (then called "courier") for NAT Eurotours. My special areas of guiding beforehand had been Europe and North Africa. As the company was winding down it's camping tours - I was advised that as the particular tour called Scandinavia, Russia and the Greek Islands would be the last offered - I should do it. It was not a hard decision to make!

My driver for this tour would be Neil H. - who had done this particular tour earlier in the year. He had briefed me on the art of the "black market" - and in the days before departure of the tour - all mechanisms were in place to make sure that we would both make a little "extra" cash on our upcoming tour. The big black market transaction took place in (now) St. Petersburg - so I was looking forward to re-visiting to see if I could remember some of the sights and landmarks. Doing it with hotel stays was already going to be much better than the camping tour I had done in 1980!!

Our flight on Lufthansa was smooth with both departure and landing on schedule. Our pre-arranged transfer driver was waiting - and took us out into a windy and snow-less car park to his vehicle. I was hoping for snow. Lots of snow - so was disappointed. Anyways - within 30 minutes we had passed through brightly-lit commercial and residential areas to arrive at our hotel. The amazing part of the drive was that there appeared to be 4-lanes of traffic in each direction - which meant that traffic flowed rather smoothly. The area of the hotel was not quite what I had expected - rather dark and gloomy and appeared to be mainly residential. Our room was quite comfortable and plenty warm - which was welcome as evening air was quite cold. Not knowing much about the area - we just ate in the hotel's sports bar - where we quickly found out that prices in St. Petersburg were near equivalent to those in Australia - $27 for a simple hamburger and 2 beers.

Kathie was quite tired and wanted to rest in the room. Like always - I was eager to explore the surrounding district so that I had an idea of what was available. Within a few hundred meters I found a small supermarket where I could get some snacks and water which I delivered back to Kathie. Then it was off to explore. Using Google maps as a reference - I was able to stay on streets that were populated which indicated that service shops were in the vicinity. I was right - as I found (not in any particular order) an Irish pub; a subway/metro station; a Christmas Market; a hotel where some clients had stayed earlier in the year; a McDonalds; an 8-lane boulevard (Nevsky Prospekt), more metro stations; heaps and heaps of Christmas decorations and lights; a shopping gallery that had a perimeter of around 600m; a Burger King; heaps of residential building; coffee shops; donut shops and a few more small supermarkets. The area was not lacking!!! But it was a little on the gloomy side.

About 11;00pm I arrived back at the room - quite tired and ready for a good night's sleep. My Samsung Health meter indicated I had walked 16,000+ steps that evening.

Back in the USSR - although now it's called the Russian Federation....

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