Russia- love and hate

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New laws recently inacted in Russia and highlighted in our paperwork before we disembarked.

1) NO waving of rainbow flags
2) NO Conspicious displays of same sex affection
3) NO Pride Parades

Punishment includes jail and or expulsion from the country.... You get the idea of how forward thinking and inclusive Russia is....

These were just a few of the rules highlighted to us in the Princess Patter before we disembarked for St Petersburg Russia. We have spent the last two days here and this blog will cover both days. Firstly, I love Russia, St Petersburg and the incredible architecture from the opulant churches in the city centre to the stalin-esq stone buildings which lined the streets on our coach journey to see those churches. These stone buildings are actually high rise flats, grey and dank looking but with an interesting history. During the time of communism, it was the idea that every single person in St Petersburg should be entitled to a free home, one of those flats. A nice idea but, in practice, not possible. What ended up happening was at least a twenty year wait for a flat and, subsequently, generations of the same family ended up sharing the space meant for none family. There are no more free flats nowadays, you can buy and sell, own or rent....but it is still the case that generations of the same family live within the same walls. We were told that this was, in many cases, because the kids wanted to live with their grandmothers who would then do all the cooking for them!

Anyway, enough with the history lesson....on to our time in Russia.

It was our perception on our last visit here that some of the people, especially those in a position of authority, were miserable gits. This is still the case....On our last visit Dave was yelled at in one of the museums....a formidable looking woman shrieking "do not walk on the floor!!!!"

On this occasion the miserable people were on the passport control desks. No other stop we have been to so far has insisted on the hoops to jump through that Russia does. We HAD to book tours because not doing so would have meant the necessity for visas....But even with official tours booked the queues to get through passport control just to get to the tour bus, were ridicuous. The officers were sour faced, unwelcoming and, frankly, rude.... not a great advert for Russia and not a true representation of the common folk.

Dave was interrogated for some minutes after I had gone through and asked what his purpose was for coming to Russia and was he in the military! We just got off the same cruise ship as everyone else for goodness sake. Once he convinced them that he was not military (dave was looking most bemused by the interrogation), we finally got to our tour bus.

Our tour guide was lovey but even her speech was lined with political bias and, at times, was quite fiercely critical of her country folk who did not work as hard has her. You would not mess with her that is for sure! We were off on a canal and river cruise, dave and i have done this before and, like last time, it was really good and honestly the only way to see the city of Petersburg. It rained but, unlike Gary and Barb, we sat outside on the canal boat so that we could experience the whole atmosphere as we sailed past some of the iconic landmarks which make this city so famous. We saw the hermitage, church of the saviour of the spilled blood (incredible roof on this one) and Michael's Palace to name just a few. I hope the photos do it justice.

The ONLY dampner to the tour (no not the rain, do not listen to barbara!) was the usual one idiot who sets out to ruin it for others. Two couples sat outside in the rain....dave and I and another lady and gent. We took photos and chatted and got wet together.... as soon as it stopped raining a bit, one idiot came up from inside and stood directly in front of us at the bow of the boat, effectively blocking our view. There were tons of seats but this old fool just refused to use them. I was polite.... I approached him and explained that he was standing in our way and all my photos consisted of pictures of his head. His reponse was to say "yes, i can see i am in your way rather" .... but he did not move. There was supposed to be a no standing rule because the bridges along the canal were incredibly low. We could only hope that this moron would decapitate himself but, alas, no such luck.

The other couple were not so polite. Later on, whilst in a shop looking for souveniers, i heard the nice chap tell the old fool's wife what they thought of him, how rude and inconsiderate he was and that, if he came near him again, he would punch his nose. The wife then shouted at the old, inconsiderate fool and said "did you stand in front of everyone???" brilliant...

Anyways, a brilliant tour and the rain only added to it. It would not be St Petersburg if it did not rain a bit. We both thoroughly enjoyed it and Gary and Barbara did too.... just from the dry side of the boat! It tipped it down even harder once we got back on the coach but, thank goodness, stopped in time for us to join the MILE LONG queue to get back on board. Only in Russia has there been such a stringent process to get back on board and the queue seemed to go on for ever. We had just reached the front when we heard a lady say "do you mind if we skip in front of you? i looked around to see a woman and child of about ten... the kid then said to me "we have to go to the ballet tonight and we are going to be late". Obviously, i said....er yes, i mind....I turned around and continued on my way through passport control! I dont give two hoots if you are going to be late for the ballet! You know what times tours start and end and you should not have tried to book two so close together....go queue like the rest of us. Had it been an older person, or someone with mobility issues then yes, of course...go on through. But not because you are going to be late for the bloody ballet... sod off.

Last night at crooners was quite exciting too.... Dave and Gary came back from the loo and were talking about a chap they had seen in the loo who was seemingly struggling to breathe....Dave had watched him waddle from one of the bars to the bathroom and Gary had then seen him leaning against the wall in the bathroom breathing like darth vader. Their story ended there.... so i said "and is he okay??" to which the boys replied "oh...no idea, should we go check?" YES go check omg.... he has probably keeled over. So off they trot and then they come back to say that they cannot see him either in the loo or in the bar where he had waddled from.... but.... one of the disabled loos was engaged. Ten minutes later, Gary goes back and then returns to tell me the loo is still engaged... Dave heads off a few minutes later... returns again and the same... the loo is still busy. So then they did report it to a member of staff because they were equally as worried as me by this point! We don't know what happened but, hopefully, the chap is okay.... :-s He was a very big unit apparently, in excess of six foot four but also very very fat. I hope he is okay but we have not seen him today at all.

There was one funny moment because Gary and Dave were getting a bit worried about going back to the loo incase other gents thought they were a bit weird. I suggested looking under the door of the disabled loo to which dave pointed out that this would be even weirder if someone walked in.... i said "you could pretend to be planking?" to which dave replied that most people would assume that he was doing something which rhymed with planking and would likely get him beaten up.

Anyway- that was day one in St Petersburg. Brilliant city....mostly brilliant people....backward laws.

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